5 Ground Beef Dinners Every Home Cook Should Know

If your family is anything like mine, one of the toughest questions to answer every week is what's for dinner? Luckily, I've always got your back. So today we're putting all that ground beef you've got in the freezer to work. I'll be showing you guys five completely different dinners that your family is guaranteed to love. Everything from crispy, cheesy beef tacos to classic meatloaf and beef stroganoff. There's something in this video for everybody. Meet me in the kitchen, let's make it happen. All right guys we're getting the party started with crispy cheesy beef tacos. Now I know beef prices are getting a little bit crazy but if you buy ground beef in bulk you can still get it sometimes around $6.99 to $7.99 a pound. If you buy it in bulk I like to vacuum seal it and freeze it. Grab it out of the freezer for days like this when you don't know what to make we got plenty of options. Now when you're cooking with ground beef one of the most important things Is to get a good sear on the meat. You want to get some good color, texture. That's going to add flavor. And it's going to be more visually appealing. We got a pound of ground beef in here. Getting a good sear. We're going to begin to season it. Starting with my all-purpose seasoning. And then I have a taco blend. You can use a taco packet from the store. Whatever your favorite taco seasoning is. Or you can follow this recipe. It has oregano, cumin, smoked paprika, saison, and chili powder. Again, use whatever you enjoy. Just going to give that a little... Mix together, and we got a little homemade taco seasoning. Very low in salt other than the saison, and this is low sodium as well, so we're going to taste it. Make sure if it needs a little salt, you just add a little finishing salt at the end. Just going to press this down. Make sure it's making good surface area contact with the skillet and to cook the ground beef. If you want to add a little liquid to this to help that process, you can add water or beef stock. We're also going to saute some onions and jalapeno. All right, so ground beef is looking good. We're just gonna let these veggies get nice and tender. I'm gonna add a splash, maybe like a half cup of beef stock, bring that to a boil. That's gonna cook this down kind of traditionally how you would cook ground beef for tacos. And then we're gonna add some cheese to this once that liquid evaporates and get this as flavorful as you want. That at that point, once this is seasoned to perfection, we're gonna use this to scoop into our corn tortillas and fry them until they're crispy. So we started with the quickest recipe of the five. This comes together 30 minutes or less. You want to double wrap the corn tortillas. They're delicious, but they are a little bit flimsy and sometimes they'll split. So I like to double wrap them. Add just enough oil to coat the bottom of your skillet. And then we're going to gently lay in our corn tortillas. Just long enough to crisp one side. Flip them another 60 to 90 seconds and then remove them to drain. Repeat and then you're done. You can serve this with whatever dipping sauce you want. Queso, salsa, sour cream. Today we're using a sour cream and salsa and you use avocado or guacamole as well to serve. There you have it folks. Taco night just got an upgrade. You don't have to grab that taco kit from the store. This is a great way to put a little spin on a traditional quick and easy dinner. 30 minutes or less. We have some delicious crispy cheesy beef tacos. You can load them up however you want to. I like a little sour cream for me. Let's see what we got. Not a lot of better ways to use ground beef than this. Let's keep this party going. Again, quick reminder guys, this recipe and all of these recipes can be found at mrmakeithappen.com. Next up my friends, a make it happen classic. One of my all time favorites, meatloaf. Two pounds of ground beef. To that, we're going to add one grated onion. I like to grate it so that the onion just dissolves right into the meatloaf. You get the flavor without big chunks of vegetables like bell pepper and onion. If you are using bell pepper in your recipe, you can just blend it or puree it so that it just dissolves into the meatloaf. That's what I'm looking for. We also have some Boursin garlic and herb cheese, sour cream, parmesan, breadcrumbs, eggs, a little garlic. Worcestershire sauce and the seasoning of your choice. I also like to add a barbecue sauce to the top of mine. If you're a tomato ketchup, you know, tomato paste kind of person or a gravy person, you can adapt this recipe for whatever topping you want on your meatloaf. I'm going to get this in there. I'm just going to use my hands because we're going to use our hands to get this all going. Sour cream is going to help make the meatloaf nice and moist. And it's also going to add like a creamy texture. We're going to go in with some Parmesan cheese. Start the seasoning process with some AP seasoning and barbecue seasoning. This is great on the smoker or the grill as well. A little parsley for a pop of color and some fresh herbs. Barbecue seasoning. And I like to start to mix it together right before I add the breadcrumbs and the eggs. 400 degrees on the oven. This is done in 45 to 60 minutes depending on how large your meatloaf is. Let's get in there and mix all that together. Alright guys, once you have your meatloaf formed, it should hold its shape. So when you lift it up, it should just be one big meatball. Now, I've made this recipe on the channel a few times. And sometimes people will comment, can you still taste the meatloaf with all those ingredients? If you're one of those people, do me a favor and shut up. If you want to taste the beef that much, go buy the cow. For the rest of us