I have this thing about meatballs. Especially Venison Meatballs. First of all, I just love to eat them. And second of all, if I need to make one meals worth of meatballs…well then I may as well make a big batch of Venison Meatballs and bake them in the oven!
I love having meatballs in the freezer to quickly make some sweet and sour meatballs, cabbage meatball soup, spaghetti with meatballs or bbq baked meatballs! I love all of them!
Big Batch Venison Meatballs
We start off by dumping your ground venison (or other ground red meat…), rolled oats, eggs, garlic, onions, salt and pepper into a bowl. Mix ’em all up with your hands. Then wash your hands really well cause it probably feels pretty nasty right about now.
The trick here to making this not the most ridiculous amount of work ever? A portion scoop. Also known as an ice cream scoop. I’ve got 2 tablespoon and 4 tablespoon/quarter cup portion scoops. I adore them. To find out how big your portion scoop is, simple use a tablespoon measure and fill it up with scoops of water. Once you know how big it is, you can easily use it for measuring honey, peanut butter, coconut oil, and other sticky things. Use bigger portion scoops for muffins and cupcakes. The two tablespoon scoop gets used for meatballs and cookies quite often!
Portion scoop a whole bunch out onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. The parchment paper is optional, but it does make your clean up sooooo much easier! (They’ll look like the ones closest to the portion scoop. Simply take a scoop and scrape it up the side of your bowl to make it level.). Then give them a quick roll with your hands to make them a bit smoother. Don’t go overboard, just a little roll will smooth out the edges.
Next you’re going to bake Venison Meatballs at 375F for about 20 minutes, or until they’re cooked through. By baking them, you save yourself a bundle of time because you’re not standing over a frying pan browning them! They may not be as perfectly browned as if you had browned them in a cast iron…but no one is going to complain and you’re going to thank yourself for the time savings!
I inevitably end up plucking a few off of the pan as they’re cooling and eating them with BBQ sauce or whatever else I can find in the fridge. I just can’t help it. Cool them on the pan, then pluck them off and freeze them in bags. I label how many I have in the bag, and usually do about 18 as thats a good dinner and leftover lunch for someone.
Use Venison Meatballs as you would any other meatballs, whether ones you make, or ones you buy frozen from the store.
Big Batch Venison Meatballs
Ingredients
- 5 pounds ground venison Or sub other wild game/domestic meat. I use this same recipe for ground turkey I get from my Stepdads turkeys
- 1 ½ cups rolled oats Quick or Old Fashioned, don’t matter
- 5 eggs
- 5-15 garlic cloves chopped. Garlic lover? Add 15. Garlic is meh to you? add 5.
- 1 ½ tablespoons sea salt
- Ground Black pepper to taste
- ⅓ cup dried onion easier to hide from my onion hating husband OR 2 medium onions, finely chopped.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Mix all ingredients in a big bowl.
- Use a portion scooper to scoop them out onto a parchment or tinfoil lined baking sheet.
- Give them a quick roll between your hands to smooth out the edges.
- Bake for about 20 minutes, until cooked through.
- Cool on pan, then bag up in freezer bags, labeling with date, number of meatballs, and that they’re Venison Meatballs!
Nutrition
Game Recipes
Diversify your game recipes! Here are some of our favorites!
- Korean Venison
- Venison Chickpea Curry
- Hunters Pie
- Baked Venison with Sausage, Apples, & Onions
- Venison Swiss Steaks
- Big Game Round Steaks
Claire
Oh Kate! Thank you for your amazing venison recipes! I've made several lately. It's always AMAZING!
Big hug from a follower from France/ Arkansas!
Lanie
I’ve never been a meatball fan because of the work, so I’m going to give these a try!!
Maria Peterson
I love this recipe! The meatballs turn out delicious every time and its a great way to use up lots of ground meat from the freezer. I usually do 2 pounds each of ground beef and venison and 1 pound of pork sausage.
Ana
I love meatballs! I add them one or two steaks of liver (processed to a gross mush that you just have to ignore) to two pounds of ground meat and it adds an amazing texture.
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Interesting. No a fan of liver, so I haven't thought about doing that.