Ok, I'm sure I'm going to be an oddball with this one, but man, I just generally don't like it.
Now when it comes to a good slow cooked pot roast, yeah I can eat that.
But dang near everything else I've tried, including other people's recipes, not too good.
I'm just not a fan of the gamey flavor, even if very mild. I've heard some guys say that's what makes it good. Nah.
If I use burger in chili or something, usually I can't tell the difference between it and beef burger, but then there will always be one bite that has that distinct gamey taste.
Am I nuts?
Anyway, luckily I have a boatload of friends that love it so that's where it usually goes.

My wife kids and myself prefer it over beef. Very much so.

It won't taste like beef because it isn't.

We use it in everything...straight up burgers, roast and steaks,chili, tacos, lasagna...everything youdcuse beef in. Low fat, no grease, taste great.

I think people take their first bite of a venison steak hoping it tastes like beef. This is probably how a disdain for the taste of deer meat starts. Well, that and preparing it wrong or overcooking. You shouldn't look to venison as a substitute for beef. Those two meats are very different experiences. In the same way that lamb or duck or lobster or rabbit all have their own unique flavors, venison is also in a category of it's own.

But, like any exotic or subtly flavored food, it helps to have an open mind and a desire to WANT to like it in the first place.

Then again, I hate cottage cheese. And there's no way anyone could ever talk me into eating it

There are lots of other things you can have deer made into now days. I have 50 packs of bacon made every year. Just looking at the processing sheet you can get Bratwurst to hot dogs, deli ham, cocktail weenies everything.

If you put it into chili or tacos generally you will change the flavor of it because if of the tomatoes and taco seasoning...

I like making Deerburger Helper out of mine along with chili and such... I currently have another plate full of Texas Lasagna to finish up using deerburger... But mostly I make jerky using deerburger...

@sticksender... I love cottage cheese with fruit mixed in...

Marinate or season and then grill. Dale's is a good liquid marinade to pick up at the store. Montreal steak seasoning is a good one to use before grilling backstrap steaks or burgers. Cavendar's Greek seasoning is another one I like. Experiment....and then there's always jerky.....everyone loves jerky.

Double B, Dales and Spicy Montreal Steak is the 2 best seasonings ever created... and throw in garlic! Wowzers!!

Rmember my bacon wrapped loin in the photo gallery... that is exactly whats on/in it! Man O Man

LOL @ stick!

we have learned a lot the past few years about taking the time to remove as much fat and silver skin as possible and grinding the burger twice and adding some pork fat makes it a lot more enjoyable to eat. In fact I make deer steaks for thanksgiving this year and served them before lunch and didn't have anyone complain, everyone commented that they couldn't believe how good it tasted. We marinated them and then froze them and cooked them on the grill and they were awesome. Really opened my eyes to new things to try with deer meat!

Yes.

You are nuts

+1 on cottage cheese. Gross. My wife loves it with fresh garden tomatoes.

I think cooking wild game takes times to learn and can be an art in some ways. The process is so important from the kill - table. I think a lot of people mess up right after the shot.

You sorta have to relearn cooking wild game as we are used to beef, chicken, etc... We eat it a lot at our house: 3-4 deer a year, and that is without my beautiful bride not eating one bite.

We have our favorite way to cook it. Always trying new things but we always go back to what is basic. The thing I can't seem to master is the jerky. I use the burger for that, have a dehydrater, and jerky gun. I have had others and loved it, but this one eludes me.

Might want to take a look at the way you are field dressing it / processing it. Can have a big effect on the flavor.

Also, shoot the little ones. They taste way better.

Crock pot roast (with the usual vegetables and store bought pot roast seasonings) and recipes using heavily seasoned ground (chili, tacos/nachos, burger helper, etc.) are about all my family likes too. None of us much into just eating a venison steak the same way we would a beef steak.

