Why wild venison should be on your festive table

In recent decades, the number of UK deer has, to quote Forestry England in 2022, “skyrocketed”. With an absence of predators or sufficient culling, deer numbers may have more than tripled since the 1970s – and wild herds roaming freely across the countryside, eating through farm crops, vegetation and saplings, are doing traumatic damage to Britain’s biodiversity.

Consequently, national agencies, land managers and private businesses are now encouraging Britain to eat more wild venison. There’s broad agreement that we must cull greater numbers of deer (particularly free-roaming herds), and to make that financially sustainable for stalkers who cull professionally, increasing consumer demand is vital.

Wild venison has long been common in gourmet restaurants, especially at Christmas. Arguably, it’s still perceived as meat for the elite, but it’s now making inroads in wider society. It’s becoming easier to buy wild venison, not just from specialist game suppliers and butchers, but in wider food retail (where farmed venison has long been the standard product). New bodies, such as British Quality Wild Venison, are working to expand understanding of what is a marginal meat compared to big sellers such as chicken or pork – but one racking up some impressive wins.

Last November, Imperial College London replaced beef on its menus with venison or plant-based alternatives. Using venison from Forestry England lands, 15 NHS trusts now regularly serve venison as part of patient meals and in cafeterias. Since 2023, The Country Food Trust has distributed more than two million free wild venison meals to organisations helping fight food poverty.

The sustainability case for eating UK wild venison over intensively farmed meats could not be stronger. It is categorised as a low-intensity food, reared without any need for concentrated feed, medication or built farm infrastructure. Venison’s carbon footprint comes mainly from its methane emissions, which will be reduced by cutting deer numbers in order to protect crucial natural landscapes that remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Precious environments, such as Scotland’s west coast rainforest, are overgrazed by deer, inhibiting healthy regeneration. “We’re sitting on a rainforest that can’t grow because a delicious food source is nibbling at the shoots,” says Patrick Hanna, sustainability consultant at the Sustainable Restaurant Association.

This byproduct of sensitive land management is healthy (high-protein, comparatively low in fat and a good source of minerals, including iron) and comparable in price or cheaper than beef. Importantly, it’s very tasty, too.

In our diets, “the aspiration should be to reduce meat, improve its quality,” Hanna says, adding that venison is an “ideal, nature-positive protein”.

Wild venison cuts and how to use them

Shank

A tougher cut for braising and stewing.

Try it in our venison madras, squash & venison tagine or spiced braised venison with chilli & chocolate.

Shoulder

A good option for slow roasting.

Try slow cooking in our venison stew or in our go-to winter venison pie.

Diced

Use in stews, stir-fries, or ragus, depending on the cut.

Use diced venison in our easy venison pie and easy venison stew.

Mince

A great swap for beef mince in most recipes. Try it in our venison cottage pie and easy venison keema.

How is wild venison defined?

Britain has a small deer farming sector. Due to the resilient, hardy nature of deer, farming can be a relatively low-intensity, low-intervention practice that can produce comparatively sustainable meat, when done well at a small scale.

The bulk of UK-processed venison involves wild animals – that is, animals reared without medical intervention and, during specific seasons, dispatched by shot in the field. Some wild deer are contained within estate lands and managed in minimal ways; for example, winter feed may be supplemented with hay or silage (fermented grass).

There are also entirely free-roaming wild deer herds found in numerous landscapes. In both cases, deer numbers must be managed through culling to protect ecosystems.

Where to buy wild venison

Wild venison is known as an autumn to winter meat that’s usually seen from September to April, in step with traditional hunting seasons. However, in Scotland, there’s now no closed season for male deer, so there’s year-round availability. For Christmassy feasting cuts, such as rolled haunch or larger saddle pieces, speak to your butcher or specialist suppliers, such as:

Pipers farm

From Dartmoor, Exmoor and wider Devon, with everything from huge shoulder joints for casseroles to osso bucco cuts available.

Swaledale butchers

A favourite supplier among top chefs, it carries fallow deer venison from Yorkshire’s 4,000-acre Harewood Estate.

Field & flower

Mince to haunch, drawn from wild deer culled in south-west England (mainly roe and fallow).

Forest to fork

A rare full-chain business that butchers and retails the venison it stalks. For the ultimate in wild, local food, visit the Scottish Highlands and buy direct.

Cooking venison at Christmas

Working with "such incredible meat" was, says Patrick, "a high point in my career as a chef." But if you're unfamiliar with venison, it can be intimidating.

This is not one standard red meat but, in the UK, several species (muntjac, sika, Chinese water, roe, fallow, red) that vary in size and flavour. "In blind tasting, an 8kg muntjac compared to a 150kg red stag is night and day," says Brett Graham, chef at London's three-Michelin-starred The Ledbury (he's also a wild venison supplier through his company, Capability Graham).

Broadly, smaller, younger deer yield meat with a tender, velvety texture and milder flavour, while older, larger deer produce complex, gamier meat. Body fat varies by age, size and season, but venison is a lean meat. Whether frying steaks from the saddle (loin, fillet or utilising minced shoulder, venison often requires a little extra fat in the pan (usually pork derived) to make it sing.

Several cuts, particularly the haunch (back leg), are interlaced with tough connective tissue that's best removed by a butcher. That's why haunch and venison shoulder are often sold de-boned and rolled for slow-roasting or braising, or diced for stewing (neck, shoulder, shank/leg).

"Venison", says Si Toft, chef-owner at Abersoch's The Dining Room, "requires specific handling," but: "I don't think there's any reason to be scared of it."

Venison pie

Diced venison pie is “great for December,” advises Jane Baxter, chef at Kingsbridge’s Wild Artichokes. Venison works well with festive spices such as mace, allspice and cinnamon, which Jane combines with dried stone fruits and orange zest in her rough puff topped take on the Dartmouth pie – a mutton pie that Jane learned to cook in the 80s at legendary Devon restaurant The Carved Angel.

Jane’s version, in which spiced, browned venison is braised in stock with onions and dried fruit for a couple of hours, encourages personal variation with the spices or fruit. “Play around,” she urges.

Stuffed venison haunch

On Christmas Day, Brett Graham has previously basted a sika deer’s whole saddle and rib section in reduced cider vinegar, salt, pepper and brown sugar, then roasted it before serving the venison perched atop a large tray, “like a medieval feast. As a centrepiece, it looks spectacular.”

He also loves haunch, de-boned, flattened and massaged with Italian fig mostarda or Seville orange marmalade, juniper and dried clementine zest, then stuffed with sautéed mushrooms, rolled-up and roasted. “You need stuff in there to lubricate it,” he says. He also suggests adding bacon or lardo di colonnata (cured pork fat).

Serve the haunch with smoked bone marrow, wild mushrooms, roast sprouts with duck fat croutons and bacon, and a pommes sarladaises interleaved with slices of smoked prune.

Venison mince on toast

From a “so simple, it’s ridiculous” leaf salad with pear, blue cheese and slices of rare venison in a port vinaigrette, to steaks fried in a coating of goose fat and spiced with juniper and star anise, The Dining Room’s Si Toft loves to eat venison in numerous ways.

But his mince on toast (fried bread, preferably), is “proper winter comfort food.” Cook garlic and a mirepoix, bolognese-style, before adding bacon (“the right fat”), venison, spices (Toft likes a background note of nutmeg), some Worcestershire sauce and red wine. Let that bubble away until the sauce holds on the back of a spoon.