Crock Pot Venison Stew

Everyone loves a good steaming bowl of stew. It is the ultimate comfort food, especially during the cold winter months. It’s versatility makes it a winning dish for almost everyone. The ingredients can be substituted or omitted based on your own preferences pretty easily. My personal favourite is crock pot venison stew.

All I need is some venison, beef broth, onions, potatoes and carrots and I have a pot of stew simmering away for supper. Cooking it in a crock pot makes it even easier, ensuring a slow, even cooking without the risk of scorching the food. I love cooking in a crock pot because I can do the food prep after breakfast and get everything in the pot and cooking before getting on to my next task.

To make my Crock Pot Venison Stew you will need:

Venison roast

Beef broth

Potatoes

Onion

Celery

Carrots

mushrooms

Garlic

Bay leaves

Salt/pepper

Celery salt

Thyme

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Worcestershire sauce

flour

This crock pot venison stew recipe is based on a full large 8 quart crock pot, as I have a large family and we enjoy leftovers (or at least I enjoy skipping cooking whenever I can). This can of course be made to a smaller scale by cutting the recipe in half. Before I get comments on this post, I do realize that I have both onions and onion powder and then garlic and garlic powder. I add garlic powder and onion powder to EVERYTHING, I just can’t help myself. Of course you can change or omit any seasonings to suit your tastes. I always taste the broth after it has had a couple of hours to get a good flavour and then add anything I feel it needs at that time.

Crock Pot Venison Stew Recipe

Ingredients:

2 lbs venison roast

2 Tbsp bacon grease

1 large sliced onion

¼ cup of sliced celery

1 cup of sliced mushrooms

4 cups cubed potatoes

3 cups cubed carrots

2 cups cubed celery

2 cloves garlic

2 bay leaves

7 cups beef broth

¼ tsp celery salt

¼ tsp thyme

1 Tbsp onion powder

1 Tbsp garlic powder

1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

¼ cup flour

The first step in making crock pot venison stew is to dice up your venison meat into cubes. I cut them into 1 to 1 ½ inch cubes, but this is just a preference and they can be cut smaller if you like. Then I brown the cubes in bacon grease but oil can be substituted easily. Make sure to salt and pepper your meat while you are cooking. Once browned, transfer the cubes to the crock pot and sauté sliced onion, celery and mushrooms in the same pan until translucent, then add to the crock pot.

Next add 1 inch cubed potatoes, I keep the pieces big since they will be cooking for a long time. Then add carrots, I also keep the carrots in large pieces approximately the same size as the potatoes so they will hold up to the long cooking time. Next is more celery in bigger chunks this time. If there are additional vegetables you want to add, now is the time.

The next step is to cover everything with beef broth. For my stew this took 7 cups of liquid. You can use less, depending on how much it will take to cover everything in your pot. For this batch I didn’t have any beef broth on hand so I used hot water with beef stock mix dissolved in it according to package directions. Then crush and chop garlic and add to the pot. Top with bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce, celery salt, Thyme, garlic powder, onion powder and salt and pepper and give it a good stir. Put the lid on and choose your setting. This stew will take approximately 4 hours on the high setting and 8 hours on the low setting.

Make sure to check on your stew and taste the broth to make sure you are happy with the seasoning before it is finished. Add more seasonings to taste.

About a half hour before your cooking time is up is the time to thicken your broth to turn it from a thin soup broth to a nice thick stew gravy. Many people make a slurry with hot water and flour or cornstarch to add to the pot to thicken but I remove some of the broth from the pot and whisk flour into it. About a ¼ cup of flour to 1 cup of broth is the ratio I use, then return it to the pot to mix in and let it keep cooking. I find that using the broth instead of water keeps the seasoning from getting watered down with the addition.

This crock pot venison stew is sure to be a crowd favourite but also freezes well to put some away for a quick meal another day. A great serving idea is to pair with a crusty bread bowl for a fun and tasty new way to enjoy your meal.