Venison can be gamey tasting, depending on the way it is handled and processed. Use deer meat that was refrigerated less than 24 hours after kill to reduce the amount of gamey taste and to have venison that can be seasoned to taste more like beef. Ground or cubed venison is the best venison meat to be seasoned to taste like beef because the meat is easily permeated by the seasonings. Venison and beef are both red meat, however venison is much leaner than beef so it will dry out much faster in the cooking process. Most ground beef recipes that are heavily seasoned, such as tacos and chili are easy to replace with venison without any change at all because the flavor of even the beef is covered by the seasonings. Sausage is another great recipe to use venison in because it is heavily seasoned, making the flavor less obvious. If you need to use venison in another beef recipe however, there are ways to easily add seasoning to make it taste like beef.
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Things You'll Need
1 Tbsp. Granulated Garlic
1 Lb. Ground Venison
1 Tbsp. Granulated Onion
3 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil
2 Tbsp. Beef Bouillon Granules
Skillet
Step 1
Place the venison in a skillet without the heat on add the seasonings evenly over the venison meat.
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Step 2
Drizzle it with 3 tbsp. of vegetable oil to give it a shiny coating and stir it well.
Step 3
Turn on the heat and cook it until it is fully browned, without any pink. Rare venison will taste much more gamey than well done.
Tip
Although it does not have as much of an effect on the flavor, you can also soak and season steaks of venison to taste like beef by soaking the steaks in buttermilk for two days covered in the refrigerator. Dissolve the same amount of seasonings in 1/2 cup of water and then add the oil. Shake the mixture in a bag or bottle vigorously, then soak the venison steaks in the mixture for at least 12 hours, but no more than 36 hours.
The thinner or more cubed a steak of venison is the more seasoning it will absorb to taste like beef. This will not work well on very large steaks or tenderloins because the meat on the inside will likely not be effected by the seasonings.
If you have venison steaks that you would like to season like beef, but need to freeze, place it in a freezer bag with the dissolved seasoning blend and freeze it. The venison will continue to marinate until it freezes and after is thaws.