Garden Skillet Supper (a.k.a Ground Beef and Vegetables)
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My easy-peasy and healthy garden skillet supper includes ground beef and lots of fresh vegetables (think juicy baked garden tomatoes, squash, and bell pepper) served over noodles or rice.
It’s garden skillet supper recipe time! I love me some veggies and the great part about this recipe is you can use veggies that are available all year round. So this one-pan skillet meal can be a healthy supper or lunch in the fall, winter, spring, or summer. It just doesn’t matter. You can add fresh veggies from the garden or get them from the grocery store, whatever cranks your tractor!
This garden skillet meal is a simple go-to weeknight dinner, one like our grandmothers would just throw together and not even consider a recipe. But today I’m going to show you how to make a fresh, flavorful, and filling ground beef skillet with just enough seasonings to enhance all of the flavors without covering any of them up.
As the title suggests, you need ground beef and vegetables to make this main meal, as well as dried or fresh parsley, and some salt and pepper. That’s all the seasoning you need. For the fresh mixed vegetables, I’m using garden tomatoes that we quickly broil to make them extra tasty, flavorful, and juicy. Then I add bell pepper, squash, and onion, but you can use any vegetables you like or have on hand.
In 30 minutes and one pan (slash cast iron skillet), your ground beef and vegetables will be ready to serve to your hungry family. I love to serve this with noodles or rice, but I’ve included further serving suggestions below. Are you ready to get cooking? If you are looking for another easy skillet recipe check out Asian Pork Tenderloin Skillet (Quick & Budget-Friendly), Kielbasa Skillet, Skillet Lasagna, Creamy Chicken Skillet, or Chicken Broccoli Skillet with Pimento Cheese Sauce
Recipe Ingredients
- Tomatoes
- Squash
- Bell pepper
- Onion
- Lean ground beef
- Dried or fresh parsley
- Kosher salt
- Black pepper
- Sugar (a dash)
Helpful Kitchen Tools
How to Make A Garden Skillet Supper
To begin with, place your tomatoes on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet and put them in the oven on “broil” while you get your beef going (about 5 minutes or so).
Chop up your onion and place that in the skillet with your ground beef.
Chop the beef up really well and stir over medium heat until brown.
You can buy these awesome meat chopper devices from a Pampered Chef person, eBay, or even on Amazon.
Now take your tomatoes out of the oven and the tomato skin should be split.
Set them aside for a minute to cool and then carefully pull a piece of skin until it comes off.
Repeat until you peel every
Cut the tomatoes into wedges and add them to your skillet.
NOTE: I’m using lean ground beef so I didn’t have to drain mine before adding the tomatoes. If you aren’t using lean beef and have grease in your skillet at this step, drain the beef before adding tomatoes.
Chop them up with your thingiemawhosit or a wooden spoon or whatever you grab first from the drawer and continue cooking over medium heat.
Keep in mind these tomatoes are hot and have juice so there may be hot juice involved.
Add your parsley, salt, and pepper (just add a teaspoon of sugar if you really wanna bring out the sweetness of these tomatoes).
Continue cooking and dicing up the tomatoes for about 5 minutes, until they are good and juicy and make a sauce of sorts.
While you’re doing this, chop up your bell pepper (throwing away the seeds) and squash.
Add in the rest of your veggies.
Cook and stir until squash is lightly translucent and veggies are just tender, but not overcooked or soft.
I know “overcooked” is kind of the Southern way to some folks but that is a holdover from the old days when we really did have to cook the mess out of something in order to make sure it was safe to eat. So when your meemaw cooks you vegetables until they cry uncle, she is just repeating what her meemaw did as a way to make sure the food was safe.
This ground beef skillet is BURSTING with flavor!
Serve over hot cooked macaroni noodles or rice.
Enjoy!
Storage
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge before reheating in the microwave.
Recipe Notes
- Here are some easy substitutions and variations to put your own spin on this ground beef and vegetable recipe:
- Substitute the yellow squash for zucchini.
- Use ground turkey, ground chicken, or ground pork instead of ground beef.
- Other vegetables that work in this garden skillet: cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, celery, green beans, mushrooms, sweet potato, and cherry tomatoes.
- Add your favorite seasoning, whether that’s garlic powder, minced garlic cloves, dried or fresh basil, Italian seasoning, taco seasoning, dried oregano, or thyme.
- Add some heat with a dash of chili powder, red pepper flakes, or cayenne pepper.
- In a pinch, substitute for the frozen vegetable of your choice.
