How to Make an Easy Venison Spaghetti Sauce

Learn how to make an Easy Venison Spaghetti Sauce using ingredients you probably already have in your pantry! This deer spaghetti recipe is a family dinner staple and one of our daughter's favorite ground venison recipes.

Spaghetti is probably the most kid-friendly pasta recipe to ever exist! Serve it with some garlic bread and a fresh salad and your entire family will be thanking you!

Spaghetti Is A Favorite Family Recipe

This spaghetti sauce recipe may be the first thing I learned to cook, completely by myself, when I was in elementary school. As I got better at cooking, I can remember two recipes my mom would let me make all by myself: this homemade spaghetti sauce, and our family’s weekend favorite Breakfast Strata.

My mom would stay nearby for supervision, but it was a huge confidence boost for me to cook all on my own! And an even bigger confidence boost when my dad and hungry siblings cleaned their plates at supper time.

This Homemade Spaghetti Sauce recipe has been a Benda family staple for as long as I can remember. It’s really economical, simple, and the flavors are fantastic.

I didn't grow up hunting, so the original homemade meat sauce recipe called for ground beef. But when I started deer hunting and filling up my freezer with ground venison 20 years ago, it was a no-brainer to transform the homemade meat sauce recipe into deer spaghetti.

Deer Spaghetti is one of those meals that always tastes amazing and perfect for busy weeknights this time of year! My wife and 9-year-old daughter are extremely adventurous eaters and will dive into plates of Pan Fried Venison Heart and Venison Rogan Josh. But when we have friends with small children over, this venison spaghetti is a crowd-pleaser every time. There’s no picky eater that would ever say no to spaghetti with homemade meat sauce!

Celery In Spaghetti

The only other change I have made to this recipe is the addition of celery. My wife LOVES celery. Whether I'm making Venison Chili or Pheasant Pot Pie, she insists that I have chopped celery in pieces just big enough to identify so she knows I didn't forget. If you aren't a fan of celery, feel free to omit it.

How to Make Spaghetti With Venison

1. Season ground venison with salt and pepper. 

2. In a large Dutch oven, add the ground venison and finely diced onion and celery over medium high heat and sauté for about 5 minutes. 

3. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, Italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder, crushed red pepper, sugar, and Worcestershire to the Dutch oven and stir until everything is well combined.

4. Add beef broth and stir well to combine. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil and stir well one more time.

5. Reduce heat to low and simmer for at least 30 minutes or up to 3 hours, stirring every 15 minutes. If the sauce starts to get too thick, stir in a little more beef broth (or pasta water from your cooked spaghetti) until it reaches the consistency that you want.

6. If serving for dinner, add cooked spaghetti to the sauce. Mix to combine and let the pasta cook in the sauce over low heat for about 5 minutes.

How To Thicken Spaghetti Sauce

Spaghetti with venison is amazingly delicious! And why is this homemade meat sauce rich and just the right thickness? Here are a few things that make a difference: 

• Add finely chopped vegetables. This is another great reason why I love adding finely chopped onion with celery. The vegetables thicken the sauce and give it a nice body. You can even try adding finely chopped carrots if you like!
• Use the right kind of canned tomatoes. Many recipes will use tomato sauce. That's ok, but if you're after thicker consistency, canned crushed tomatoes will give you a better result. And if you don't have that nifty tube of tomato paste to squeeze out just 2 tablespoons, and you don't want to open an entire can of tomato paste, you can just omit it. Using crushed tomatoes will still give you a nice thick sauce after simmering awhile.
• Do not add too much liquid. In this recipe, I use ½ cup beef broth earlier on to get things going. Later, I watch the sauce as it simmers, and I add a little bit more if needed. If you don't have beef broth, adding a little pasta cooking water from your spaghetti noodles is a great substitute to thicken the sauce.
• Simmer the sauce. You'll notice that once the sauce boils briefly, I turn the heat down and let it simmer a good 30 minutes. If I'm not in a hurry, I leave it for a few hours, watching the consistency and adding liquid if it turns too thick.

Difference Between Marinara And Spaghetti Sauce

Sometimes there is no difference between marinara and spaghetti sauce! Here in the United States, we often refer to marinara as a meatless, tomato-based sauce. Some people make meatless spaghetti sauce which is really just a marinara sauce. In my humble opinion, a truly great spaghetti sauce has plenty of meat. And you can't go wrong with using ground venison!

Marinara sauce doesn't have much texture and isn't very thick at all because it lacks meat and is cooked rather quickly. Made with tomatoes, garlic, crushed red pepper, and basil, the name of the sauce is believed to have originated from Italian sea merchants, giving the sauce its name, "mariner-style" sauce. Marinara was preferred on ships, most likely because its lack of meat made it easier to store on long journeys before refrigeration was invented.

The key ingredient in a great homemade spaghetti with venison recipe is patience. You begin with finely chopping your vegetables, then browning your ground venison and allowing your beef broth to reduce gently, while you carefully monitor the pot every 15 minutes to make sure nothing scorches.

Tips For Making Venison Spaghetti Sauce Ahead Of Time And Freezing

This homemade spaghetti sauce recipe can be easily made ahead of time. Store it in the fridge for 3 to 4 days or freeze it. Before freezing spaghetti sauce, allow the mixture to cool completely.  Label a gallon freezer bag or vacuum seal bag and fill it with the sauce. Store it on a flat surface so that it freezes into a flat shape that will store easily.  Store it for up to 6 months. To use, place frozen sauce in a pot and reheat on the stove until warm.

Deer Spaghetti For A Weeknight Dinner

After a long day of work, it's not always easy to face your kitchen and whip up dinner. But I hope this Easy Venison Spaghetti Sauce and my other venison recipes will give you inspiration and motivation you need to get excited about cooking every night.

Come Deer Hunting in North Dakota

If you are headed our way for North Dakota deer season, check out the North Dakota Game & Fish Department website. And if you want me to come along with you as your camp cook, photographer, or butcher, you can find out more details here.

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