Food

These BBQ Venison Sandwiches are so easy to make. You need a venison roast, some barbecue sauce, a few pantry ingredients and your slow cooker!

There’s nothing this SEC girl’s heart loves more than a good barbecue sandwich. And when it comes to a gold standard to make at home, this BBQ Venison Sandwich will leave no one disappointed.

There’s nothing like BBQ on game day. I would know. Seriously.

Sure, I may live in central Pennsylvania where currency at parties is pirogies & buffalo chicken dip but my heart and tastebuds lie much deeper south. I’m a proud Auburn University alumna, and you can bet your britches I’ve eaten my fair share of BBQ in my life.

When it comes to barbecue, it’s all about the meat in my book. It MUST be tender, it MUST be juicy and it MUST be falling apart. Of course, good sauce is key, but really, it’s how you do your meat.

How do you make good BBQ with venison?

The tricky part when working with venison is the lack of fat. Pork shoulder and beef brisket (typically used in barbecue) have a good amount of fat in their meat. A lot of venison roasts (what I use when making venison BBQ sandwich) don’t have a lot of fat.

So, we can do a few things.

#1 – choose a roast with a good amount of sinew or connective tissue. A neck roast is expecially nice. It may not be fat, but the tissue will eventually break down if you cook the meat low and long enough and make for a nice, rich tender result.

#2 – use the slow cooker on low for a low and slow game. If your meat isn’t falling apart, it needs more time. And serioudly, start this in the morning or the day before and let it go on low. Resist the urge to turn it to high.

#3 – a nice sear on the meat prior to braising it in the slow cooker ensures great flavor!

Follow the recipe below for a seriously crave-worthy and easy to make Venison BBQ Sandwich!

While you’re at it, try my Venison Burgers!

BBQ Venison Sandwich | Slow Cooker Venison Barbecue

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• Author: Miss AK
• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 8 hours
• Total Time: 8 hour & 20 minutes
• Yield: 6–8 servings 1x

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These BBQ Venison Sandwiches are so easy to make. You need a venison roast, some barbecue sauce, a few pantry ingredients, and your slow cooker!

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 (2-4lb) venison roast
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil 
• 1 yellow onion, sliced 
• 4 garlic cloves, minced 
• 1 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce 
• 1/2 cup beer or beef/venison stock 
• 1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. Dijon mustard 
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• buns of choice, for serving 
• pickles, for serving

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Instructions

1. Start by letting the roast come to room temperature for 30 minutes before you sear it (if you can). This helps create a nice crust on the sear you’ll perform by ensuring the meat heats evenly. Then, pat it dry with a paper towel. 
2. Next, heat a skillet over medium-high heat with olive oil. Once hot, sear the roast on all sides until a nice, brown crust has formed. Take your time – this could take 15-20 minutes. 
3. Then, place your seared roast into the bottom of a slow cooker. Cover it with the onions, garlic, barbecue sauce, beer or stock, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. 
4. Cook for 8 hours on low or until the meat is literally falling apart. If it is too tough to pull apart, it needs more time. Shred the meat with forks.
5. To serve, pull some out, place it on a bun, add more barbecue sauce, and top with pickles. Enjoy!

• Category: Main Dish
• Method: Slow Cooker
• Cuisine: American

Keywords: venison, BBQ, barbecue, slow cooker, crock pot

Venison goes into a pot with tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, corn, and carrots. Everything simmers until tender for the best Venison Vegetable Soup.

I absolutely adore soup year-round. My mom always made a big batch of beef vegetable soup on cold, snow days and I just knew I had to make a venison version. So, I give you…THE venison vegetable soup!

But seriously, there’s just something about soup that speaks to my soul. It’s one of my favorite things to make because you can just kind of start dumping ingredients into a pot and voila! A really cozy & crave-able meal.

In fact, I love soup so much, I have a FREE 6 recipe wild game soup guide! Click here to snag your copy!

But back to the venison vegetable soup. It REALLY takes me back to being a little girl. My brother and I would burst inside after a long day of playing in the snow and pile all of our cold-weather gear by the door.

We’d rush over to the fireplace and our mom would bring us hot chocolate and some type of quick bread for a snack. For dinner…the beef vegetable soup. It was so hearty but SO healthy. Even my brother who didn’t love vegetables would scarf down multiple servings.

How do you make vegetable soup with venison?

