If you’ve read any of my menu plans, you know that I pre-cook my ground beef. It totally works for me!
I sometimes wonder why I ever didn’t do this. For us, as a busy family, it means I can have dinner on the table within ten minutes. That’s faster than I could run out for fast food, or bake a frozen pizza. And these are “real” dinners.
I thought I’d share a list of the ways I use the pre-cooked ground beef. I took some pictures of last Saturday night’s easy supper. Does your husband roll his eyes too when you get your camera out to photograph dinner?
Things I could make right now in 10 minutes with the beef plus what I have in the pantry/freezer:
Spaghetti
Nachos
Things I could make in 20-30 minutes:
Pizza using canned pizza dough, canned biscuits, English muffins, bagels, or whatever.
Pizza pockets (pics below)
Tater tot casserole
Mexican casserole
Beef Stroganoff
Just a reminder, when you thaw the frozen, cooked ground beef, don’t put your microwave on full power. It defrosts amazingly quickly, and you’ll end up cooking it again, making it rubbery. On my microwave, I punch in 1:00, and then hit power, and then hit 1, and then start, which cooks it on 10% power. If it isn’t thawed after this, I do another minute at a time until it is. Most of these meals involve the meat being further heated, so I just need it thawed.
The nachos were something I made last night when we had Chicken Tortilla Soup. My husband and I love the soup, but it’s a little spicy for the kids, so I usually make nachos to go along with it so they will have something that they (and my husband) like. I normally open a can of ranch style beans to put on the nachos for some protein, but I was out. So I thawed some of the beef, and sprinkled it onto the chips before I added the cheese.
The pizza pockets in the picture above are one of our favorites. THey are perfect for a Saturday night meal that needs to be made quickly in order to stifle the urge to eat out!
I use Pillsbury pizza crust. I like the thin crust, because I don’t have to roll it out as much to make it big enough for 4 pockets. I thaw the ground beef, and sprinkle it onto the raw dough which I’ve cut into quarters with my pizza cutter. Then I add mozzarella cheese.
I fold up the sides, and then flip them to put the pretty side on top.
Since the meat is already cooked, I just bake according to the crust’s package directions.
I serve with dipping cups of marinara sauce. For my family of 5, I use two cans of dough and make 8 pizza pockets. My boys are growing fast, and I may have to make 12 before too long.
As someone who constantly struggles with keeping my house under control, this is a coping mechanism that I have developed. It’s very important to me to feed my family at home, but with my deficient organizational skills, I can get very overwhelmed by this. Having a large variety of meals already half-prepared by having the meat cooked saves me so much stress. It totally works for me!
Check out lots of other ideas at Works For Me Wednesday.
Great tip! I prebrown my meat too, and package it in quart size ziploc bags. I don't even use the microwave to thaw mine. It thaws so quickly on the counter or in just a minute or two under warm running water.
Here's mine this week:
http://homewithpurpose.blogspot.com/2009/09/quest-for-compassion.html
I do the same thing– isn't it wonderful to pull out that meat and whip up a dinner? 🙂 I did spaghetti last night with some pre-cooked beef and homemade sauce from my freezer. It was a nice homemade meal in about fifteen minutes- can't beat that!
Yeah, I'm kicking myself for not pre-cooking. I thought enough ahead to pre-portion before freezing, but I wish I'd browned some and shaped some into burgers before freezing. Have you ever frozen, thawed, cooked, then refrozen? Would that be too hard on the meat, do you think?
I have done this more than once, never had a problem with the taste or texture, and no one at my home has ever complain ed or had any digestive problems from it.
I'm new to your blog. Do you pre-cook anything else? I don't pre-cook ground beef, but I do pre-cook chicken. I'll have to try the beef.
Me too, me too! Sometimes I put onion and peppers in the meat when I cook them so that I have a little extra goodness for my meal.
Fiskeaux, I think it should be fine to thaw the frozen meat and cook it up to be frozen again. I'm definitely not a health department code expert, but I've definitely done that.
Meghan, I do precook some chicken. I'll probably do a post on that next week. Tonight, I used chicken breasts that I had previously grilled to make fajitas very quickly. With chicken, I do like freeze some raw, but when I cook it, I typically try to cook 2-3 meals worth to put in other dishes.
I bought a 3-pound package of ground beef but didn’t know what I would do with it. A quick web search and I found this page with a list of things to do, so I cooked up the beef, doled it out into 1lb freezer bags, and froze them. I’ve already used part of one for Korean kimbop and had intended to use some more as cheeseburger quesadillas, but my tortillas were really old. Ooops, really need to clean the fridge out!
My next goal is to use some for a quick tomato-based soup with barley and spinach some night.
Thanks for telling me what to do with the ground beef! 🙂
Okay…so I’m going to give this a try. A store not too far away has ground beef on sale this week, so it’s as good a time as any to do it. After seeing your list, it makes the thought of cooking on nights when I really don’t feel like it so much easier. And my son will love it for tacos and nachos. 🙂
Do you remember which post it was where you talked about the seasonings you add? Or would any favorite seasonings work just as well?
Duh. Never mind. I scrolled back up to look at the link again and there it was. 🙂
You may have started doing this already, but I cook a bunch of chicken breasts in the crock pot – just add water. Cook all day (6 -8 hours on low), then I shred them and package in pint size ziplocs for the freezer. I use it for pot pie, fried rice, chicken/stuffing casserole and chicken noodles.
I cook chicken breast in a crockpot with a jar of salsa pored over. You can put the chicken in frozen and cook 6-8 hours. The chicken is so moist and yummy! I then freeze the extra for future dinners.
I’ve been doing this for years too and it saves so much hassle! I remember my mom would say “brown the hamburger” SO many nights and I’d say “what’s for dinner?” And she’d say “I’ll figure it out when I get home!” She just wanted that head start. I also HATE draining the fat, so the all at once is perfect for me. I usually split off some to add taco seasoning and corn to (my moms way of stretching the beef and often using leftover corn) but I’ve also just added the taco seasoning and corn to the frozen crumbles.
I also do this with ground pork sausage to add crumbles to scrambled eggs, instead of hamburger in pasta dishes, for homemade pizza and in breakfast casseroles.
I’ve been relying on fast food far too much lately and your tips/reminders and meal plans are very motivational!!
I precook and freeze pork, too. Cook the pork roast or pork loin in your crockpot; shred it with your mixer (just like you do your chicken); package and freeze. I use this in most anything I would use chicken in (like barbecue sandwiches, green chili stew, fried rice, nachos, “chicken” spaghetti, tortilla soup…)
I often cook my ground beef with skinned sausages (variety pack from Costco) before I divide and freeze or can. Just mix them but not too thoroughly before cooking. The sausages add such a great flavour! I use them for spagetti sauce, pizza, casseroles or anything ground beef is called for. I make hamburgers like this too and my family loves them.
I have been buying 5-10 lbs of ground beef and I would fry it up on the weekend and then freeze it in small ziplock freezer bags. I would then flatten bags so I could stack them in the freezer. My freezing the meat into a pancake shape it makes it easy to quickly thaw.
I use it to make spaghetti, hamburger helper, tacos, nachos, skillet meals you find in the frozen food section of the grocery store.
It makes cooking dinner so much easier during the week when I come home and can have dinner ready in 15 minutes and not have a lot of dishes to clean up.