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.
I keep getting this page about storing ground beef instead of the “How to cook a ham and get at least four meals out of it”. I sure would like the ham recipe. I have used it before and it was great but I can’t remember the oven temperature and cook time. Thank you.
Hi there, this is our ham recipe: https://www.southernplate.com/baked-ham/
Not sure how you are getting the storing ground beef recipe. Are you clicking on a link on another post? If so let me know which one so I can fix it. Thanks!
I am actually clicking on a link from the recipe you shared in your reply. There is a link titled “How to cook a ham & get at LEAST 4 meals out of it!”
I keep getting the same thing too.
I also have been doing this for more than 40 years old or more? I still do it to this day.
It is such a great meal stretcher, I am so glad to hear you have been doing it as well.
Quinoa makes a great meat stretcher. It has more protein than rice, is lower on the glycemic index, heck, it even LOOKS like ground beef in a pot of chili or spaghetti!
This is how I have been doing my ground beef for years. We don’t think that you need all the meat that they call for in recipes so a half a pound is great for the two of us. Also the fact that they fit in the freezer shelf great this way. I will take some and brown it in a frying pan also. Then package it for pizza toppings since we make our own pizza and I will make French Bread Pizzas for lunch sometimes. I will also take and make up some Taco Mixture and freeze it in packages for one. This way I can make Taco Salads for lunch sometimes. There is a lot you can do to make cooking easier when you have a busy day. Eating out is a thing we might do about three or four times a year. We prefer to eat at home.
Hey Christy,
used to do this all the time, but now I fry up the beef and put it into Ziplock containers, you can get all different sizes, I usually use the quart ones, but can get half quart and smaller ones too. Then I simply pop them in the microwave, thaw and put them into whatever I am doing, I also have a scale so I can weigh out the cooked beef into the right weight.
The rice is a nice suggestion but I can’t eat it anymore because it spikes my blood sugar very rapidly even the brown rice is hard on it. So I use a lot of beans, they go well with ground beef and add protein so I can use less meat.
GREAT idea Eva!!! Thank you so much for sharing it with us!
Wow, I love your blog so much! So many smart ideas from others also, thanks everyone!
Thank you so much Lisa!!!
Okay, I realize that this is probably petty of me, but it is driving me INSANE. At the end of the post you say “If a recipe calls for more, you have two options:” but give 3 reasons, While no one else has said anything about that the English major in me can’t let that slide. Now I have said my peace, resume blogging.
Darn, after I read what I posted, I realized that my grammar and punctuation was off. Sorry.
I find that whenever reason says we will only have two options but then life gives us three, well that’s called a blessing 🙂
Regardless of grammar =o)