My neighbor gave it to me, but I’m not sure what to do with it. Ideas?
It’s great in chili, or sloppy joes. I don’t like it plain, but it tastes wonderful in tomatoey things, like spaghetti sauce.
Use it the same as ground beef. Tastes the same as ground beef to me.
How about shipping it over this way… it’s been a while since I’ve had venison. 
Okay, okay. Fine. How about some venison burgers or venison chili?
We used deer meat to make tacos once. Called 'em “dacos” - and they weren’t bad. Just replaced hamburger with deer.
If it was mine, I’d make it all into jerky. I’m a deer-jerky addict. Of course, that may not at all be what you are looking for.
Brendon Small
Pretty much anything you make it in will come out exactly as if you had used hamburger.
You could always reprocess it into sausage if you have the means or know someone who does.
Four quarter-pound Bambi-burgers?
Mmmmm…deer loaf…
I’ll second this. I’ve had some very excellent venison spaghetti sauce.
Or, as my brother the hunter calls them, sloppy does.
Dice up a quarter pound of bacon and fry it up. Remove the bacon and keep the grease, take the meat and mix up a cup of diced raw onions and diced green peppers, along with an egg for a binder, the cooked bacon and some season salt for flavoring. Form into burgers and fry them up in the remaining bacon grease. Top with real Wisconsin cheddar and serve them up on some fresh buns. Pop open some Leinies or some Point and you’re ready to rock.
That is truely dreadful. I love it.
I was popping in to say that you could substitute it in for been in your favorite chili recipe but it seems that that’s been covered.
Keep in mind that unless the ground venison has been mixed with additional fat (Dad usually had the butcher mix in a little pork fat, IIRC), it is so lean that sometimes a splash of oil or fat is handy to keep it from sticking while cooking.
There are no beens in real chili! Sacrelege!
Mix it with some Jimmy Dean pork sausage and serve with breakfast.
My hunter f-i-l shares this with us ocasionally. I have a recipe called “hunter’s chili” which isn’t tomatoey at all. Lots of onions, sage, and turmeric. It’s pretty yummy.
If you haven’t already made Cluricaun’s dee-licious sounding burgers out of it by the time I’m in the same place as the recipe I’d be happy to find it for you.
The “gamey” taste many people object to in venison isn’t inherent in the meat–it comes from poor processing. If the venison was prepared by an amateur or by a company that mostly deals with beef, then it’ll have a stronger taste. Personally, I like that taste in chili. If it just tastes like beef, then why not just make a hamburger?
Here’s how I’d do the chili. I don’t have quantities on many of the ingredients because I tweak 'em every time I cook chili and I substitute ingredients freely:
1 pound ground venison, browned (2 pounds would be better)
one large anaheim pepper (diced and cooked with meat)
one serrano or jalapeno (diced and cooked with meat)
one onion (chopped and cooked with meat)
1 can (drained) black beans
1 can (drained) red chili beans
1 bottle porter or stout
1 small can tomato paste
1 small can tomato sauce
chili powder
garlic - the fresher the better - lots of it
cumin
paprika
crushed red chiles
thyme (just a touch)
cilantro
turmeric
sage (not much)
1 square baking chocolate
about a teaspoon of peanut butter for texture
Put in crock pot, set on low. Cook all day long.
Check on it every hour or so and give it a stir. If it’s too liquidy, leave the lid off for the last hour and let some liquid boil off. If it’s too thick, add a bit more of the liquid of your choice.
(note - I’m not home right now and I’ve probably forgotten some ingredients)
Seconded. It’s a lean meat, which affects both how one cooks it, and how it tastes. As noted, add some egg yolk, and/or oil, and/or other fat (like from pork belly) to the grind.
And I use it to make scratch mole. Though I think elk is better.
Use it in a 1:1 ratio with beef in the red sauce for lasagne. Tastes heavenly. Course you have to make sure that the sauce simmers for a good couple of hours and contains about three quarters of a bottle of red wine (what?! 
), but it is yummy! And I have Dopers to thank for it!
Let us know how you like it, whatever you do with it. In my experience, venison is never preferable to the beef equivalent.