What do you do with your venison?

[ChrisAU]

My personal favorites are snack sticks and jalapeño & cheese sausage, but I get a lot made to eat all year. Everything in this photo is deer/elk from this 2019/2020 season except one pack of pork bacon, one pack of pork sausage, and a beef prime rib. All gifts from vendors ha. Looking to take two more Whitetail this season (5 days left) for jerky meat. Add some Turkey in March/April and fish this summer.



Deer Jalapeño & Cheddar Sausage
Deer Jalapeño & Pepperjack Sausage
Deer Cubed Steak
Deer Burger
Deer Backstrap
Deer Stew Meat
Deer Hot Dogs
Deer Mild Smoked Snack Sticks
Deer Spicy Smoked Snack Sticks
Deer Pepperjack Smoked Snack Sticks
Elk Jalapeño & Cheddar Sausage
Elk Cajun Smoked Sausage
Elk Mild Smoked Sausage
Elk Maple Smoked Sausage
Elk Patty Sausage
Elk Burger
Elk Cubed Steak

 

[Jmcmicken]

cut most I can into steaks and tenderize. Hard to beat them fried the rest Jerkey and pan sausage

 

[Mule3006Elk]

Burgers, steaks, ground jerky, sliced jerky, steak/eggs (favorite), heart tacos (also a favorite), and a few roast. Shanks and any solid organs mostly go to the dog. Do a few shanks meals here and there.

 

[JigStick]

Jerky. Hot dogs. Steaks from the straps.
Lots and lots of ground meat. Mix it with beef fat. Use it in tacos, spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, burgers, erc

 

[Diesel5610]

we put several deer together between us and get all the steaks and good roasts off first
then the best of what is left is ground. this is usually about 45 lb. the worst cuts like neck is then canned
once on a whim marilyn took some the the fair and won first place-she had to tell them it was beef, however.

We Can most of our deer now, even people who don't like venison like it. I save a couple roasts some times but mostly it is canned or ground.

 

[Jrkotz]

Since I got an elk a few years back, I've been kind of ruined on whitetail.

I jerk as much as I can, save two nice cuts of loin for steaks, and grind whats left for taco meat.

I grind and shoot my jerky.

 

[morten]

Try cutting meat into 1" chunks and canning it. Dump in a sauce pan, heat and serve over potatoes. Quick, easy and taste great. A trick when canning is to throw a beef bullion cube in each jar. takes some of the gammy taste out if you have an older deer.

 

[walker1120]

burger, sweets, stew, tacos, on and on and on.

 

[Yote1]

Mainly jerky & sausage, but straps always cut to steaks.

 

[Pigskin]

Mostly burger and summer sausage

 

[stonewall]

i'll have to go back and read more of this - looks like some good ideas in here.

I usually do:
steaks with backstrap and tenderloins (grilled and chicken fry)
jerky with cuts from hindquarters (i like salt/pepper and cold pecan wood smoke; have recently tried meateaters chipotle recipe and it was good)
bone in roasts with front shoulder
grind the rest - hamburger (and/or i have a guy who makes killer sausage)

i did the meateater ossobuco (sp?) recipe with the shanks one time - turned out pretty good. just easier to grind it though

 

[Short Track]

I never add fat to my venison. There is absolutely no need for it. Why ruin lean meat with nasty fat ?? I grill it, burgers, meat loaf. All done without greasy fat.

 

[TexBiologist]

Chicken fried backstrap, sous vide and grilled tenderloins, slow smoked upper ham muscles, pastrami, ground cut with bacon for burgers, ground cut with pork for Italian dishes, skirt steak fajitas, sliced jerky, ground jerky sticks, smoked sausage, dried sausage...that’s...that’s about it.

 

[Shortmag11]

Majority of it besides the straps gets brought to 2-3 different processors. Each has their own specialty items. I get several flavors of smoked and fresh sausage made. Plain deer ground meat, bacon & cheddar cheese flavored ground meat, smoked deer boudin, burritos, tamales and deer chili.

 

[livin4fishin]

The wife and I clean the meat to about 99.9999% lean with no fat. To do this, we end up with a bunch of basically stew chunks. Then when we cook it, the wife pan fries it with 1 part soy sauce, 1 part teriyaki sauce. then season with pepper and garlic. Done!!

 

[hansonc87]

burger, steaks, and jerky, process all of it at home, going to try and make my own sausage, brats, or whatever i can

 

[kroppr77]

I grind the normal grind areas, maybe get some Italian sausage; then steaks, roasts, backstraps, and tenderloins for my first deer of the year. If i get another one then I look into sticks, brats, and things like that. I wasn't a fan of roasts and other cuts until I learned how to cook them correctly, I thought just sticking them in a crockpot was good haha! After getting the meateater cookbook and doing a lot new methods on it I enjoy those cuts a lot more. Venison tastes amazing to me and I hardly ever think they taste 'gamey' but they basically eat as well as cattle around me. I enjoy trying a lot of new recopies, and for some odd reason try to shy away from sausages because when I've cooked it well it tastes so much better than sausage in my opinion. That's just my taste though.

 

[crock239]

Cut as steaks or grind w 10-15% beef fat.

Std steak prep: Backstrap cut about 1" thick, blackened, salted, and seared med rare...in small pot mix red wine and steens pure cane syrup 1/2 and 1/2, simmer 15 mins to reduce by at least half, stir in black pepper and serve steaks w red wine reduction.

 

[Santa]

Obviously all the traditional ways (ground/fried/steaks/sausage/etc). But, my absolute favorite is to braise the shanks with root vegetables. I also love frying or grilling the heart. Any deer I kill (that's not heart shot), the heart is the first thing we eat. Never in a million years would I have thought that would become my one of my wife's favorites. Boiled tongue, cooled and sliced for sandwiches has also been something I've enjoyed recently. Amazing how much amazing table fare ends up in the gut pile b/c guys don't take the time to learn to cook. I've cooked my entire life, but for those who need help, the Meateater crew puts out some awesome content on cooking so many types of wild game dishes that most hunters would never touch.

 

[Pastatehunter]

I keep the main steak cuts and then most of it goes into ground. It’s what my family eats most of.