Venison Burger...what do you do with it?

[Drenalin]

Most everything already suggested - meatloaf, meatballs, chili, tacos, and hamburgers.

For meatballs, I mix 1/3 ground Italian sausage with 2/3 ground venison. For hamburgers, I use the same ratio but with fatty (85/15) ground beef.

I'm not insinuating you don't know how to cut one up, but if you're leaving any fat or connective tissue, those are going to be "off" flavors. Venison also just has kind of an iron-like taste; you can cut that with a little bit of sugar, just like you would with tomato sauce.

 

[Acharenio]

What does gamey mean? Wild? I hear people all the time say it’s gamey because you don’t take care of it right. I don’t care how well it’s taken care of, deer tastes like deer, not beef. Some more than others. I’ve had mule deer that smelled like a skunk, taken care of perfectly. Dog wouldn’t even eat it until he buried it and it rotted for awhile, we sure as Hell couldn’t. Our Sitka blacktail are as mild a deer as there is, but they still taste like deer, rutting bucks more so.

As far as cutting the deer flavor, we find acidic recipes are the best.

agree completely, deer taste like deer, lamb is a little gamey also but it taste like lamb, i make bolognese and lasagna with it, also make stuffing for ravioli and eat it with butter and sage and parmesan, make stews with the shoulder and leg meat, carpaccio with back straps, grilled the filet, don't mind the gamey taste, if i don't want the gamey taste i buy a steak.

 

[big217boy]

When I process my Deer, I add some cubed beef brisket and grind it all together. From there, i leave a portion plain for meatballs, tacos, etc. I use a portion for snack sticks or bologna. For Hamburgers, I like to use Patty Seasoning from Conyeager Spice company (I'm sure other companies make a similar product, but this is what's local to me). https://www.conyeagerspice.com/burger-and-patty-seasonings/ We like Philly Steak, Chilly Cheese, Sweet Bourbon, BBQ, and my Kid's Favorite Steak Patty. I add the seasoning and then stuff it in 2lb Ground Meat Bags and right into the freezer.

Since your ground meat is already frozen, you could thaw out a few lbs and mix in the burger/patty seasoning.

 

[MuleyFever]

Have you tried making jerky with it? I have never tried it with ground meat but they make those guns to form it into strips.

 

[Wheels]

We use it for jerky, wife and son don’t like venison burger but love the jerky. Pump it thru a jerky gun and dehydrate for 7 hours using Nesco seasonings.

 

[chizelhead]

I wonder if meat prep and if you get your specific ground meat back is a contributing issue. I try and remove all the fat and as much silverskin as possible before grinding. Also, I drive an hour to a specific butcher because they grind my meat separate and don't mix it with other's. That may not matter, but I like to think so. Lastly, do you remove the big lymph gland(s) in the hind quarter? If not, and it gets ground in, it may contribute to the gaminess.

 

[180ls1]

The grind meat is the only thing that I don't care for.
I have had it proccesed by a butcher in the past and its not any different. I have been cutting my own up for years. Not like I don't know how to break one down.
The grind meat is the only thing I never cared for. It just always seems to have an aftertaste I didn't care for.
I have mixed it with Beef fat, Pork fat and always just tried it as a normal Burger and just didn't care for it as much as the rest of the deer. And we eat a pile of deer. That's why I have so much burger in the freezer. It just never gets used.

Make sure you char/burn it a little. Also make sure its not cooking in its own juices (myogloben?). Dry up the blood looking stuff when cooking.

Those two things will help a ton. Trust me.

 

[LCguy]

Have you tried making jerky with it? I have never tried it with ground meat but they make those guns to form it into strips.

We don't eat a ton of grind in my house so this is what I usually do with it. Comes out great!

Also a lot of great Mediterranean and middle eastern recipes that call for ground meat that would be great. Kefta kebabs and Greek style meatballs are two of our favorites.

 

[gbflyer]

We take the grind and make a lot of hot Italian sausage. Loose. My wife makes a killer Zuppa Toscana with it. Something about the game flavor enhances this rustic dish. I can handle just about any of our rutted bucks served this way, I am not a big fan of overly powerful deer flavor. Served with warm crusty bread, I don’t think we’ve ever had a guest that didn’t love it. It’s far the best the second day. You might try it. There are recipes online.

 

[taskswap]

I'm not insinuating you don't know how to cut one up, but if you're leaving any fat or connective tissue, those are going to be "off" flavors. Venison also just has kind of an iron-like taste; you can cut that with a little bit of sugar, just like you would with tomato sauce.

That's an important point. I do "seam butchery" where I remove literally every scrap of fat/connective tissue. I know it's heresy to some, if I want fat added back in I use pork lard that I get from a local guy who raises Mangalitsa pigs. Plenty of folks don't mind the fat in venison but if there are going to be gamey flavors it's more likely in there so this gives me a more consistent final product. We shoot for 70% for burgers (insanely juicy), 80% for meatballs, and 90% for taco meat.