that got some sense, you got to trust me on this recipe. It's a classic. What I like to do, you can use a loaf pan if you want, but I really like those crispy edges and I want some of that fat to drain off, so I'm going to form it on a cutting board like so, add it to a wire rack with foil at the bottom for easy cleanup, and into a 400 degree oven. We're going to hit the exterior of the meatloaf with some AP seasoning and barbecue seasoning, then during the last 15 to 20 minutes of the cook time, we're going to baste it with that barbecue sauce. There you have it, people, Make It Happen meatloaf. This recipe and all of my recipes can be found at MrMakeItHappen.com. This is one I never get tired of. I've been making this meatloaf for a long time now, maybe close to 10 years, and I always enjoy it, and I think that you guys will like it too. If you haven't already tried it, super juicy still, even after being sliced and hanging out on the cutting board, we're still just pouring juice out of there, nice and sticky from that barbecue sauce. This is going to be good. Guaranteed. You guys got to try this one. Great crust on this one too. It really got some good texture on the outside, which is why I don't like using the loaf pan because you lose some of that crust. That crust makes it extra good. This is a winner. Guaranteed. Next up, my friends, super underrated recipe, beef stroganoff. We're going to cook down one pound of ground beef. We're going to remove that with a slotted spoon, add in our onions and our mushrooms, cook those down, get them nice and caramelized, build tons of flavor, and we're going to make our gravy from that. This recipe is served with egg noodles. It's creamy, savory, and delicious. Perfect for the fall weather. Definitely comfort food. I grew up eating this a lot as a kid and it's another one that comes together in like 30 minutes or less. Now one of the ways I like to elevate a simple dish like this is by adding some fresh herbs. Rosemary and thyme are going to give you that steakhouse vibe and you want a much tighter budget using ground beef. We're going to cook down these onions and mushrooms. You do not want to rush this step because that caramelization process is going to add tons of flavor. We got the rosemary and thyme in there. We're just going to give this all the time that it needs until it's nice, a deep, dark brown color and naturally sweet from the caramelization. Once we achieve that, that's when we're going in with our Dijon mustard. That's going to add, this is Grey Poupon, so maybe we're not on that much of a budget. It was on sale, though. We're going to add that. That's going to add some bite and kind of cut through some of the creaminess later and the richness. It's going to add a little bit of acidity. Then we're going to season to taste, add some flour to thicken things up, make a roux, which will be the foundation for our gravy. It's going to be good, guys. Tons of flavor, comfort food. I used to eat this at friends' houses all the time as a kid. So after the flour, we deglaze with a little sherry wine or white wine, red wine, really whatever you got. I tend to use sherry though. Then you add in your beef stock. It should look like this, nice and thick. Then I'm going to kill the heat and add in a big tablespoon of sour cream. You could also use heavy cream in place of the sour cream. I like the sour cream because it gives it a little bit more viscosity and it just adds a little bite and creaminess to the recipe. It's going to make the color beautiful too. You want to do that off the heat, not while it's boiling, because then you want to basically avoid it from separating and getting oily. That looks absolutely perfect, which means it's time to go ahead and add in the ground beef. Then add the noodles and plate this up. Beef stroganoff, 30 minutes or less. Big on flavor, comforting, delicious. Classic comfort food, budget-friendly, feeds a crowd, underrated beef stroganoff. Can't go wrong. Again, you can serve this with steak if you want to. Ground beef is a great substitute, and it's a lot more budget-friendly. Dress it up a little bit, make it a little bit more elevated with the fresh herbs and the wine deglaze and all of that if you want to get cute. Either way, can't go wrong. I think I like it with the ground beef better than the steak, really. A little butter bread on the side. My grandma would say growing up, that's good eating right there. All right, guys, next up, classic spaghetti. We can't have a ground beef video without including spaghetti. I'm going to show you guys how I make my spaghetti on a quick weeknight. Now, we're not going super, super chef-y. We're keeping it pretty simple. This is how I make it for my family. My wife's a big spaghetti fan. I don't make it a whole lot because, to me, it's a little boring, but she loves it. So cheers to you, babe. We got some ground beef in here simmering, getting nice and brown. You want to develop some deep, dark color on that ground beef. Just like that right there. That's what you want to see. Once you get the ground beef nice and brown we're going in with some chicken bouillon, some red pepper flakes, and some dried oregano. I want to get that right into that beef fat. That way it starts to rehydrate and bloom a little bit. It's going to toast the spices and you're going to get more flavor that way. Next we're going in with some coarsely chopped garlic. Lots of it. After that we're going in with onion. One whole chopped I'm going to sweat that down until the onions get nice and tender. Once the onions get tender, we're going in with some tomato paste, deglaze with some dry red wine. That's optional. I have some wine handy. We tend to have wine because we like to drink. If you don't want to drink or you don't want to cook