Ground beef is a very popular meat product. The reason ground beef is so popular is that you can cook a lot of different dishes to suit all tastes. Let’s review some of the most delicious, quick and easy ground beef recipes for dinner.
You can cook so many dishes with ground beef that I’m even having a hard time trying to count all of them: cutlets, meatballs, rolls, casseroles, it can be used for stuffing for different vegetables, cakes, pies, pastries, etc. And the thing is that dishes from the list mentioned above can be delicious, nutritious and at the same time light and dietary.
The first thing you need to do to cook something tasty with ground beef is to buy beef. Of course, quite often nowadays we want to buy ready-minced ground beef, and not waste extra time on its cooking – this should be done only in the case when you are sure of the seller and the quality of his/her products, although even in this case, some unpleasant surprises may still occur.
Keep in mind that the higher the quality of the meat is, the better ground beef you get. In general, rump, groin, a shoulder portion, pulp shank, the outer part of the sirloin and various scraps are suitable for making ground beef.
It doesn’t matter which part of the carcass you use for making good ground beef, it is better to pass the meat through a meat grinder two times – then it will become softer. If you want to make dietary ground beef, choose meat with the least amount of fat. Also, the meat is considered to be much softer if the cow was young.
When cooking various dishes with ground beef you should remember that the eggs that are so often added to dishes cooked with meat make its structure rougher. In order to make ground beef more viscose, it is better to add water – it will not make the meat tougher. Eggs should be added to ground beef only if the recipe requires you to.
So which delicious, but quick dishes can be made with ground beef?
Swedish Cutlets Recipe
You will need:
- meat 300g
- 1 onion
- 1 potato
- 1 egg yolk
- milk 4 tbsp
- pickled beets
- oil (Canola or Olive)
- breadcrumbs
- salt
Here are some delicious Swedish Cutlets Beef Meatballs
How to cook cutlets. Mix milk, egg yolk, and ground beef until smooth. Grind potatoes on a grater, add it to the ground beef with sliced beets, fried onions, stir it up and add salt to taste. Make cutlets, roll them in bread crumbs and fry in a pan until they are golden brown on both sides.
Dumplings Recipe
You will need:
- ground beef 500 g
- wheat bread 100 g
- 2 eggs
- 1 apple
- 1 onion
- sour cream 4 tbsp
- grated cheese
- chopped herbs 2 tbsp
- starch 1 tbsp
- pepper
- salt
How to cook dumplings with ground beef?
Chop the onion, mix it with the meat, add eggs, bread (soak it in milk) and cheese, salt and pepper. Make dumplings in the form of balls, put them in a pot of boiling salted water, boil after the dumplings surface from the water for another 5 minutes. Mix the starch and sour cream, pour in the water in which dumplings were cooked, slightly cool it, bring to a boil. Pour dumplings with sauce before serving.
Meat Hedgehogs Recipe
You will need:
- ground beef 500 g
- 1 onion
- 1 cup of half cooked rice
- black pepper
- salt
How to cook meat hedgehogs with ground beef. Finely chop onion and mix it with rice and ground beef, pepper and salt, roll balls with meat, breaded in flour and fry until brown in a pan with oil, throw them into a saucepan, add a little broth, cover, bake in the oven under the lid for 20 minutes and serve with sour cream.
The second common category of dishes with ground beef is all sorts of products stuffed with meat. Vegetables that may be stuffed include peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, etc., pasta, Italian cannelloni, eggs, mushrooms, pancakes. But the recipe I’d like to give you today is stuffed tomatoes.
Quick Stuffed Tomatoes Recipe
You will need
- ground beef
- onion
- garlic
- bread, soaked in milk (but not wheat bread)
- tomatoes
- pepper
- salt
- cheese
How to cook stuffed tomatoes. Cut off tops of tomatoes from the stalks, gently remove the pulp with a spoon, leaving the rest. Finely chop the onion and garlic, put in a pan with oil and fry until soft, put the ground beef and fry it until cooked, add pepper and salt (if you wish, you can also add pulp of tomatoes). Put ground beef in tomato cups, sprinkle with cheese on top and bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven at 180-200 degrees.
