There are a handful of key cooking skills that unlock great potential in your cooking journey. For those who KNOW how to cook, these may seem overly obvious. But not so for anyone starting from nothing. Mastering a key cooking skill like browning ground beef is the first step to easy and wonderful meals.
In a private lesson just this week, the young woman told me her mother was a really good cook. They just hadn’t spent time cooking together when she was young.
My father taught me how to brown ground beef in a rare off moment. My mom taught piano in the evenings and then went straight to work at my dad’s business each night. So, she didn’t cook much. We just grabbed fast food on the run.
Now, between moms working and no “home ec” in high schools, where DO young people learn these skills? With me, of course! Let’s break down this basic skill so you can be cooking in no time.
Chop and Turn, Chop and Turn
Unwrap the ground beef and place it in a 10- or 12-inch skillet over medium high heat. Separate the meat (“chop” it) with a rigid spatula, continually breaking it into smaller chunks.
Once you hear a sizzling sound, begin turning the meat over in sections. You’ll notice the part that was touching the pan and sizzling is now losing its red color. Continue chopping and turning as the meat cooks. Your goal is for all the red or even pink to be gone…that’s when you’re done.
Getting that grease out
As you cook, the fat in the beef melts down into grease. Shorten cook time of crunchier veggies in your recipe by putting them in to cook with the meat. Chop ’em small (maybe ½-inch or less), but cooking them with the meat definitely gives them a head start.
Once the meat is all done, you want to get that grease outta there. Using your spatula, press the meat all to one side of the pan. Tilt the pan away from that side and spoon out the grease. You can put it in either an empty jar or directly into a bowl until it can cool off. I keep an old pasta sauce jar on hand for this.
Leave the top off the jar until the grease cools, then seal and store it under the sink. Once it’s full, just throw it away (but don’t break it!). If your grease cooled in a bowl, you can spoon it into a baggie. Then seal that and toss it in the trash. Maybe use one that was headed for the trash anyway!
Then proceed using your meat however you wish. Stir in a pack of taco seasoning and reheat a bit, and you’ve got taco meat! (Taco Tuesday anyone?)
Try other ground meats
You can apply the same technique to ground turkey, ground chicken, ground pork or even bulk breakfast sausage. Chop and turn, chop and turn…it’s exactly the same.
Make this skill work for you for the future, too
Often rolls of beef in 3 or 5 pounds have a cheaper per pound price. Eyeball it, cutting the roll into 3rds (or 5ths). You can freeze each extra pound by itself. Or get ahead by browning each pound separately. Then when it’s cool, load into quart sized freezer bags (make sure it’s completely cool before sealing). Squeeze the air out, seal and label the bags, then freeze.
The next time you need to use ground beef, defrost a browned pack in the fridge overnight. Now you’re one BIG step ahead for supper the next day.
The basics are critical
Mastering the key cooking skills is the most important part…and sometimes those are even the easiest. While others think there are other ways to do this (like here), I disagree. But I wasn’t surprised they had problems with dryness using a lean cut like sirloin. And why add oil when cheaper meat comes with its own?
No need to make this harder than it is. In no time, you’ll be chopping and turning ground beef like a pro. Sure, you may “fling” a piece out now and then, but I still do that! Your skillet meals (and tacos) will be a breeze!
Want more on ground meats? Check out these posts…
- A 3 step strategy for saving on ground beef
- 3 winning sausage flavors you can make fast (recipe links are in each subheading)
