This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for my affiliate disclosure. If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn't change.
Any hunters out there? I’ve never shot an animal myself, but from little up I’ve enjoyed going hunting with my dad. While I never had a strong desire to carry a gun and shoot anything, I’ve always loved being out in the woods in the early morning, enjoying nature, and occasionally experiencing some excitement when my dad shot a deer while I was along. Tracking, field-dressing, and butchering were all fascinating to me, and I even tried my hand at tanning a deer hide when I was about ten years old. I was definitely a tomboy…and still am, sometimes.
Cooking venison is also an enjoyable pastime for me. When we butcher our deer we usually save the tenderloin and backstraps as steaks, marinate, and grill them. Larger cuts of meat, like roasts, we freeze in chunks, then either deep fry them as shown on page 77 in my cookbook or slice thinly, coat in flour (or oat fiber and golden flaxmeal), and fry in butter. Everything else just gets turned into hamburger. I wanted to try something different recently, so I came up with this crockpot stew served over rice. It’s very easy to make, and the lean venison allows this to be a THM:E meal!
THM:E meals are often harder for me to come up with than THM:S meals because a lot of meats naturally have too much fat to be used in a THM:E setting. Venison is an exception. I don’t eat as many root vegetables as I would like to because I find it hard to remember to pair them with a lean meat, so I often just forget about making them altogether and rely on chocolate oatmeal for breakfast as my carb source for the day. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a shame to miss out on healthy veggies like carrots and sweet potatoes in all their orange goodness. Plus, root vegetables like this make great cheap fillers in a meal, so pairing them with venison we shot and butchered ourselves makes for a budget-friendly meal.
I served this hearty crockpot stew over brown rice for even more budget-friendly filler. Because of the carbs already contained in the sweet potatoes and carrots, you’ll need to go easy on the rice. For an explanation on that, check out the end of the recipe directions below. 😛 Rice is a great thing for the kids to fill up on, though!
This crockpot stew has great flavor, and leftovers taste even better the next day. The meat gets really tender when refrigerated overnight.
Some quick tips for making venison taste good:
- Field dress the deer (i.e. take the guts out) right away after shooting it.
- Get as much blood out as possible. When my dad shoots a deer, we usually let it hang overnight at least before cutting it off the bone. (Deer season is in the winter, so it’s usually cold enough to just do this outside.) After cutting the meat off the bone, we let it drain in the fridge for another week before processing it. To do this, my dad made some nifty containers by drilling holes in stackable Rubbermaids. A Rubbermaid with holes in the bottom gets stacked inside a Rubbermaid without holes, and the meat is put in the top Rubbermaid. The blood drains out of the meat and down through the holes into the container below. Getting rid of as much blood as possible decreases the gamey taste of the meat. After the meat has drained, we trim the membrane and fat off the steaks and chunks of meat we want to keep whole and freeze them, then grind the rest of the meat into hamburger (sometimes adding some storebought hamburger to give it a little bit of fat since venison is incredibly lean), and freeze it in bags as well.
As always, check out the Notes section of the recipe for extra info. Check out the links in and below the recipe to see the products I use and recommend. Some of the links included in the recipe and blog post are affiliate links, which means that if you make purchases through these links, I make a small commission to help defray the costs of running this blog (at no extra charge to you). Thanks for your help!
You may also enjoy:
- Starting THM
- my recipe index
- my recipes grouped by fuel type, allergy info, and theme
- all my crockpot recipes
Want more easy meal options? Check out my cookbook!
- 2 lg. sweet potatoes
- 8 med. carrots
- 1 med. onion
- 2 c. water
- -
- ½ c. reduced-sodium soy sauce
- ½ c. water
- 3 T. oat fiber (use gluten-free if necessary)
- 3 T. tomato paste
- 1 tsp. each garlic powder, paprika, salt
- ½ tsp. xanthan gum
- ½ tsp. ground mustard, sage, black pepper
- ½ tsp. liquid smoke
- -
- 3 lb. venison roast
- -
- 1 tsp. xanthan gum
- -
- Serve with brown rice seasoned with garlic salt and black pepper
- Wash the sweet potatoes and carrots and cut them up into 3" chunks (this isn't rocket science, and I don't peel them). If the carrots are really big around, cut them in half so they'll cook through. Place the sweet potato and carrot chunks in the bottom of a crockpot that holds 6 quarts or more. Cut the onion into thick slices and put it on top. Pour two cups of water over the vegetables.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk the second section of ingredients (add the xanthan gum while whisking so it doesn't clump).
- Cut the venison roast into 1½" chunks and fold them into the sauce. Pour the venison and sauce over the top of the vegetables in the crockpot. Do not stir.
- Cover and cook on high for 3 hours, then stir. Remove one cup of broth and whisk 1 tsp. xanthan gum into it. Pour this mixture into the crockpot and stir again. Cook on high for another hour or until the vegetables are soft and the meat cooked through, then turn the crockpot to low until serving.