Quick Stuffed Pasta Shells Recipe
You will need:
- ground beef
- onion
- garlic
- pepper
- salt
- large pasta shells
How you can quickly stuff the pasta shells. In a frying pan fry the onion and garlic, add the ground beef and fry until half cooked, add pepper and salt. Stuff the pasta shells, put them in a pan, pour hot water over them so that it completely covers them, boil on low heat. Before serving, pour pasta shells with ketchup or any other sauce, sprinkle with cheese.
Another category of fast and popular dishes of ground beef – different rolls and casseroles.
‘Lazy’ Meat Casserole Recipe
You will need
- ground beef 500 g
- cheese 300 g
- 1 can of mushrooms
- Mayonnaise
- salt
How to cook the casserole with ground beef? Grease the form for casseroles with butter, put salted ground beef, cover with mayonnaise, put the sliced mushrooms, sprinkle everything with grated cheese, put in the preheated oven for 40-50 minutes and bake until cooked.
Quick Meat Roll Recipe
You will need:
- ground beef 700 g
- mushrooms 300-400 g
- 5 eggs
- 2 onions
- 2 slices of bread
- 1 carrot
- 1 egg yolk
- cold water 2-3 tbsp
- black pepper
- oil
- salt
How to quickly cook a meat roll? Grate the carrot on a coarse grater, put one onion in a meat grinder, finely chop the second one, chop the mushrooms and fry the mushrooms with sliced onion and carrots, salt and pepper, to evaporation of the liquid in the pan with oil.
Boil 3 eggs and chop them. Mix in a meat grinder bread, pre-soaked in water, mix it with onions, ground beef, add 2 eggs, water, salt, and pepper, mix well.
Put away a quarter of meat, put the rest in the form of the rectangle with a layer of about 1.5 cm on the plastic wrap. Put the mushrooms with onions and carrots on the ground beef, then – eggs, helping with the food film to raise the long sides of the rectangle toward the center making the roll.
Put the remaining ground beef on top. Bake the roll for 1 hour in the preheated oven up to 170-180 degrees, coat with egg yolk and bake until browning, raise the temperature to 200 degrees.
Ground beef can be just fried and added to pancakes or boiled eggs, and what is more, pancakes can be easily and quickly made out of ground beef.
Ground Beef Pancakes Recipe
You will need:
- ground beef
- 3 eggs
- flour 2 tbsp
- garlic
- pepper
- salt
How to cook meat pancakes? Hammer raw eggs into the ground beef, add the flour, the crushed garlic, pepper, salt, whip the meat up to the consistency suitable for pancakes. Spread the stuffing pieces into a hot frying pan and cook the pancakes, immediately making rolls. After baking pancakes sprinkle them with herbs and serve with fresh vegetables.
Beef is tasty and healthy meat, if you cook the ground beef with your hands, the dishes cooked with it will always be very nutritious and delicious!
All those bad things you’ve been hearing about ground beef refer to meat that was prepared in the conditions you have no information about. Moreover, if you’re not certain what ingredients have been put in those dishes, there is a high chance it’s not as healthy as ground beef cooked at home.
If you buy ground beef at grocery stores, there is a high chance of getting ground beef with preservatives, colorants and other chemical additives that prolong its shelf life. So I’d strongly recommend you get yourself your own mincing machine.
Yes, you’ll have to spend additional time mincing the beef, but at least, you’ll be certain in its quality and nutritional value. In fact, those who cook with ground beef minced in their own mincing machines claim that it’s much more delicious than ground beef bought at grocery stores.
In order to make your own ground beef, mince 1 pound of beef and 1 pound of pork, 3 garlic cloves, 2 onion bulbs, and 200 g bread soaked in milk.
Now add 2 eggs to the mix, a little bit of salt and pepper and start mincin’! The better you mince it, the smoother and softer it will be. Now you can be certain in the quality of your ground beef!
