Sous Vide Venison – Forget dry meat, enjoy succulence EVERY TIME

Sous Vide Venison cooking

Whether you are an animal hunting enthusiast or have access to a supply of deer meat from your local store, butcher or local farmer. There are many different types of venison and availability of each will depend on where you live in the world.

Free range venison meat (farmed free range or that that roam free in the wild), rather than factory reared deer taste the best. When venison is cooked with the sous vide technique, the meat is succulent and never dry. So it’s a fantastic option if you have or are considering purchasing a sous vide water oven or immersion circulator.

What is sous vide cooking?

Sous vide, French for ‘under vacuum’ is the process of cooking vacuum-sealed produce in a temperature-controlled water bath. The sous vide technique is very popular in the kitchens of top professional chefs, producing soft, tender, delicious results for all manner of meats, fish, vegetables, desserts and cocktails!!

But with the advent of fairly inexpensive sous vide immersion circulators, you can cook sous vide in the comfort of your own kitchen.

If you want to learn more about sous vide cooking visit our FAQ. For those of you wanting to get straight into sous vide venison cooking, read on.

You can create your sous vide water bath using an all in one sous vide machine or using what is commonly known as a sous vide immersion circulator or precision cooker. If you choose the latter, you simply pop the immersion circulator into whatever you are using for your water bath and warm it as per your sous vide recipe of choice.

You can create your water bath with either a saucepan or, for larger cooks, a much larger BPA free plastic container.

Sous Vide Venison Roast

Do you ever get that niggling feeling that you might overcook sous venison is you roast it? It’s a common concern. But with sous vide cooking, creating succulent venison roast is easy. Yes. Easy. It’s because sous vide cooking creates the perfect “doneness” given you are cooking at a low temperature over a long period of time.

Sous Vide Venison Roast

Photo Credit: MeatEater Hunting Sous Vide Venison Roast

 

The Meateater has an awesome recipe on their website for you to give a go. It will change your perception of roasting your venison meat.

Whether you are going to eat your sous vide venison as a roast, in some sandwiches or a wrap or even in a salad, it will become one of your go to ways of cooking venison.

Sous Vide Venison Steak

We’ve found a great sous vide venison steak recipe on The Nosey Chef website. It’s important to note that when your venison steaks come out of your water bath and they are going to look well…fairly unattractive!

Sous Vide Venison Steak

Photo Credit: The Nosey Chef Venison Steak

After cooking sous vide warm a pan to a very high heat, add some butter and sear the venison steaks very quickly on both sides – it will sear faster than raw steak because some of the cooking is already done.

Sous Vide Venison Loin

Chefsteps (the makers of the Joule sous vide precision cooker) have written a great post on venison loin.

Sous Vide Venison Loin

Photo credit: Chefsteps Sous Vide Venison Loin

The cooking time for their showcased recipe is pretty short (around 1 hour) because it is already a tender and lean cut of venison meat. That means, there’s not much fat to render down.

Click here for their sous vide venison recipe that is juicy, never dry.

Sous Vide Venison Tenderloin

The Anova sous vide website has a delicious looking guest posted recipe on their website which will create you a perfect wild game meat meal masterpiece, that like venison loin is never dry.

It’s a simple and straight forward recipe which leaves you plenty of plan other elements of your meal rather than nervously watching your venison cook in the hope it doesn’t dry out.

Here’s a link to the recipe. 

Want to see some sous vide venison cooking in action? Check out this video from Minne-Florida Livin’. It is a great clip for those of you who like to see sous vide cooking in action (video length just short of 6 minutes).

Sous Vide Venison Time and Temperature

So what are the best cooking time recommendations for sous vide venison? It depends on the cut of venison meat that you are working with.

As we always say the exact cooking time for you will depend on the thickness of the venison and the sous vide immersion circulator you have. But generally speaking, venison does not take as long to cook in a sous vide water bath as other meat types. This is because it is a lean meat.

That means that you can prepare many scrumptious sous vide venison meals for friends and family, even if you decide on the day of them visiting (some other meats, such as brisket, can take up to 48 hours to cook!)

Preparing your sous vide venison

There isn’t too much work required to pre-prepare your venison before your sous vide cook. It is a very lean game meat so there will not be much sinew etc to cut off.

Just put in in your vacuum sealer bag or ziploc bag and put it into your sous vide water bath once it has come up to the temperature referenced in the recipe you are following.

