Easy Venison Meatballs

Over the weekend, I had some gravy leftover from venison stew, and was trying to think of a new way to use it. Since I have a plentiful stock of venison burger from my brother Zach's mad hunting skills, I thought I would try venison meatballs. Growing up on deer meat is what I know, and I use venison just like I would beef. In fact, the last five years that I was without deer meat in California, I tried to avoid beef, opting for turkey or chicken burger. Even the lean beef looked questionable, and I just didn't like not knowing where it was from. With venison, Zach or dad shoot the deer right on my grandpa's 40 acre farm in southwest Ohio. Then we package it ourselves, without preservatives, and it goes straight to the freezer. It doesn't get much more natural than that!

Back to the venison meatballs though, I looked up a few recipes and combined a few to make my own. Here it is:

Venison Meatballs
1 pound venison burger, thawed
1 cup crushed wheat saltines
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 teaspoons parsley
1 teaspoon garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Directions: Combine all ingredients in the Kitchenaid, or mix in a large bowl thoroughly. Use a cookie scoop to portion the meatballs, roll if needed, and fry in a skillet until done (no pink). I used just a few tablespoons of oil and a cup of beef broth to cook the meatballs in, so they wouldn't be completely bathed in oil. It yielded about three dozen meatballs.

Note: You could vary the spices, adding more and various varieties to your taste, as you would with beef. Leave the onions out if that's not appealing to you. Also, next time I won't use as much milk, but I didn't try it with less, so I left in the recipe above what I used. Furthermore, if you use a nonstick skillet, you probably don't need to use oil or broth to cook the meatballs in.

I used a dozen meatballs for dinner with the leftover gravy, over white rice. The rest I froze for an easy meal later on with spaghetti. They were pretty tasty, I thought!  If you try the recipe, leave me a comment and let me know if you like it!