You Pinspire Me
I love making life easier. Any sort of tip or trick to make meal prep faster and easier is great to learn. And while I love cooking meals and casseroles with ground beef, it takes a certain amount of forethought. Get the meat out the night before. Thaw it in the fridge. Put it in the frying pan and start hacking at the remaining frozen chunks, all while trying not to get raw ground beef all over the stove.
So, here is my favourite ground beef hack. We buy our meat in bulk (and it’s still getting SO expensive!!). Rather than freezing the giant chunk, or even separating the raw meat into smaller portions, COOK it all up! Get a big pan, throw in some peppers, onions, even carrots – whatever you’d like. Cook the meat fully and drain all your fat – this way you are only dealing with raw meat one time. When it is drained (I even like to put it in a colander and rinse it to get more fat out) allow it to cool slightly.
Get out a bunch of sandwich-sized freezer bags. This size is the perfect amount of meat to add to a meal. Put the bag over a coffee cup, pulling the edge up and over. Fill the bags to desired fullness and let sit to cool a little longer.
Lay the bags flat and seal them. Look how little space it takes up!! Label and date them, and stack them in your freezer. That’s it!
Here’s why I LOVE it!
- No more dealing with raw meat!
- Thaws super quickly – either in the frying pan, or just throw right into casseroles/slow cooker recipes!
- Great for last-minute meals!
You can also get creative and add your seasonings before freezing – for tacos, spaghetti, or even chili.
Do you have any dinner prep hacks that simplify your life?
Marya R
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We actually quit eating ground beef a couple of months ago and went to ground turkey, but these tips would work great for that too!
I’ve never thought of this before, what a great idea! Thanks for sharing and for giving instructions!
What a great idea to store beef. I’m going to do this.
This is such a neat trick. I can’t stand handling raw meat. Thanks for sharing!
What a nice hack. 🙂 I always have a hard time thawing frozen meat. This is a mus-try.
Love this! I do this often. Two other things I love to pre-cook: shredded chicken (cook up a bunch of chicken, breasts, legs or thighs) and cut it up into little pieces and freeze, and rice. I actually bake the rice in a Pyrex in an oven (cover rice with broth or water) until it’s done, cool and freeze in meal-size packs.
Brilliant!! Thanks for the tips – will have to try them!!
I like this hack because I do not like dealing with hamburger meat that I have to defrost. I would much rather use your method.