Slow Cooker Venison Stroganoff, Camp Version
Venison stew meat, mushrooms, and a creamy broth over noodles, built in a dutch oven at camp.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 56
- protein
- 48 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 150 min
- total time
- 170 min
- water
- 700 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Venison stew meat | 2 lb | cut into 1-inch cubes at home |
|---|---|---|
| Olive oil | 2 tsp | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Sliced mushrooms | 8 oz | dried and rehydrated works if the cooler is tight |
| Yellow onion | 1/2, diced | |
| Minced garlic | 2 tsp | the jarred kind keeps fine |
| Beef broth | 2 cups | or 2 cups water plus 2 bouillon cubes |
| Cream cheese | 4 oz | cut into small cubes |
| Sour cream | 1 cup | shelf-stable swap: 1/2 cup sour cream powder plus 1/2 cup water |
| Worcestershire sauce | 1 tbsp | |
| Cornstarch | 3 tbsp | |
| Egg noodles | 12 oz | |
| Dried parsley | 1 tbsp |
Method
- Get a bed of coals going. You want steady low heat for a couple of hours, not flames.
- Set the dutch oven over the coals with the oil. Salt and pepper the venison and brown it in two batches so it sears instead of steaming. Pull each batch to a plate.
- Add the mushrooms and onion to the same pot. Cook 5 minutes, until the mushrooms give up their water and it cooks off. Take the pot off the heat and stir in the garlic.
- Return the meat, pour in 1 1/2 cups of the broth, and add the Worcestershire. Lid on, a few coals underneath and more on the lid. Hold a bare simmer for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, until the venison shreds under a fork.
- Boil the noodles separately in salted water, drain, and set aside covered.
- Whisk the cornstarch into the remaining 1/2 cup of cold broth until there are no lumps. Stir it into the pot and simmer 5 minutes to thicken.
- Pull the pot off direct heat. Stir in the cream cheese cubes until they melt, then the sour cream. Do not let it boil after the dairy goes in or it will break.
- Fold in the noodles or spoon the stroganoff over them. Scatter the parsley.
Venison stew meat is lean and full of connective tissue, which means it is tough until it isn’t. There is no shortcut past the long low simmer. A dutch oven buried in coals does the same job a slow cooker does at home: steady heat, tight lid, no attention needed for two hours while you do something else.
The order at the end is the part that matters. Cornstarch needs a real simmer to thicken, dairy needs the pot off the heat. Do them in the wrong order and you get a grainy, broken sauce that no amount of stirring fixes. Cream cheese first because it melts slowly, sour cream last because it is the most fragile. This is a car-camping recipe by design, but the variations list makes it cooler-free if you want it.
Packing
Cube the venison at home and freeze it flat in a zip bag; it doubles as a cooler ice block for the first day. Dice the onion at home too. Cream cheese, sour cream, broth, noodles, and cornstarch go in one bin so dinner is one trip to the car.
Variations
- Swap the sour cream for a powdered version and the broth for bouillon and water, and this holds for a second or third night out with no cooler at all.
- Beef chuck works the same way if the freezer has no venison.
- Instant mashed potatoes instead of noodles cuts the second pot and the noodle water.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/slow-cooker-venison-stroganoff