Making a version of that soup with deer meat couldn’t be easier. All you need to do is saute the vegetables and meat. I then like to add herbs and seasoning before adding broth/stock, it helps the flavor.

I take a shortcut by letting the soup cook and then I add in frozen, pre-chopped vegetables (I like a blend of green beans, carrots, corn and peas) right before I serve the soup! That way, the frozen veggies don’t get soggy.

Honestly, you can use this recipe as a template and use vegetables that you have laying around in the fridge, too. I call that “clean out the fridge soup”.

Side note – my little girl also LOVES this soup recipe. She’s 6 months old and I blend it right up for her to woof down!

What makes it taste good with deer meat?

The trick is to make sure you use the red wine vinegar. And, I like to round out the flavors at the end by adding a bit of fresh lemon juice. A little bit of acid helps to accentuate that richer flavor of venison. That’s why using this recipe, not a recipe that’s developed for beef, is best.

What’s the difference between venison soup and venison stew?

I have a WONDERFUL, well-loved venison stew recipe on the blog. The difference between this recipe and that comes down to a few things:

• My stew has a richer, slightly thicker, more robust broth. There’s tomato paste and Worcestershire at play.
• The stew also has chunkier vegetables. I like a smaller dice on these veggies for this soup!
• This vegetable soup has more veggies than the stew, too (go figure, haha)!

However you want to look at it, this soup is the perfect healthy & hearty meal your entire family will LOVE!

Get my FREE 6 recipe Wild About Soup Season download for MORE soup & stew recipes!

Venison Vegetable Soup

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• Author: Miss AK
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes
• Total Time: 57 minute
• Yield: 8 servings 1x

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Venison and load of veggies go into a pot with tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, corn, and carrots. Everything simmers until tender.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 3–4 celery stalks, diced 
• 2 carrots, diced (optional, see note)*
• 1 lb. venison stew meat*
• 4 garlic cloves, minced 
• 1 Tbsp. herbs de Provence
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1 lb. red or yellow potatoes, cubed (about 4 medium potatoes)
• 1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes, drained 
• 1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
• 4 cups beef (or venison) stock
• 1 (10oz) package frozen mixed vegetables – corn, carrots, green beans & peas are what I use*
• lemon, optional

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Instructions

1. Start by heating the olive oil over medium heat in a large pot. Add the onions, celery and carrots and saute for about 5 minutes. 
2. Then, add the venison and let it brown, cooking for an additional 5-7 minutes, or until the venison has color. 
3. Next, add the garlic, herbs de Provence, salt, and pepper. Saute for 2 more minutes before adding the potatoes and tomatoes. Stir everything together, deglaze the pan with the red wine vinegar, and then pour in the stock. 
4. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and cover. Let it cook for 1-2 hours over low heat. 
5. When you’re ready to serve, pour in the frozen vegetables, remove from the heat, and enjoy! Finish with a squeeze of lemon if desired!

Notes

• If you don’t love carrots, feel free to omit the fresh ones if your frozen veggie blend has them. I happen to like having lots. 
• You can use deer meat, elk, bear, bison, moose, antelope, and even beef in this recipe. 
• If you’d like, you can use fresh green beans, corn, and peas, too. Just add about a cup and a half to two cups of veggies total. Just add when you add the potatoes and tomatoes if using fresh. 

• Category: Dinner
• Method: Stovetop
• Cuisine: American

Keywords: venison, soup, veggie soup

Tender pieces of venison are served in a rich, red wine sauce classically prepared with carrots, onions, and mushrooms.

Confession: I was tempted to start a food blog after I saw the movie Julie & Julia. It’s one of my favorite movies. I love watching Julie make her way through Julia’s cookbook, and the big “boef bourguignon” debacle is one of the best parts of the movie. I was thinking about the dish the other day and realized it would be the perfect opportunity to try a new dish – venison bourguignon.

Before we talk about the venison bourguignon, I have to reccomend that if you like the movie Julie & Julia and/or you’re a Julia Child’s fan, you also read My Life in France. It’s absolutely wonderful. Funny, heartwarming, and inspiring. I picked up a used copy at my local coffee shop, Pressed Coffee & Books, and it was such a great little find.

Anyway, let’s talk bourguignon.

Bourguignon is a dish prepared (typically with beef) that braises meat in a rich red wine sauce. There’s usually carrots, onion and mushrooms involved and that’s what I’m using for our venison version.

