Interesting Meals Using Minced or Ground Beef

[lizzief79]

I am looking for some ideas from other members for some different ways I can use minced beef. It is one of the ingredients I get every week when I go grocery shopping. Generally, I make spaghetti bolognese, chilli con carne, moussaka or cottage pie with it. My family and I are quite creative in the kitchen and always willing to try out new dishes. Has anybody got any meal suggestions?

 

[crimsonghost747]

Most of my ground beef goes into different types of tex-mex cuisine. You've already mentioned chili con carne but there is also tacos, tortillas and nachos which can all be done with ground beef. Most of these are actually really easy and fast to make, and you can easily experiment with different ingredients to find what's the best for you.

 

[Chris_A]

You could try making different kinds of hamburgers with minced meat, if you like those. Very fast and easy to make. Another suggestion I have, and something I regularly cook myself is a filled red pepper tomato soup. You basically cook a standard tomato soup, and cook in big red bell peppers, which you have to fill with ground beef or minced meat and rice. Very tasty.

 

[crimsonghost747]

^^ That reminds me of tomatoes filled with minced meat. Cut of the top of the tomato, carve out the inside and fill it with minced meat. You can either throw them into the oven or grill them depending on what you feel like.

 

[Chris_A]

Yeah you have to prepare the peppers I use the same way. But you gave me an awesome idea with your suggestion. Grilled tomatoes filled with minced meat, sounds delicious.

 

[megshoe]

I second the filled bell peppers! You can try different various with rice, couscous, and other grains. Personally, I think feta cheese goes quite nicely in stuffed peppers. Couscous, ground beef, and feta stuffed peppers? That's my kind of meal

 

[Chris_A]

Indeed, cheese and minced meat combined with a veggie like bell peppers is awesome. Another good combination would be using those with sliced eggplants baked in the oven. Very nice!

 

[ReadmeByAmy]

Sometimes we just saute garlic, onion and chopped tomatoes with the minced or ground beef, put a little fish sauce, green peas and chopped potatoes and bell pepper and it is just easy to cook. Then we let it cool and then put it in the freezer. It is our emergency food and every time we go out of the house and came back home and we are in a hurry and hungry and had no time to cook, we just put this out of the freezer get some and beat one to two eggs and put some of it and makes beef omelette out of that mixture and we enjoy eating this kind of recipe for the ground beef.

 

[Chris_A]

I have yet to try adding fish sauce to my meals. It is very hard to get in my country and very expensive. But I think it is awesome, especially for Asian meals.

 

[Jade]

My favorite ground beef dishes are either tacos or tofu & ground beef. Depending on how you prefer it to be prepared. you can just deep fry the tofu directly or bread it first then top it with any recipe for a ground beef sauce that you think you'd like. I'd recommend finding either a Japanese or Chinese variation for this if you decide to try it, but any other way you could come up with should turn out fine as well.

 

[Jessi]

I use it mostly in Mexican dishes like tacos and enchiladas.

Picadillo is a good one, too. It's a Cubon dish that often uses potatoes and olives and is served over rice. I'm not a big fan of olives and neither is my boyfriend, but we both love this dish. The olives get cooked so the vinegar side ends up adding an extra kick without actually tasting the olives much. I highly recommend trying out a few variations before dismissing it (some are sweeter, some are spicy, and some are very mellow, but more potato-meat based, etc).

 

[OhioTom76]

- Swedish Meatballs over Egg Noodles. You can make the sauce from scratch, which isn't too hard, or just cheat and use some cream of mushroom soup with some beef broth and sour cream.

- Beef and Potato Curry. If you don't mind the strong smell of curry powder, this is pretty colorful and easy. Just parboil some peeled and cubed potatoes, then cook in a pan with your ground beef and curry powder. Toss in some frozen peas towards the end and server over steamed rice.

- Home made Sloppy Joes. If you are feeling a bit adventurous, there are a number of recipes online for making your own sauce from scratch.

- Sweet & Sour Meatballs. This is a really easy recipe that you usually see on the jar of Heinz Chili Sauce. It's just your regular recipe for beef meatballs, but then you simmer them in a sauce of Heinz Chili Sauce mixed with either Grape Jam or a can of Cranberry Sauce.