Less time in the kitchen.

I found a great deal on ground beef yesterday. It was marked down to $1.69/pound, which is a pretty good deal in my area.  It was 4.59 pounds and it had a use-by date of May 2nd (today).  Which means it needs to be used or frozen in a hurry because I am a stickler for that when it comes to ground beef.

In this situation, I practice a method that I first learned about on www.aslobcomesclean.com.

I pre-cook the ground beef.  I do this for safety/quality reasons, and also to speed up meal prep.




I placed the entire 4.59 pounds of ground beef in my largest skillet.  It looked like this.

That is a lot of ground beef.  I cooked it and drained the grease.  Then it looked like this:

I divided it into 4 equal portions (they are slightly less than a pound each due to loss from shrinkage, but in the spirit of eating less meat, they will work fine in any recipe calling for a pound of meat).  I bagged three of them up into freezer bags, and will use the other portion for tonight's dinner.

Let them cool for 15-20 minutes before placing in the freezer. 

This whole thing took less than 20 minutes and only dirtied up one pan and one spoon.



Meals that this method is appropriate for:

chili
tacos
sloppy joes
spaghetti
lasagna
goulash
shepard's pie
pretty much anything where you brown and crumble the ground beef before proceeding with the rest of the recipe

Precooking the ground beef will cut the time for these recipes by at least 15 minutes.

To me, that there is no noticeable difference in the finished recipe. Most of the recipes that I use that call for ground beef also call for the addition of spices, sauces and gravies. I really can't tell that the ground beef has been previously cooked then frozen. It also thaws much more quickly and can be broken up to defrost in the microwave in a minute or to. Or, if making chili or spaghetti, just add the frozen beef straight to the pot along with the other ingredients.


Meals that this method is not appropriate for:

meatballs
hamburgers
meatloaf
anything where you DON'T brown and crumble the ground beef first