It’s one of those dishes that looks like it has a long list of ingredients, but it’s very easy. Please do note that I reccomend reading through this recipe before beginning, though. There’s are reasons the recipe is structured this way and I want you to have the best result possible.

Bourguignon works perfectly with venison because it is a braised dish (cooked low and slow in thick, flavorful liquid) and has plenty of acid from the red wine. This results in fall-apart tender hunks of meat and the wild game flavor shines but never gets “gamey”.

I love serving this over smashed potatoes. This recipe is really wonderful, but you can also toss little potaotes in olive oil, salt, and pepper and place them into the oven with the bourguignon for about 20 minutes, smash them, and then cook for another 20 minutes and they’ll be perfect.

You can also serve over mashed potatoes, polenta, pasta, rice – but the crispy edges of smashed potatoes can’t be beat!

Venison Bourguignon

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• Author: Miss AK

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Description

Tender pieces of venison are served in a rich, red wine sauce classically prepared with carrots, onions, and mushrooms. Best served over smashed potatoes.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 4 slices of bacon, diced or cut into lardons 
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• about 2 and 1/2 to 3lbs  cubed venison (use stew meat or break down a roast)
• 2–3 medium/large carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces 
• 1 onion, diced 
• 3 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 6 cloves garlic, minced 
• 1 Tbsp. herbs de Provence
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 2 and 1/2 cups red wine (I like a Bourdeaux, Merlot, or Pinot Noir)*
• 2 and 1/2 cups beef stock
• about 5–10 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• 3–4 fresh thyme sprigs
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 8 oz. baby bella mushrooms, halved*
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• about 1 cup or 8 oz. frozen pearl onions (half a bag)*

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Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. 
2. Begin by cooking the sliced/diced bacon in a large, Dutch oven or stockpot over medium heat (you want to use something oven-safe if you have it to cook this in. If you don’t use a stockpot and transfer this to a baking dish when you’re ready to bake). 
3. Once the bacon has cooked, remove it from the pan on a towel-lined plate, and discard the bacon fat.
4. With the burner still on medium heat, add the olive oil and cubed venison to the pot. Sear the venison on all sides and remove it from the pot onto a plate. 
5. Then, to the pot (don’t drain it), add the onions and carrots and cook for about 7-8 minutes. You want the onions to start to brown. Next, add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs de Provence, salt, and pepper. Stir well. 
6. Then, add the wine and deglaze the pot. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the pan well to loosen the flavor bits. Add the stock, Worcestershire sauce, and then add the venison and bacon back to the pot, as well. 
7. Remove the pot from the heat and lay the thyme sprigs over the dish. Cover the pot with a lid and slide it into the preheated oven. Set the timer for one hour. 
8. Once the hour is up, add the butter to a skillet over medium heat and melt. Once the butter is melted, add the mushrooms. 
9. Cook the mushrooms for about 5 minutes, and then add the flour to the skillet. Coat the mushrooms in the flour, scraping the pan. This will thicken your bourguignon sauce and prevent the mushrooms from getting soggy. 
10. Remove the mushrooms from the heat, and remove the pot from the oven. Add the flour-coated mushrooms and the pearl onions to the pot and stir well. 
11. Slightly skew the lid and cook for about 1 and 1/2-2 hours until the bourguignon sauce has thickened and the venison is very tender.  
12. Serve over smashed potatoes (our favorite), mashed potatoes, polenta, pasta, or even rice. 

Notes

• A note about the wine in this recipe. I don’t think you need to use the MOST expensive wine on the shelf for this recipe, in fact, I usually use about an $11-$12 bottle on sale for $9 or so. However, I don’t recommend using highly commercialized, low-quality wine because there is a good bit in this recipe. You want it to be pleasantly drinkable. 
• Another note on wine – bourguignon is a dish where meat is simmered in red wine. So, if you choose not to consume wine, this really isn’t the dish for you. If you don’t want as strong of a wine flavor, try using 2 cups of wine and 3 cups of beef stock. 
• On mushrooms and pearl onions for more selective eaters – you may be tempted to leave these out of the recipe if you or someone doesn’t like them. Please do not. They are important to the flavor and integrity of this dish. You’ll be leaving them in larger pieces and they’re easy to pick out (my husband does). If you absolutely MUST leave the mushrooms out, add the flour in with the garlic and herbs while building the dish before it goes into the oven.