Venison Sausage Cheese Balls - recipe straight off the box!

[mazzgolf]

We had a box of Bisquick in the house; didn't know what to do with it, so I looked at the recipes on the box and this one intrigued me so I made it. (recipe called for pork sausage, I just used venison sausage instead).

WOW! This is really good. A GREAT appetizer (or just scarf them all down yourself for a meal ).

Very easy to make. Anyone can do it. You don't even need venison sausage already - if you only have ground venison, just mix in some spices and you are good to go.

Venison Sausage Cheese Balls

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb. venison sausage (see notes)

• 3 cups Bisquick Baking Mix

• 4 cups shredded cheddar cheese

• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 1/2 cup milk

• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary leaves, crushed

• 1/2 tsp dried parsley

• (optional) BBQ sauce, Sriracha or other chili sauce, or other dipping sauces

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Take a baking sheet or cookie tray and line it with parchment paper or lightly grease it

3. In a large bowl, use your hands to mix all ingredients (except for the dipping sauces)

4. Shape into balls between 1 and 1.5 inches in diameter

5. Place each ball 1/2 inch apart on the baking sheet

6. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the baking sheet half way through, until golden brown

7. Serve warm

8. You can dip in one of the dipping sauces, but that is not necessary; these cheese balls are good as-is

NOTES:

If you don't have venison sausage but do have ground venison, you can easily make sausage by mixing sausage spices into the ground venison by hand. For 1 pound of ground venison, mix in:

• 1 tsp dried parsley

• 1 tsp Italian seasoning (oregano, basil, rosemary, etc. - just add to taste)

• 3/4 tsp black pepper

• 1/4 tsp fennel seed

• 1/2 tsp paprika

• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (skip or adjust if you don’t want it hot)

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp garlic powder

• 1/2 tsp onion powder

• 1 oz ice water

The full cheese ball recipe makes a lot. You can cut the amounts in half or even a quarter. Using 1/4 pound venison sausage (and dividing all other ingredients by 4) results in about 1 dozen cheese balls. Using 1/2 pound results in about 2 dozen and a full pound results in about 4 to 5 dozen. It all depends on how big or small you make the cheese balls.

To make about 1 dozen cheese balls, use 1/4 pound of venison sausage with this amount of ingredients:

• 3/4 cups Bisquick Baking Mix

• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

• 2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

• 2 Tbsp cup milk

• 1/8 tsp dried rosemary leaves, crushed

• 1/8 tsp dried parsley

[archer36]

Looks great. Do you finish them off with a sauce or something. Is it more like an appetizer/finger food? 

[Recurve hntr]

I’m gonna give this one a try. Easy and sounds delicious 

[mazzgolf]

1 hour ago, archer36 said:

Looks great. Do you finish them off with a sauce or something. Is it more like an appetizer/finger food? 

I think these are more like an appetizer. "Finger food" is a good word for it, yes.

I did try dipping in a little BBQ sauce, and also tried with a little Srirachi chili sauce (those 2 things are what the box recipe said to try), but honestly, these are good as-is without any dipping sauce. I think the BBQ sauce overwhelms the flavor of the venison and the cheese. So in my opinion, just put these on a platter and let people pick them off one by one as a finger food.

[mazzgolf]

Here's the actual recipe from the box. It also says the full recipe makes about 8.5 dozen but I don't see how that's possible unless you make them really small.