Venison French Dips in the Instant Pot

Perfectly savory and tender venison French dip sandwiches made in the Instant Pot, plus ideas for repurposing the leftovers for two additional delicious and freezer-friendly meals!

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Hands down one of the most popular recipes from my cookbook, Family Meals From Scratch in Your Instant Pot, are the French Dip Sandwiches. Everyone who tries them raves about how delicious and easy they are…then continues to make them again and again. One “follower” (don’t love that word) on Instagram this week answered that getting an Instant Pot would be worth it just to make these sandwiches.

I mean, I don’t disagree, but stick around long enough and you’ll be wanting to make all kinds of things in your Instant Pot.

When Kate from the super popular Naptime Kitchen bought her first Instant Pot this year, I offered to send her a copy of my cookbook. Actually, I also offered to come down and show her how to use it, but I’m glad she at least took me up on one of those.

Kate tried and loved the French Dip Sandwiches, and then, being the kitchen whiz that she is, did something brilliant with her leftovers.

NTK Vegetable Soup + Leftover Au Jus and shredded French dip = Comfort, flavor bliss.

Every time Kate made the French dips, then turned the leftovers into delicious soup, she shared about it in her Instagram stories. We both received lots of requests for the soup recipe, and the French dip recipe, so we decided to work together on a fun project…more on that in a moment.

Venison French Dips in the Instant Pot

The first time I wanted to try subbing a venison roast for a beef roast, I messaged my friend Kate from Venison for Dinner. (Yes, this is going to get confusing. Now that I have two blogging friends named Kate, there always has to be the clarification, is this Naptime Kitchen Kate or Venison for Dinner Kate???).

VFD Kate is, of course, who I should ask about having…venison for dinner. She told me just to increase the overall cook time when subbing a venison roast. Another trick she does when cooking more pounds of roast is to cut the roast into large chunks, allowing you to actually reduce the cook time.

Venison substitutes really well for beef in French dips because you don’t need to extra fatty content to build the flavor of the dish. The cooking liquid is so flavorful, whichever type of meat you choose.

The time the roast takes to cook is also the perfect amount for making homemade sub rolls! This recipe is easy and can be finished in just an hour. It’s what I use every time we have French dips!

I almost exclusively use venison roasts to make French dips so that I can save the fattier chuck roasts for making the pot roast recipe in my cookbook. (Also, incredibly tasty and a must-try!)

When I made French dips this weekend, I added a little extra meat so that I would be sure to have enough for leftovers.

Two Ways to Enjoy Leftover French Dip

Kate and I are both sharing French Dip recipes today- she’s sharing the beef version and I’m sharing the venison version. We are also both sharing brand new recipes for repurposing the leftovers!

• Naptime Kitchen Beef & Vegetable Soup
• French Dip Empanadas

Both recipes are freezer friendly, too, so you can make the French dip sandwiches for dinner one night, then use the leftovers to put a meal or two into the freezer for another night.

(Kate is also a freezer GENIUS, so if you want to feel like you are using that “magic box” to its fullest, check out her incredible Naptime Kitchen Guide to Freezing in her shop).

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