Side tip: if you're cutting neck/front quarter/etc meat for stir fry/tacos, look online for "velveting beef" recipes, which they do a lot in stir frying to get tender meat even out of lower quality cuts. The process of doing this can also mute any off flavors.

 

[Yoder]

I mix it 50/50 with 70/30 ground beef from the grocery store and make meatloaf a lot. It's about the only thing made from it that my wife will eat. A bunch of garlic, fried onions, Italian seasoning mix, seasoned breadcrumbs, eggs and milk. With the ketchup and brown sugar glaze on top, you can't tell it's deer meat.

 

[MarkOrtiz]

This sausage has a lot of flavor and would probably cover up any flavor you don't like. We usually make 20 lbs at a time and just bulk package in 1.5lb packages. We use it once a week in an Italian dish of sorts. usually just brown it up and add a jar of spaghetti sauce. I have made it with elk, pronghorn, whitetail, and mule deer. It is one of our main sausage recipes that we use over and over.

 

[bpitcher]

We do burgers, pasta with meat sauce, tacos, etc. Mix with 20% brisket trimmings.

The kids can't get enough. We eat 2-4 lbs a week.

 

[Zdub02]

The short answer is any beef recipe can and does get replaced with venison. Whenever I hear people say it tastes gamey I question how the meat was processed. I over trim my ground and only want meat in the grind pile. No connective tissue, suet, silver skin goes in. I also don't add any fat and keep my ground 100% lean. This has lead me to have good tasting ground and I've never had a complaint about any meals made with it.

 

[wowzers]

Gyros.

Venison Gyros

Gyros are one of my favorite restaurant meals – mostly because until I perfected this recipe, I couldn't make them at home. Barring the traditional method of roasting meat on a spit, this is the closest I've gotten to the delicious, crispy texture of a good gyro. While you can make this with...

www.backcountryhunters.org

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

The short answer is any beef recipe can and does get replaced with venison. Whenever I hear people say it tastes gamey I question how the meat was processed. I over trim my ground and only want meat in the grind pile. No connective tissue, suet, silver skin goes in. I also don't add any fat and keep my ground 100% lean. This has lead me to have good tasting ground and I've never had a complaint about any meals made with it.

SAME across the board with this post. Also with my kids preferences I grind up ALOT of meat I otherwise wouldn't but that is what we consume the most of. It takes me a long time to cut up an animal because I cut out so much of that stuff, I end up with a large pile of white strips and bits as scraps and the meat going into grind has very little left in it.

 

[Highvoltage1]

The grind meat is the only thing that I don't care for.
I have had it proccesed by a butcher in the past and its not any different. I have been cutting my own up for years. Not like I don't know how to break one down.
The grind meat is the only thing I never cared for. It just always seems to have an aftertaste I didn't care for.
I have mixed it with Beef fat, Pork fat and always just tried it as a normal Burger and just didn't care for it as much as the rest of the deer. And we eat a pile of deer. That's why I have so much burger in the freezer. It just never gets used.

If I’m not making baloney or sausage I can it. Easy to store, can use it for about anything and I don’t think it tastes gamey. Maybe scrap fringing and try canning on the next deer. Best wishes

 

[SloppyJ]

Clean every bit of tissue, silverskin...etc off of your grind. I'm talking just nice ruby red hunks of meat. I mix that 50/50 with the fattiest pork butts I can get and that's how we eat it. It turns out great and has enough fat to hold together.

I normally take 10lbs or so of that same grind and add some extra pork belly to the grind and that's what I'll make snack sticks or sausage out of. Not a fan of ground jerky so I use whole muscle sections for that.

 

[TheRepeatOffender]

Never had any gamey or off flavor issues with ground venison but I do always make a 90%/10% mixture of deer/pork fat (and sometimes beef trimmings) for anything I want to use burger. My buddy just grinds and uses plain venison for burger meat and while it still tastes fine, it doesn't have the same mouthfeel and "juiciness" when you cook it up. I keep as much deer fat as possible out but there is definitely some silverskin and connective tissue that gets mixed in. Never an issue. We really don't eat ground beef in our house anymore.

+1 for Conyeager Spice Company. Go to sausage spice mixes and their burger flavoring mixes are good too.

 

[EdP]

To me, "gamey" seems to mean it looks like beef but tastes different from beef. That is meaningless in my mind. Beef tastes like beef, elk tastes like elk, pronghorn tastes like pronghorn, and deer tastes like deer. All that red meat looks the same but tastes different depending on the animal it came from. We always process our own animals and never add anything from another animal to the mix. If there is one thing that is different about wild came as compared to commercial beef it is that wild game needs to be cooked less (more rare) to be it's best.