Get 8 Meals from 4 Lbs of Ground Beef
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To see a list of over 35 Ground Beef Recipes to help stretch your food dollar and keep
things lively at the supper table, please click here.
Most folks I know are trying to figure out how to stretch an already tight grocery budget so I’ve set out to bring you a few tips that may help the process a bit.
Today’s post is how I divide up my uncooked ground beef to get the most meals out of it.
I’ll keep these short and sweet, which is a rarity for me, so enjoy it while it lasts 🙂
Here we go, four pounds of ground beef.
Now if I were to just cook beef right out of the package for supper, I’d likely grab two pounds of it. We’d have an awfully meaty dish, but I’d be doing good to get one or two meals out of the entire tray.
Instead, I take my tray and cut the ground beef into eight different sections like this.
Package each section into a quart sized zipper seal freezer bag.
Flatten each bag with the heel of my hand and let squeeze out as much air as I can before sealing.
I flatten it for two reasons:
- This takes up less space in the freezer
- It thaws REALLY quickly when it’s all thinned out like this.
Stack all of the layers (if you want) and freeze.
Each bag now has about 1/2 pound of ground beef in it.
This will work for most ground beef recipes. If a recipe calls for more, you have two options:
- Make the recipe with less beef
- Use two bags of beef
- Substitute 1/2 cup cooked white or brown rice for 1/2 of the beef. This works especially well in skillet meals, casseroles where beef is it’s own layer, and fillings such as sloppy joes or tacos. There are tons of recipes like that at the link below!
To see a list of over 35 Ground Beef Recipes to help stretch your food dollar and keep
things lively at the supper table, please click here.
“Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”
~Eleanor Roosevelt
Thanks to Jackie for submitting this! Click here to see more and submit your own.
Hi Christy, I have one thing to add, since most families are looking for ways to stretch the budget I try to hold myself to a price per pound limit for any meat purchases. So in the northeast, meat prices tend to be minimally $3 per pound. I have set my limit to $2.50 per pound. This means, for my family, that we eat more chicken bought in bulk ($.79 per pound), pork loin ($1.99), beef generally has to be on manager’s special (we eat a lot less red meat this way). The best deal I’ve found on beef is basically getting roast or london broil on sale ($1.79 – $2.49) then bringing it home and grinding the hamburger myself. The Kitchen Aid attachment is easy to use, lasts practically forever, and is easy to clean up &throw in the dishwasher to sterilize. I’ve saved hundreds of dollars on ground beef and sausage. I can’t encourage everyone enough with this. It’s better for your health, since you get less fat and no nitrates, cleaner processing ( since you know your hands are clean), and saves $$$. Hope this is useful to some folks out there!
Grinding your own beef is the greatest idea because it comes from one piece of meat instead of whatever is all mixed together by a commercial meat provider! You don’t know how many animals must be in that pack of hamburger meat. Much safer.
Thank you for the wonderful quotes every wee. I shall try to keep Proverbs 20:3 in the front of mind. Truth be known I can kind of have a quick temper, while my husband seems to take everything in strife. We refer to each other as “Fire and Ice’! He is alot like your grandfather.
Again thank you and have a wonderful and bless weekend!
I brown the whole thing and separate out into 2 cup and 1 cup packages … when I know I’m making a BIG dish or a BIG pot of chili, etc., I grab a 2 cup package…for smaller meals or where I can add “fillers” like rice, etc., I grab a 1 cup package … already browned saves me a ton of time! {you can even cook it all day in the crockpot ~ just give it a stir every time you pass nearby! Works well when I’m already in the kitchen prepping make-ahead or batch cooked meals! I tried it overnight ~ it worked, but It seemed like a big ol’ meatloaf to me and the fat rose to the top and was not very appetizing looking. Trust me on this one ~ do it one day when you’re going to be home doing other chores!}
I also divide up my hamburger meat, but i have a vacuum sealer that i use and i love it! I also make up some of my hamburger meat into patties . My grandkids call them homemade hamburgers and they love them. Never had thought to add rice.
I am so glad to hear you found it helpful Anita!!
I use the water method to put up meat for spaghetti,and other dishes.
how do you cook you ground beef in a huge vat of water?
Here’s Christy’s post on that, Ereksong:
https://www.southernplate.com/2008/07/how-i-process-large-quantities-of.html
Christy, I thought you always cooked your ground beef in a huge vat of water before freezing it, did you change your habits for some reason?
I do that when I buy a lot at once. Time and scheduling are not my friends these days 🙂
why water?
never mind just saw the next few posts 🙂