Do you want to make your ground venison more juicy, flavorful, or more meaty texture? It’s fine as long as you want, but the problem arises when you can’t figure out what to mix with Venison when grinding to fulfill your desire. So, what to mix with venison when grinding?
Well, it depends on various factors, such as your recipes and grind type. If you’re making a burger patty, adding some fat will enhance its flavor and hold the juiciness inside the patty. You can also add bacon, or beef tallow for some additional flavor.
However, that’s not all. You’ve to learn how much of the ingredients you should mix to get the perfect result. That’s why we’ve discussed the mixing process and the amount of ingredients to please every taste.
So let’s begin!
Why Should You Mix Extra Ingredients When Grinding Venison?
Venison is lean meat, so it has less fat. For that reason, this meat is good for a healthy diet but not tasty. So when you’re grinding it for any special recipe and want to make it delicious, no wonder you’ve to mix some extra ingredients. Here are two main reasons why mixing ingredients is necessary.
Less Juicer And Flavor
As we mentioned before, venison meat is low in fat. It contains 50% less fat than beef. Hence lower fat means lower juiciness. That’s why when you grind it or make any recipe, the venison becomes dry and ruins the texture of your recipe.
But the good news is that mixing certain ingredients can hold the juiciness inside the meat and make it more delicious.
Gamey Taste & Smell
Venison also contains an annoying gamey taste and smell because, after all, it’s the meat of a wild animal. Some people might like it as it’s tasteless. So if you prepare dishes with venison for your guests, there might be someone who won’t like the smell and taste of this meat.
But don’t worry, my friend!
Mixing some ingredients can magically vanish the smell and bad taste. So what elements are those that will do the magic? Let’s dive into our further segment to discover them.
How To Prepare The Venison Meat Before Grinding?
Here are the step-by-step instructions to prepare the venison meat before grinding.
- Remove the bones from the meat to easily chop them into chunks.
- Use a sharp knife to cut the chunks of the meat because a dull knife can damage the meat protein as well as make your cutting process tough.
- Remove the silver skin of the venison before grinding because it’s tasteless and makes the grinding process difficult.
- Cut the meat into smaller pieces so you can grind them easily. Afterward, put them in the fridge for 30 minutes until the meat is firm but not frozen.
- Take out the venison meat from the fridge and mix the ingredients you want to grind.
- Start grinding the meat into a fine or coarse ground that you like.
Related Article: Is It Cheaper To Grind Your Own Meat! – Cost & Taste
What To Mix With Venison When Grinding?
So now as you know why you need to mix extra elements with ground venison and how to prepare the meat for grinding, the most important question is what to mix. So as we say above, the ingredients can vary from recipes and grinding types.
However, the table below can help make things easy for you.
Grinding Type | Recipe | Ingredients |
Coarse | Venison chili, meatloaf, hamburger. | Bacon, meat tallow. |
Fine | Venison sausage, burger, tacos, meatballs, chorizo. | Meat fat, or beef meat. |
What To Mix For Coarsely Ground Venison Recipes?
Coarse grinding is the easiest grinding type. You can even grind the coarsely ground meat without a grinder. All you need to do is give yourself plenty of time and rapidly chop the meat with a sharp knife.
You can make several recipes with coarse ground venison. Such as venison meatloaf, venison chili, and burger patties. So here are the ingredients you can mix with the coarsely ground venison recipes. You can mix extra animal fat or bacon into this grinding.
What To Mix With Ground Venison To Get More Flavor?
Some people love to get more flavor from their ground venison patties. And if you’re one of them, we’ve good news for you. You can make your venison patties more flavorful with delicious go-to meat – bacon! You’ve to mix bacon pieces or bacon ends while grinding venison. Otherwise, grinding the meat will be difficult for you.
However, once you know that mixing bacon brings more flavor, the other question is how much bacon you should mix with venison. Because mixing the ingredients in adequate amounts is vital to get the desired flavor.