with wine, you can omit it. You can use a little beef stock. That wine is going to help break down anything that may have attached itself to the skillet. Any fond in the bottom will release. And it's also going to add a little bit of acidity as well. Once we do that, we're going to cook the wine off, add in the tomatoes. All right, so we've got the wine in there. It's going to thicken up with that tomato paste, add some depth of flavor, which is really important when you're making spaghetti sauce from scratch. Next, we're going in with some crushed tomatoes and a little tomato sauce. And we're just going to let that simmer, 30 minutes, an hour, three hours, depending on how much time you got. The longer, the better. But if you're pressed for time, no big deal. We're going to add a little bit of sugar to balance the acidity, season to taste. If you've got a Parmesan rind, throw that in there too. And then we're going to cook our spaghetti in heavily salted pasta water. Never cook your pasta if the water is not adequately salted. It should taste almost like the ocean. All right, guys, let's start a little controversy. Let me know how you like your spaghetti. Do you want it mixed in with the sauce or the sauce on top like we did today? My wife likes it like this. I think she's crazy. I need mine mixed in. But, hey, got to make her happy, right? Happy wife, happy whatever they say. Without further ado, that's classic Friday night dinner right there, Saturday night dinner, Wednesday night dinner, whenever. Give me this with about six pieces of garlic bread and a good show on TV, life is good. I missed you. Last but not least, my friends, game day appetizer, anytime appetizer, bacon cheeseburger egg rolls. Absolutely delicious. You could also make these taco egg rolls if you want to grab the leftovers from the very first video or very first recipe we showed you. That same feeling would be fire in an egg roll. But we're doing bacon cheeseburger just to switch it up. We got a pound of ground beef in here. We're going down with some AP seasoning and some hamburger seasoning Seasoning or barbecue seasoning, whatever you enjoy. On your cheeseburger is fair game today. AP's just covering the bases. Salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder. Couple other spices in there. Nothing crazy. Get that going. I'm going to get the ground beef nice and seared on the bottom side. Going to go ahead and add in some finely diced onion. Think like Big Mac style or double cheeseburger style at McDonald's. Tiny onions. Going to mix that in. Make sure the beef is cooked nicely, then add the cheese of your choice. Today we're using cheddar, American cheese would be great here, provolone, whatever you like on your cheeseburgers is fine. I'm going with sharp cheddar just for a little extra, you know, extra bite, extra flavor. Then once we get that in there, we're going to set that aside and let this cool because if it's too hot when it goes into the egg roll wrapper, the egg roll wrapper is going to split. We're going to roll the beef cheese onion mixture into that egg roll, fry it at 350 degrees, make a fire dipping sauce for you guys, almost like a Big Mac kind of sauce, burger sauce, secret sauce, not so secret after today, and then we're going to be done. Five recipes, marathon. I don't want to see another cow for a week. All right, guys, you can't have cheeseburger egg rolls without a dipping sauce. The party gets started with some mayonnaise, about a half cup or so, big heaping tablespoon of sweet relish, tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and then a quarter cup of ketchup, a little smoked paprika, salt and pepper. That's really all you need. Season it to taste. It's going to be delicious. This is great on hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries, you name it. Basically anything in that kind of category is fair game. Can't go wrong. Great on a burger. Another underrated burger topping is just mayonnaise and barbecue sauce, 50-50 split. I don't know what they call that. You know how, like, what is it, like, mayo Q, maybe? I don't know. But it's a great sauce, underrated. You don't see it a lot, don't hear about it a lot. Barbecue and mayo is great. This is pretty traditional, kind of Thousand Island-style secret sauce, burger sauce. A lot of different names for it out there, but it's delicious. Light pink in color, perfect for your cheeseburger egg roll. All right, guys, we're getting our oil up to 350 degrees. In the meantime, it's time to go ahead and roll our egg rolls. You can do this in advance, put them in the freezer. You can put them in the fridge. I would dust them with a little bit of cornstarch. You can do that so they don't stick together. A little more cheese is why the hell not. We're here for a good time, not a long time. We're going in with our filling right on top of that cheese. Don't overstuff it. And then it's time to roll these nice and tight. There is a bit of a technique to rolling egg rolls. I will say that everybody kind of does them a little bit differently. So just do whatever you're comfortable with if you're already an advanced roller, which I know some of you may be. You probably don't need a lesson. I like to tuck the sides first. Kind of pinch that sealed. The goal is to keep this sealed. If they bust open in the fryer, you're screwed. You got to start over. Sealed, wrap, pinch, kind of like squeeze the air out like that. There you have it, people. Bacon cheeseburger egg rolls. Perfect with football season in town. We got, you know, holidays rolling around. You can't go wrong. Crowd pleaser for sure. Inexpensive, quick and easy to make. Let me know what you think in the comments, what we should do next. Make sure to like, comment, subscribe, and we'll see you next time.