Healthy(er) Browned Ground Beef
Goldenbast
Posts: 227 Member
There are a lot of recipes that call for ground beef. Now, you can substitute ground turkey or chicken, but some of us (me included) like beef. Particularly for browned ground beef (which can be cooked ahead and frozen) there are some healthy alternatives that won't break the bank.
Usually we are encouraged to buy as lean as possible such as the 93% lean ground beef. That is all fine and good, but that stuff can be expensive when not on sale! BUT there are a few tricks to get rid of the extra grease from the lower percentage beef, such as the cheapest, which is the 73% lean.
Rinse: Once you brown your beef and throw it in the drainer to drain off the grease, you can run it under hot water. That will get rid of a lot of your grease and fat.
Boil: You can boil the ground beef in a pot of water and then drain it all off. This does alter the taste somewhat, but for ground beef that is an ingredient of another recipe, such as spaghetti sauce, you won't notice the taste.
Usually we are encouraged to buy as lean as possible such as the 93% lean ground beef. That is all fine and good, but that stuff can be expensive when not on sale! BUT there are a few tricks to get rid of the extra grease from the lower percentage beef, such as the cheapest, which is the 73% lean.
Rinse: Once you brown your beef and throw it in the drainer to drain off the grease, you can run it under hot water. That will get rid of a lot of your grease and fat.
Boil: You can boil the ground beef in a pot of water and then drain it all off. This does alter the taste somewhat, but for ground beef that is an ingredient of another recipe, such as spaghetti sauce, you won't notice the taste.
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Another tip which I was taught years ago. Fry the beef as usual either on its own or with onion, spices etc. Leave it to cool down and then place in the fridge for a while. All the fat will rise to the top and solidify. Just scrape it all off and use as you would normally. It does require you to be a bit organised, which I am not, lol. But in an ideal world I would do a big batch, scrape off the fat and then freeze it in portion sizes.0
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That is a good idea too!0
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If you have a dehydrator (about $40 at Walmart) you can save browned ground beef for months. I made a large amount of it to take backpacking on the Appalachian Trail. A lot of hikers did.... we called it "Hiker Hamburger" or "Hamburger Gravel" because it looks like dark fine gravel. My husband sent me the food I had prepared, to post offices in towns I'd be passing through, about a week's worth at a time. I was still eating that same hamburger after 6 months and, rehydrated, tasted as though I'd just browned it.
You do what you folks were saying, start with very lean meat and/or rinse with hot water after browning. Then run it through a food processor, if you have one, to make small even particles that will dry quickly and evenly. If you don't have a processor, a blender or even electric mixer would probably work, or just chop it very fine by hand. Spread it on sheets on the dehydrator racks, turn it on, check and stir every couple hours until it's dry and crumbly and hard (like gravel), let it cool, and then store it in jars or bags (I used a Food Saver vacuum bagger; if you just use Zip-Loc's, either freeze it or use it within 3 months or so.
Unless you just want to freeze it to start with instead of drying..... but you probably have more freezer space than I do!0
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