So, adding 20% of bacon for each 80% of venison meat is recommended. That means,
- If you’re using 1Ibs venison, you’ll need (1×20)/100= 0.2Ibs bacon end
- As like, for 5 lbs venison, (5×20)/100= 1 lbs bacon end
- Also, for 10 lbs of venison meat, (10×20)/100= 2 lbs bacon end
So how do you measure the amount?
It’s simple. Bring a measurement scale and measure the bacon ends. Mixing the perfect bacon end ratio will make your burger Patties tastier than ever.
Tips: You can use both cooked and uncooked bacon. But using uncooked bacon is best to get the most flavor because its flavor sticks with the venison while grinding.
What To Mix With Ground Venison To Get A Better, Coarser Texture?
Do you want a better texture from your ground, venison? If so, mixing some meat tallow or some bacon slices will help you get a distinct texture and a little flavor.
Meat Tallow
Meat tallow is a kind of meat fat. Typically, meat fat comes from beef and goat. But when it’s a matter of mixing with venison, professionals mostly use beef tallow. Because along with improving the texture, beef fat balances out the gamey smell.
So now, how much meat fat should you use to get the expected result?
Well, the amount of beef tallow depends on the type of venison you’ll be grinding.
For instance, if you’re grinding whitetail venison, you’ll require 0.14 lbs beef tallow for each 1 lbs venison. Here we break down an easy calculation to understand.
Meat Name | Meat Amount (lbs) | Beef Tallow Amount (lbs) |
Whitetail Venison | Per 1 lb | Per 0.14 lbs |
Mule Deer Venison | Per 1 lb | Per 0.2 lbs |
To make it easier, here’s an example of measuring the ratio.
- For 1 lb whitetail venison, (1×14)/100 = 0.14 lbs beef tallow
- For 5 lbs of whitetail venison, (5×14)/100 = 0.7 beef tallow
- Otherwise, for 1 lb mule deer, (1×20)/100 = 0.2 lbs beef tallow
- For 5 lbs of mule deer, (5×20)/100 = 1 lbs beef tallow
Tips: Make sure you purchase a high-quality beef tallow to mix with the Venison.
What To Mix With Venison For Fine Ground Venison Recipes
Fine ground is another grinding type for venison. Basically, it’s a double grinding that turns the coarsely ground meat into the fine ground. You’ll need a high-quality grinder for wild game to get perfectly fine ground meat.
However, many recipes are made especially with fine ground venison, and you must mix certain ingredients. So let’s see what you want to get while working with fine ground Venison.
What To Mix With Venison To Get A Juicer Texture?
Venison usually has less fat than any other type of meat. So if you want to make it juicy, animal fat is the key to getting a tasty and juicy texture from your venison. However, the type of animal fat depends on what you intend to do with the ground venison.
For instance, if you make some burger patties, you’ll need some beef tallow. Otherwise, it would be best to use other bacon instead of meat tallow to make sausage. It’ll make the sausage juicier and more flavorful than mixing with beef tallow. And sausage is not tasty without the extra juice.
Recipe | Meat Fat Type | Venison Amount (Percentage) | Venison Amount (lbs) | Fat Amount (Percentage) | Fat Amount (lbs) |
Burger patties and taco fillings | Beef Fat | 85% | 1 lb | 15% | 0.15 lbs |
Sausages and chorizo | Bacon | 80-85% | 1 lb | 15%-20% | 0.15 lb – 0.20 lb |
- For grinding 1 lb venison to make burger patties/taco fillings, (1×15)/100= 0.15 lbs beef meat
- And for grinding 1 lb venison to make sausages/chorizo, (1×15)/100= 0.15 lbs bacon
Following this formula, you can easily calculate the amount of animal fat. You must maintain the right proportion for each lb of venison meat.
Tips: To add fat like beef tallow, chop it up into tiny cubes the size of the venison chunks. Make sure to chill the beef tallow in the fridge with the venison before putting them in the grinder.
What To Mix With Ground Venison To Get A Creamy Texture
If you want a cream texture from your ground venison meat, mixing up boiled potatoes is a great way. However, to get the perfect creamy and delicious texture, you’ll need half a boiled standard-sized potato for each 1 lb of ground venison. If you’re taking 5 lb ground venison, you must mix 2 and a half standard-size boiled potatoes with the meat.