- If you have never used kosher salt before, grab some next time you are in the grocery store. This is one of those ingredients that really does make a pow difference and won’t cost you much at all. IF you don’t have kosher salt, table salt will work as well.
- Serve your ground beef and vegetables as is or on a bed of macaroni pasta, white or brown rice, quinoa, cauliflower rice, mashed potato, or zoodles (zucchini noodles).
You may also enjoy these easy-peasy skillet recipes:
Asian Pork Tenderloin Skillet (Quick & Budget-Friendly)
Chicken Broccoli Skillet with Pimento Cheese Sauce
Ingredients
Quantities are on a sliding scale in this recipe, feel free to use whatever you have
- 1-2 pounds lean ground beef
- 2 large garden tomatoes
- 1-2 yellow squash, sliced
- 1-2 bell peppers, chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Place tomatoes on a foil-lined baking sheet and put them under the broiler for 5 to 8 minutes, while you get the ground beef going below.2 large garden tomatoes
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, place ground beef and onion. Chop and stir with a wooden spoon until beef is fully brown and onion is tender and translucent (about 10 minutes). If not using lean ground beef, drain grease.1-2 pounds lean ground beef, 1 onion, chopped
- Remove tomatoes from the oven while ground beef is cooking and set aside to cool slightly. Once cooled, carefully peel the skin off and slice them into large wedges.
- Add tomatoes to ground beef and onion in the skillet and continue cooking over medium-high heat while you stir and chop them up, being careful not to squirt hot juice on yourself.
- Add salt, parsley, black pepper, and sugar (if using sugar). Stir well and cook for about 10 minutes.1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, 1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
- Add in squash and bell pepper and stir well. Cook until squash is lightly translucent and bell pepper is just tender (about 10 more minutes).1-2 yellow squash, sliced, 1-2 bell peppers, chopped
Serve over hot cooked macaroni noodles or rice.
Nutrition
To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are!
~Unknown
This sounds great. I love squash and bell peppers and adding meat to make a one-dish meal is fantastic! Am definitely trying this. Thanks for sharing.
I hope you enjoy it Sharon!!
This looks awesome! I am def going to cook it this week, but I was wondering do you think Eggplant would be good thrown in there? My hubby is wanting some this week and we have all the other ingredients to make this dish. Thanks!
I think it would be great!
Made this tonight and it was really yummy! I liked that it was easy enough to memorize, and was pretty cheap to make. I made it with one pound of beef instead of two, and forgot to drain the grease. It still tasted great. I used one yellow squash and one zuccihini, but I think the best flavor came from the slightly broiled tomatoes. (First time to broil tomatoes, and it was super easy.) We ate it over coucous. This will be a regular in our house during the summers! Thanks for the recipe!
Forgot to mention that if you don’t have a “thingamwhosit” you might want to try washing your tomatoes with a old fashioned potato masher. It worked great for me. I did have to go a little slower than normal so that it wouldn’t slosh out of the pan, but I think that would be the case even with the thingama… 😉
I am so glad you liked it Katie!!!
Hidy,
Looks good, have to try it when the garden comes in!!! Thank you for what you do!!!
Love making this and I can eat it on my weight watcher plan! Love you Christy
I am so glad that you like it AND that it works with your eating plan Sherry!!
Thank you for posting these ground beef recipes. This one will be our dinner tonight. I have so many garden veggies…I can’t wait to use them in this recipe! Oh…and “thingiemawhosit” cracked me up…I speak the same language! 🙂
This has quickly become one of our favorite dishes! Do you know if can freeze the whole thing after cooking? Or if not, what about just the ground beef, onion, tomato spices and then add the fresh veggies later?
I have never tried it but I think you are brilliant for thinking of it. I would love to hear how it turns out if you try it!!
Per Debbie’s advice below, I’m going to try freezing the beef mixture and then just add the fresh veggies in at cooking time. Will definitely report back about how it turns out. Hope you’re feeling better!! I rode horses all the way up through college (and still ride occasionally now). I’ve had several spills, but nothing like you did – poor thing! I certainly feel your pain. So glad you have lots of help though 🙂
I would not freeze it with the fresh veggies already in it. I have found that squash and zucchini do not freeze well. Freezing the beef, onion, tomato and spices then adding the veggies later would be perfect!
Thanks for the info!! I’ve never frozen fresh veggies other than corn on the cob, so wasn’t sure how well they would do especially being already cooked. I’m going to try just freezing the beef mixture and then adding the fresh veggies at cooking time. It will still save a lot of time since it doesn’t take long to chop those up 🙂