- Serve over brown rice. Since you already have some carbs in the form of the sweet potatoes and to a lesser extent, the carrots, go easy on the rice. If "go easy" isn't specific enough for you, please feel free to calculate exact carb counts for the sweet potatoes, carrots, and rice to ensure that you don't go over your 45g carb limit for a THM:E meal. I just go easy. It's easier.
Suggested products:
So good! My 12-year-old got her first deer this year and I’ve been trying to find a good E stew to use it in.
That’s so neat! I grew up hunting with my dad (although I never had a desire to carry a gun) and have so many good memories of helping with the whole process.
This sounds great and I’m planning on making it this week with our fresh tenderloins. I’m wondering if you would mind if I shared it to my facebook page Really-Simply-Healthy with your original recipe link and credit of course.
I hope it turns out well for you! I’d be honored if you would share the link to the recipe. 🙂 Please don’t reproduce the recipe itself, though.
Can this be cooked on low? If so, how long?
I’ve never done that, so I’m not sure how long it would take. Maybe about double the time I cooked mine on high?
This was very yummy! Thank you for this recipe…I struggle to find recipes for deer tenderloin in my freezer! One question- what does the oat fiber add to the stew? I accidentally forgot to add it to mine, but it was still so great!
The oat fiber just acts as a flour would to thicken it. 🙂 I’m glad you liked it!
This looks delicious! I don’t have any venison on hand at the moment. Do you know of any cuts of beef or bison that are low enough in fat to use in an E meal? Nowhere that I know of sells venison, but I could possibly find bison. Thank you!
I don’t believe any beef cuts would be lean enough, but bison would probably be lean enough to use in an E meal. 🙂 I don’t know for sure on that, but you could ask an admin over in the main THM Facebook group.
It was a little warm today for stew–almost 80F but the venison was in the fridge, defrosted, so I had to make it. Oh so good!
I just made this stew today, and it was AMAZING. The only thing I did different was not put in the salt, since the lite sodium soy sauce had enough sodium to do the job. We served it in bowls over Uncle Bens Long Grain and Wild rice.
SO GOOD, and the kitchen smells great. Thank you for sharing this recipe, I can’t wait to dig into the leftovers.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Perfect! I’m going to try this with moose roast next week! Looking forward to getting your cookbook in the mail any day now…
Briana I just received your book…..oh my it is beautiful! I am going to start at the beginning and make everything in this book! You are a wonderful chef and amazing young lady! Thank you for your hard work…your labor of love…its evident!
Can any cut of venison be allowed in an E setting?
Yes!
I have a strange question I’m wondering if you can assist me. I read a recipe, maybe in your cookbook or maybe in another that I’ve also been reading thru. I failed to make note of it & now since I purchased the ingredient I didn’t have, I can’t remember what the recipe was or where. 🙁 I chuckled even tho it is frustrating. I figure God has something in mind. 🙂 One ingredient was 2 large Hass avocados, at least that’s how I recall it. Do you know of any recipe(s) in your cookbook that would have that ingredient? Thanks for any help you can provide but it’s ok if you don’t know. I searched back on your recent blogs for avocado & didn’t come up with anything. Thought that also could be a possibility.
Hi Esther! Unfortunately that’s not one of my recipes. Sorry!
This was a great post Briana! My family uses venison all the time (as well as some other interesting but yum wild meat 😉 ) so it was fun to see how you cook it! I was unsure if venison could be used in an E meal (since it is dark meat) but this was excellent confirmation. 🙂 Thanks for all the hard work you put into these recipes- it’s always exciting to see what you come up with next 😉
As always, I enjoyed your post! It’s interesting to learn how other folks handle their deer. My husband and son also field dress asap and back at the house they skin and quarter it (taking out the loin and backstraps). They place everything in a large cooler, pour a bag or 2 of ice over and sprinkle with kosher salt. We leave it outside usually four or five days with the plug open on cooler so it can drain and add ice as necessary.
We love to slice loin an inch thick, wrap with a strip of bacon, sprinkle with steak seasoning and grill. Delish! We also cut a lot of ham steaks, run through a meat tenderizer, marinate, and grill.
Last week I also made venison stew, a family favorite. Our son was cutting up a deer and I asked him to set aside all the meaty bones which I placed in a 20 gal stockpot and covered with water. I started early in the morning and let the bone broth simmer all day (skimming fat as needed). About an hour an a half before supper, I strained about a 1/2 gal of the broth into a soup pot. Then I picked all the meat off the bones and placed in pot, adding two large onions, chopped, four large carrots, chunked, eight radishes, quartered, and mushrooms; probably 6 oz.
All of this returned to simmer, and then seasoned with 2 tsp mineral salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp marjoram, 1 tsp smoked paprika, 1/4 tsp turmeric. Taste and adjust seasonings.
I served with sprouted spelt biscuits and a green salad.
The remaining broth was refrigerated overnight so that any fat could be lifted off and discarded. Then I heated again, placed in jars and pressure canned.
Deer broth is wonderful in soups, stews, and sausage gravy. And so nutrient rich!
Blessings to you, Briana.
Thanks for sharing that, Natalia! Those are some great ideas!