Venison Cheeseburger Macaroni Recipe… A Homemade One-pot Meal
This easy homemade venison cheeseburger macaroni recipe will quickly become one of your regular meals that your whole family will love. It tastes a lot better than the boxed version, and doesn’t have all of the preservatives found in a box of Hamburger Helper. This homemade copycat version is still a one-pot meal, and the easy cleanup makes my favorite dinners even better.
Homemade Cheeseburger Macaroni Ingredients
- ground venison
- chili powder
- cumin
- salt
- pepper
- garlic
- onion
- cilantro (or oregano)
- paprika
- red pepper flakes
- tomatoes (you can use Rotel if you like a little spice)
- beef broth
- elbow macaroni
- cheese
- milk
- flour
- butter
Equipment Needed for Cheeseburger Macaroni
You’ll need a large skillet (I use my cast iron dutch oven, Amazon affiliate link). Cast iron is healthier than toxic nonstick pans, and gives the recipe a better flavor.
Venison Cheeseburger Macaroni
There are some benefits to making this recipe with ground game meat, and we use deer meat since my family is blessed with the opportunity to hunt deer every year. Elk meat would also work well, and you could add beef broth to the ground venison while it cooks if it tastes a bit too gamey (or has been sitting in your freezer for over a year). You can read more about the health benefits of wild game meat in this article. We have the locker add 30% ground beef to our ground deer meat, just to give it some versatility for venison burgers (straight deer burgers don’t have enough fat, and are very dry).
Nutrient-packed Beef Broth
Adding a couple of cups of beef broth will also help increase your daily value of nutritional intake. The grocery store sells a variety of beef stock and broth, however I prefer to make my own homemade beef broth (this is one of my pantry staples). I would make venison broth, however we take our deer to the locker and do not have the bones to make the nutritious broth. So, for now I make the homemade version of Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper using beef broth.
Venison Cheeseburger Macaroni
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground venison
- 10 oz can tomatoes
- 3 cups beef broth
- 1½ cups elbow macaroni
Taco Seasoning
- 2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ⅔ teaspoon salt
- ⅔ teaspoon pepper
- ⅓ teaspoon garlic powder
- ⅓ teaspoon onion powder
- ⅓ teaspoon dried cilantro
- ⅓ teaspoon paprika
- ⅕ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Cheese Sauce
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 2 Tbsp flour
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 cup shredded cheese
Instructions
- Brown ground venison1 pound ground venison
- Add taco seasoning, and stir into the cooked ground venison2 teaspoon chili powder, 1 teaspoon cumin
- Add tomatoes, beef broth, and macaroni, boil covered until noodles are cooked10 oz can tomatoes, 3 cups beef broth, 1½ cups elbow macaroni
- While macaroni is cooking, make the cheese sauce:
- Melt butter in a separate pan (I use a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup)2 Tbsp butter
- Stir in flour, making a paste2 Tbsp flour
- Slowly add milk while stirring, thinning the paste¾ cup milk
- Once macaroni is cooked, add milk and flour mixture and cheese to the pan1 cup shredded cheese
- Cook an additional few minutes, until cheese melts, and the cheese sauce thickens.
Nutrition
Our Other Venison Recipes:
Great recipe!
This recipe is really simple, and tastes great! I make this in my 12” cast iron for lunch meal prep because of the versatility and protein.
I recommend sautéing diced mushrooms and garlic right after the meat is browned to give it some extra depth. I also used a can of fire roasted tomatoes which turned out well. And you can never go wrong with more cheese!
I made this recipe on my son’s birthday. He turned 18.
He chose this as his birthday meal.
He loves it.!!!
Thank you for this simple and easy meal recipe. I appreciate you.
Awesome! Happy birthday to him!