Venison Neck Roast

We fully believe in using as much of an animal as possible! It's just the right thing to do and it's why I make this delicious venison neck roast.

If we have company, we're going to feed them. And I always believe in sharing our best, but you also have to watch budget (or how fast you're going through your favourite cuts) right? Enter - the neck roast! So many will throw this in the scrap or grinding pile when butchering their deer, but not us. Let's talk about how to safely use it below!

If you're butchering your own, don't forget to cut a nice backstrap roast as well. I also grill steaks for special occasions. Not quite ready for the wild game experience? You can use ground beef in place of venison to make a big batch of taco meat.

Why You Need This Recipe

• Use up all parts of the animal when you are butchering!
• You can use this as a sliced roast or pulled meat.
• Super simple seasoning means it pairs well with anything you add to the plate.

Using Venison Neck Meat

For most, the neck is thrown in the bowl of meat to be ground up or worse - they don’t even debone the meat because it’s “too much effort.” With a flexible boning knife (we love Victorinox knives!) you can debone it with less effort than a wide, stiff butcher knife, but it’s still a little more time consuming.

So why would you go to the effort of it? Well, neck meat has lots of connective tissues, and when slow cooked, these melt into gelatine rich broth that gives your meat out of this world of flavour. That’s why we go to the effort!

We keep big ol’ chunks of neck meat in the freezer because we like to make pulled meat with them for a crowd, and when feeding a crowd, it’s delicious, but like, not as valuable of a cut as using your nice steaks?? And it’s so hands-off and easy that what’s not to love about feeding a crowd that way.

Please make sure you don’t just make it a bone-in neck roast, OR do your research before doing so.

What is about the neck bones? When we bring a beef steer to the slaughterhouse, we have to declare if it’s “under thrifty months” (UTM) or not. Why? Because if you ARE going to have any neurological issues such as mad cow disease…it’s in older animals, and they are legally obligated to NOT give you the spine and thus the spinal cord/fluid in any way shape or form.

I bring this up, because we follow the same protocol, and we don’t eat the spines from any wild game we butcher. With enough other bones on the body to make use of (and no chronic wasting disease in our area…do your research there!) we make use of them, and discard the spine bones.

Key Ingredients

Roast - Boneless venison neck roast. I am for about an 8x12-inch hunk of meat.

Salt - We love to use our homemade Mushroom Salt, but you can use any seasoned salt you have on hand.

Liquid - Mead, white wine, beef broth. Whatever you are comfortable with.

How to Make Slow Cooker Neck Roast

***See recipe card below for precise measurements and instructions.***

Step 1: Add desired liquid to your slow cooker.

Step 2: Rub the salt into all sides of the roast and set it in the liquid.

Step 3: Slow cook on high for 6-8 hours, depending on how you want to serve.

Tips and Tricks

In the picture you can see an Instant Pot. My recipe tester told me they like using their Instant Pot for slow cooking BUT - not in slow cook mode. They have measured the temperature of liquid on the "keep warm" setting and find it's perfect for low and slow cuts of meat like this. You know your personal equipment best so use a slow cooker or this method!

Cook for 6 hours to cut slices like shown. Go longer, closer to the 8 hour mark, if you want to shred/pull the meat.

FAQs

photos by Kiara Colebank

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