Vacuum sealing your sous vide venison in your food pouch

Given there are no bones to contend with when cooking sous vide venison, you shouldn’t experience many problems putting your venison and marinade into your food pouch of choice (bones can sometimes pierce your vacuum sealed or Ziploc bag if you are not careful putting it into its food pouch).

FoodSaver 2-in1 vacuum sealer

Photo Credit: FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer

Once you have sealed your bag, you can sit it into your water bath and let the sous vide technique take care of the cook for you. If you have just one piece of venison you should be able to fit that into one of your existing kitchen pots.

If you have bought a particularly large piece of venison, consider cutting it up into portions so that it will fit in your pot or water container that you are using for your sous vide water bath.

Not going to eat your sous vide venison straight away?

If you are preparing for an upcoming meal and not ready to eat the venison right away (high fives for you for your pre-planning), you can simply put the sous vide venison in your freezer ready to take the final steps before serving when you are ready to eat it.

And as a side note here for those of you who are going to freeze your venison – make sure you take the time to thaw your sous vide venison to dry it out a little before you re-heat and finish it with a quick sear in a cast iron pan.

Want a super crispy venison crust?

The crispy skin on sous vide venison is sometimes a little tricky to master. We’ve scoured the web for some sous viders tips (Reddit and Quora are great forums for sous vide cooking). Here’s some tips for creating the best sous vide venison crust.

  1. Once steaks are finished cooking, heat a large cast iron skillet over high heat and add the olive oil.
  2. Pat the steaks dry with a paper towel and then generously season with salt and pepper.
  3. Place steaks in piping hot pan, and sear each side for one minute.

Where can I buy venison for my sous vide cooking?

Apart from butchers, you will find venison in most supermarkets, farmers markets and independent grocery stores. In many instances you can buy venison in vacuum sealed bags but we would not encourage you to use those bags directly in your sous vide machine or water bath.

Whilst you cannot see it, some vacuum sealed bags may well have small piercings in them (sustained whilst the meat is transported). Tiny holes will be enough to ruin your sous vide cook –  and waste your time and money.

Sous Vide Venison recipe inspiration

Time for some sous vide venison recipe ideas? Head to our curated sous vide recipe library for more sous vide recipes

Sous vide venison on socials

mobile phone showing apps

Photo credit: Unsplash

As you all know, we LOVE to give you as many additional sous vide resources as we can, to help you on your sous vide cooking journey.

You will find sous vide venison recipes in all of the usual websites including:

Chefsteps website (maker of the Joule)

Sous Vide Everything (sensational You Tuber every sous vide lover should know about)

Anova Culinary website (make of the Anova precision cooker)

Our tips for the best sous vide venison social media hashtags

 

Instagram sous vide venison meal inspiration

Instagram never disappoints when it comes to dazzling you with delicious sous vide inspiration. Here are the key hashtags to use to unlock some new ideas for your sous vide venison cooking on Insta:

#sousvidevenison

#sousvidedeer

#slowcookedvenison

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram for more sous vide goodness, including sous vide venison inspiration.

Reddit Sous Vide Venison forum conversations

Reddit has a enthusiastic sous vide community. Here’s just one thread from reddit about cooking sous vide venison for the first time if you are new to cooking this game meat.

Detailed Sous vide Venison Loin How To post 

Facebook Sous Vide Venison inspo

Facebook is another great place to find some sous vide inspiration. Again, here are the two best hashtags when it comes to finding hints and tips for sous vide venison cooking:

#sousvidevenison

#sousvidedeer

You can follow us on Facebook too!

Pinterest Sous Vide Venison scrumptiousness

If you haven’t discovered Pinterest for sous vide cooking yet, get on board. You will see some great round ups of sous vide recipes from sous vide enthusiasts around the globe.

Sous Vide Pinterest page

Your best bet for finding delicious sous venison recipes and photos on Pinterest is to use the hash tag #sousvidevenison. Don’t forget to follow us on Pinterest for sous vide recipes galore, not just sous vide venison.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Our Sous Vide Hub round up on cooking sous vide venison. Don’t forget to leave messages in the Comments section below if you have any more hints and tips for creating succulent sous vide venison dishes. We would love to hear them and so would our Sous Vide Hub community.

Related Posts and Further Reading

Social Up with other sous viders – 5 ways to use social media to up your sous vide cooking game 

How to cook sous vide venison by Venison Thursday 

How to keep your sous vide pouch under water

Zip Lock bags versus vacuum sealing bags for sous vide cooking

Join us on your sous vide cooking journey

We would love you to join our community, learn from others and offer your own hints and tips to make sous vide cooking even more special. 

 

 

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