My family really likes my venison biscuits and gravy. I cook a pound of bacon first and put all that grease in with ground venison and dry breakfast sausage seasoning mix. Mix that very well then fry it up and put it in sausage flavored peppered country gravy. B&g with bacon on the side and no one has ever said they can tell it's venison.

My main goal for deer hunting each year is to fill the freezer with enough meat to last my family until the following deer season. I have heard the term "Gamey" used many times but don't actually understand what is meant by it. Like someone posted earlier, deer meat tastes like deer meat and smells like deer meat when cooked. If you are expecting it to taste/smell like beef you will be disappointed 100% of the time. My children have been raised on venison so in the rare occasion we run out of it and I have to substitute with beef they think it tastes weird. lol

You can always mix it with ground beef. If you like to hunt but don't like the taste, I'm sure you can find people that will take it.

Kids love the steaks. They think beef tastes weird. If you don't like it, you are probably not cooking it right (most likely over cooking it)

My 2016 buck got ground up (minus the steaks) pounds of summer sausage and jerky will be made with him. People will be eating it as fast as it comes of the smoker around here!!

BINGO!

To the first poster, It's all in HOW you care for and process the meat. Study some meat textbooks, learn all you can about how high end commercial meat is processed commercially. You want it cleaned and cooled down to below 40F as soon as possible. I boned some out and put it right in the fridge this year. Aged it for 5 days in the fridge. Those steaks are superb!

Yum!.. Your wife has great taste...

That's the way I make it... How long are you dehydrating it?... I like making BBQ jerky and I never have any complaints, everybody who has eaten it likes it...

I use BBQ seasoning and do mine for 5-6 hours then I baste BBQ sauce on it and do it for another 1.5 hours...

Thanks for all the replies. As for the care after kill, it's fast. I have it at the processor before it's cold. I tried butchering my own once, ended up with a lot of stew meat lol.
I will say the best I ever had was a little button buck many years ago. Since then it's been mature tiring bucks. I don't kill does.

May sound crazy, I know it did to me...but the BEST way I've enjoyed venison (besides summer sausage) is take the Backstraps and cut them in steaks, flour them and fry them in a skillet like country fried steaks. Then make gravy and mashed potatos.
Dude I'm tellin ya now, my backstraps wont be hittng the grill EVER again

HS... also take any part of the ham... pound it (i make mine like cubed steak, by using open end of glass coke bottle).... and do the same way you just mentioned! Simmer in gravy 1-1.5hrs... tender as can be!!!

HS...same way for me and the straps! Marinate in Italian dressing, soak in some egg/milk, flour and fry in the skillet. Very tender, usually just need a fork.

I'm going to have to try some of these suggestions. My mouth is watering reading these. I find myself doing a lot of jerky, sticks and summer sausage. I like the back straps in steak form and the rest is ground or stripped for jerky. I'm the only one who will eat the steaks in my home.

Yeah she has great taste - she picked me hahaha..... I definitely married up.

Kindly post your bbq recipe please. Might try it.

The grossest bowl of "food"? I ever saw was a bowl of cottage cheese with half a bottle of catsup Looke like a bowl of blood clots The guy loved it !!

OMG gross.... I love ketchup and cottage cheese just not together... Ewwwww

Really not much of a recipe... Just find some BBQ jerky seasoning and make it pure the instructions and 5-6 hours pull the jerky out and put whatever BBQ sauce you like and dehydrate another 1.5 hours so the BBQ will caramelize and and stick to the jerky...

If you make any let me know how it turned out and what others thought about it... Everyone who tried mine loved it... One lady I work with I gave her a bag for her and her kids and it never made it through the day, she ate every bit of it at work... She said it was so good she couldn't stop eating it...LOL

Probably the best jerky I ever had had brown sugar in it... But the guy who made it would not give me the recipe... It was to die for it was so good...

"Bowl of Blood clots"
Funniest thing I've read in a LONG TIME!
Thinkin about changing my screen name to "Bowl of blood clots"