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!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!FAMILY RECIPEThis 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 8-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 SPAGHETTIThe 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 HOMEMADE SPAGHETTI SAUCEFirst brown the ground venison with the onion and celery. If we are serving small children like toddlers, I often like to cook the meat, onion, and celery, and then transfer the mixture to my food processor to pulse it once or twice so that it’s finely crumbled. It makes the homemade meat sauce extra smooth and easier for little mouths to consume (although some people like me prefer their spaghetti sauce with larger pieces of meat in it).While some other homemade spaghetti sauce recipes call for a combination of a few different kinds of canned tomatoes (tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, etc.), I found that my mother's wisdom to just use a can of crushed canned tomatoes along with some tomato paste provide the perfect consistency for this venison spaghetti. Simpler is better! Add the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, seasonings, and Worcestershire sauce. Add beef broth, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes to get more depth of flavor. The longer you simmer it, the more the flavors will blend together beautifully. If you work at home like I do, you can let the spaghetti sauce simmer on the stovetop for a few hours all afternoon and give it a quick stir every 15 minutes or so. Then when everyone gets home for supper all you have to do is boil the spaghetti noodles and serve with the homemade meat sauce.HOW TO THICKEN SPAGHETTI SAUCEWhy 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 1/2 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 SAUCESometimes 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 sauce 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 FREEZINGThis 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 DINNERAfter 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.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.CONNECT WITH ME AND JOIN OUR WILD GAME COOKING COMMUNITYIf you make this Easy Venison Spaghetti Sauce Recipe, I’d love for you to join our community and connect with me so we can all see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #wildgameandfishDid you enjoy this Easy Venison Spaghetti Sauce Recipe? Be sure to leave a 5-star rating RIGHT HERE!
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground venison (or 1/2 pound ground Italian sausage and 1/2 pound ground venison)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
- 2 celery stalks, finely diced
- 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon Worcerstershire sauce
- 1/2 cup beef broth (more if needed)
- 1 pound spaghetti noodles, for serving
Instructions
- Season ground venison with salt and pepper.
- 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.
- 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.
- Add beef broth and stir well to combine. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil and stir well one more time.
- 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.
- 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.
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