Venison and Gouda Camp Meatloaf
Ground venison, bacon, and smoked gouda baked in a dutch oven over coals.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 10 oz
- cal / oz
- 62
- protein
- 45 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 30 min
- cook
- 75 min
- total time
- 105 min
- water
- 120 ml cold
- 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
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Ground venison | 3 lb | |
|---|---|---|
| Bacon, ground or minced fine | 8 oz | goes into the meat, not on top |
| Yellow onion, diced | 1 large | |
| Italian style bread crumbs | 2 cups | |
| Grated parmesan | 1 cup | the shelf-stable green-can kind is fine |
| Eggs | 4 | |
| Tomato paste | 6 oz | |
| Beef or venison stock | 1/2 cup | bouillon plus 120 ml water works |
| Dried oregano | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt and black pepper | 2 tsp each | |
| Baby spinach | 4 cups | packs down to almost nothing |
| Smoked gouda, sliced | 8 oz | |
| Bacon strips for the top | 6 slices | |
| Ketchup | 1/2 cup | |
| Brown sugar | 1/4 cup | |
| Coffee rub or garlic powder | 1 tbsp |
Method
- Build a fire early and let it burn down. You want coals, not flames, and enough of them to run a dutch oven for over an hour.
- Mix the venison, ground bacon, onion, bread crumbs, parmesan, eggs, tomato paste, stock, oregano, salt, and pepper in a large bowl or bag. Work it until the color is even, then stop.
- Press half the meat into the bottom of a 12-inch dutch oven, flattening it into a slab. Layer on the spinach and the gouda slices, keeping them a finger's width from the edge.
- Cover with the rest of the meat and seal the edges so the cheese has nowhere to escape. Lay the bacon strips across the top.
- Stir the ketchup, brown sugar, and coffee rub together and brush it over the bacon.
- Set the oven on a ring of coals with more coals on the lid, roughly a third under and two thirds on top. Bake about 75 minutes.
- Pull it when the center reaches 160F. Let it sit fifteen minutes with the lid off before cutting, or it falls apart.
This is camp cooking, not trail cooking. Three pounds of raw meat and a cooler are the entry fee, and the payoff is a dinner that feeds six with enough left for sandwiches. Venison is lean enough to bake into a brick on its own, so the ground bacon is structural: it puts fat back in, and the bread crumbs and stock hold the moisture that fat releases.
The stuffing is what makes it worth the effort. Filling the pot halfway, laying in spinach and gouda, then sealing the rest of the meat over it puts a melted layer through the middle instead of cheese sweating out the sides. Keep the filling back from the edges. A dutch oven over coals runs hotter on the bottom than an oven does, so weight the coals toward the lid and check the center temperature rather than the clock.
Packing
Grind and mix the meat base at home, freeze it flat in a heavy bag, and let it act as your cooler ice for the drive. Glaze ingredients premix into one jar. Cheese and bacon stay in the cooler.
Variations
- No dutch oven: split the mix into two foil loaf pans, tent with foil, and set them on a grill grate over indirect coals.
- Ground beef or a beef and pork mix stands in for venison at the same weight.
- Leftovers cut cold the next day and go on bread without reheating.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/spinach-and-smoked-gouda-cheese-stuffed-venison-meatloaf-recipe