The Wild Harvest Table website is a resource for game and fish recipes, nutrition information, and preparation techniques from Cornell Cooperative Extension's Moira Tidball.

When you are preparing venison meat for something that requires strips or cubes of meat, you will often be cutting around the bones in hind steaks and trimming the connective tissue off the meat to make nice even strips or perhaps you have a shoulder steak with funky bones to cut around and there are lots of “waste” pieces. Instead of feeding those bones and scraps to the dogs, make some soup!

Bone broth soup is very healthy. The marrow in the bone contains minerals and amino acids. The connective tissue that can be very tough as part of a grilled venison steak, breaks down and tenderizes during the long cooking time when used in broth/soup. The connective tissue also contains gelatin which becomes collagen in our system which helps with joints and skin elasticity. And, besides the health benefits, venison broth tastes delicious and helps utilize more of your hard-earned deer harvest!

To Make Venison Broth:

• Place venison bones, and scrapes of meat into a large stock pot.
• Add some big chunks of celery, carrot, garlic clove, and onion, about one of each. These can also be discarded ends from other cooking projects.
• Add a handful of fresh parsley if you have some
  
• Add about 1/2 cup of wine or 2 Tbsp of red wine vinegar. The acidity helps infuse flavors and break down the meat.
• Cover the mixture with cold water.
• Place on medium high heat and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat until you have a nice simmer/gently boil on the broth. Remove any froth that forms with a slotted spoon.
• Cover and let gently simmer for at least 4 hours.
• Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool down a bit. Then place it in the refrigerator overnight. This settles the broth and the fat will harden on the top.
• To finish the broth, remove the pan from the refrigerator and remove as much hardened fat from the top as desired (there won’t be that much really).
• Strain the broth/stock through a cheese cloth lined strainer into another pan.
• Taste the liquid broth. If desired add salt and pepper to taste or wait to season if making soup. You can drink this broth as is or make into soups and sauces.
• You may want to poke remaining marrow out of the bone pieces to stir back into your soup or use in another way (if nothing else it would be a super healthy treat for a dog or cat if you try it and don’t like it).
• Save pieces of meat for making soup. You may be surprised at how tender the meat is now and easy to parse away from the bones for soup morsels.

To Make Minestrone-type Soup:

Ingredients:

• ~ 2 quarts of venison bone broth, strained through a colander lined with cheese cloth
  
• dash of olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2-3 carrots cut into thick,1/2-inch pieces (should fit on a spoon)
• 2-3 stalks of celery cut the same size as the carrot
• 2-3 potatoes, diced
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 cayenne pepper minced fine (or a dash of cayenne powder)
• 1 Tbsp, Italian herb dry spice mix
  
• handful of chopped fresh parsley, if available
• 1- 14-oz can of diced tomatoes or about 2 fresh tomatoes, chopped, include liquids
• I can red kidney beans, rinsed
• ~ 1 cup of venison meat pieces from making the broth (meat pieces around the bones & cartilage)
  
• salt and black pepper to taste
• ~2 cups of cooked small sized pasta, such as elbows, for serving (optional)
• fresh parsley and shredded Parmesan cheese to garnish each bowl (optional)

Preparation:

• In a large stock pot over medium high heat, place a dash of oil and stir in the onion, carrot, and celery.
• Cook for a few minutes until the onions become a bit translucent.
• Add the garlic, potatoes, cayenne pepper, and herb seasoning. Cook a minute more, being careful not to burn the garlic.
• Add the tomatoes and stir up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. You could add a splash of wine to help deglaze the pan if available.
• Add the venison bone broth and bring to a gentle boil.
• Simmer until the vegetables are tender and then add the kidney beans and bits of venison meat. Simmer a few minutes more to heat the beans and meat.
• Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

To serve:

If desired add some pasta to a bowl and ladle the soup on top. If you add the pasta into the entire pot of soup it can get mushy, so serving in individual bowls is better. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese and fresh chopped herbs on top. The soup tastes even better the next day (store in the refrigerator).