If you don’t understand yet how many boiled potatoes you’ve to add, then here we show a table so you can easily do the calculation.
Venison Meat Amount (lbs) | Boiled Potato Number (Standard Size) |
1 lb | Half of a boiled potato |
2 lbs | 1 boiled potato |
3 lbs | 1 and a half of a boiled potato |
10 lbs | 5 boiled potatoes |
Tips: Remember to peel off the potatoes before mixing them with venison.
Related Article: 5 Best Meat Slicer Under $100 Without Compromising Quality
What To Mix If I Want A Meatier Or More Firmer Texture?
The best way to get a meatier or firmer texture is to add extra meat when grinding.
But which meat should you mix to get the perfect meatier texture?
Well, your answer will depend on what kind of recipe you’re up to preparing. Beef is superb for the firm, juicy, meaty burger patties, whereas bacon makes the sausage most delicious. Though, you can use beef meat in sausage too.
So here is a table showing you the type of meat and their usage percentage according to the recipes. So you can get the idea within a few seconds.
Recipe | Meat You Mix | Venison Meat Amount (lbs) | Meat Amount (lbs) | Venison Meat Amount (Percentage) | Meat Amount (Percentage) |
Taco fillings, Burger Patties | Beef | 1 lb | 0.35 lbs to 0.5 lbs | 65-50% | 35-50% |
Sausages, Chorizo | Beef/Bacon | 1 lb | 0.4 to 0.5 lbs | 60-50% | 40-50% |
Tips: To get the best meatier texture, you should use the part of beef that consists of at least 20% of fat. For example, if you use goat, use its butt or shoulder. And for beef, it’s best to use the sirloin to get the delicious meaty, juicy texture.
Other Mixing Ingredients
Depending on the recipes, you can also add some mixing ingredients to the venison when grinding. Just like if you’re making burger patties, then you can add the following items.
- Cheese
- Onion
- Peppers
- Seasonings like salt and pepper
- Barbecue, Soy Worcestershire sauce
Tips For Grinding Venison With Extra Ingredients
Though now you know everything about what to mix while grinding venison and what is the right amount, some tips remain to have the perfect ground venison.
So look out for the following tips we’ve come up with for you-
- Always try to grind the fresh venison, as it’s much easier to grind and keep the flavor intact. Even eating bad ground beef is dangerous for your health. I have a separate post on what happens if you eat bad ground beef, you can check it to learn more.
- Use small chunks for grinding. First, chop the meat into small but long pieces and then place them for grinding.
- When mixing extra meat as mixing ingredients, cut them into tiny chunks so your grinder won’t get clogged.
Make sure you’re mixing exactly the right amount of fat with venison. Because low fat can make your meat dry and tough to prepare the further processing.
FAQs
How Much Should Fat Be Added To Venison When Grinding?
Adding fat to the venison grinding makes the process much easier and enhances the texture and taste too. We suggest using the-
- 0-10% fat for heavily seasoned, loose meat meals such as sloppy joes, venison chilli, and tacos.
- Within 20% fat for juicy venison meatloaf, burgers, and meatballs.
- And 30% of fat for preparing summer sausage and snack sticks.
Is Adding Beef Tallow With Venison Will Be Good For Health?
Though fat is quite unhealthy for health, a certain amount is not bad. Moreover, beef tallow is rich in vitamins which you only get from grass-fed cows. So if you’ve no heart or fatty issues, beef tallow isn’t harmful to your health.
How Do You Make Ground Deer Taste Better?
Adding some fat with beef is best to taste better when grinding the venison. You can also use bacon to add a great flavor and help your burger patty to stick together.
What Spices Go Well With Deer?
Some spices pair well with venison meat as well as other wild animal meat. Juniper berries, bay, sage, and rosemary are some spices.
Conclusion
So now as you know what and how much of the ingredients you should use with Venison, following the instructions, you’ll get benefitted every time you grind the Venison. No matter what recipe you make, you have the guidelines to make your job easy.
Best of luck with your happy grinding!
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