Venison Meatloaf Skillet with Buffalo Ketchup
Camp-kitchen meatloaf that never sees a loaf pan. Ground venison, bacon, and a sticky buffalo glaze cooked flat in cast iron.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 45 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 65 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
- Campfire coals
- Dutch oven
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Ground venison | 2 lb | kept frozen in the cooler until the night you cook it |
|---|---|---|
| Bacon | 8 oz | chopped, not laid over the top |
| Bread | 6 slices | crusts torn off, day-old is better than fresh |
| Powdered milk | 3 tbsp | reconstituted with 120 ml cold water |
| Yellow onion | 1 medium | diced |
| Ranch dressing mix | 1 packet | |
| Grated parmesan | 1 cup | shelf-stable shaker cheese works |
| Eggs | 4 | beaten |
| Dried parsley | 2 tbsp | |
| Seasoned salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Ketchup | 1 cup | |
| Tomato paste | 1 can (6 oz) | |
| Brown sugar | 1/4 cup | |
| Buffalo wing sauce | 1/2 cup |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want steady low heat for close to an hour, not flame.
- Stir the powdered milk into 120 ml of cold water. Tear the bread into it and let it sit until the pieces fall apart.
- Chop the bacon and render it in a 12-inch cast iron skillet or dutch oven over the coals. Pull the bacon out and leave the fat behind. Cook the onion in that fat until soft, then pull it out too.
- Off the heat, mix the venison with the eggs, parmesan, ranch mix, parsley, seasoned salt, salt, cooked onion, and bacon. Work the soaked bread in last, by hand, until you cannot see streaks of bread.
- Press the mixture flat into the greased skillet, about an inch and a half thick, and leave a finger of space around the edge.
- Stir the ketchup, tomato paste, brown sugar, and buffalo sauce together in a cup. Spread half over the meat.
- Set the skillet over low coals, lid on, and shovel a few coals onto the lid. Cook 40 to 50 minutes. Add the rest of the glaze in the last ten.
- It is done when a knife pushed into the center comes out hot and the juices run clear. Let it sit five minutes before cutting.
Meatloaf is a bad camp dish on paper: an hour of oven heat, a loaf pan, a fridge full of binders. Most of that is solvable. Cooked flat in a covered skillet with coals on the lid, it heats from both sides and finishes in about the time it takes to eat the appetizer. Pressing it thin instead of shaping a loaf is the whole trick.
Venison has almost no fat, which is why this needs help. The bacon goes into the mix rather than draped on top so its fat ends up throughout the meat instead of pooling on the surface. Eggs, parmesan, and milk-soaked bread hold it together without a pan. Powdered milk replaces fresh here because it does the same job to the bread and does not take up cooler space. The glaze goes on in two passes so the sugar in it does not scorch over direct coals.
Packing
Mix the ranch packet, parsley, both salts, and the parmesan into one bag at home. Combine the glaze ingredients in a screw-top jar so it is one pour at camp. Venison, bacon, and eggs ride in the cooler on ice.
Variations
- Ground beef with a tablespoon of oil stands in for venison. Venison is lean enough that the bacon fat is doing real work.
- No buffalo sauce means hot sauce plus a spoonful of oil, mixed into the ketchup.
- Leftovers cold on bread the next morning are better than they should be.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/venison-meatloaf-with-spicy-buffalo-sauce