In my house, ground beef is something that we always have either in the freezer or in the fridge, ready to go. My wife always uses it to make dinner last minute when she doesn’t have a plan.
It’s great because it has almost no flavor, so you can add anything to it. It’s super versatile and high in protein, from burgers to casseroles to taco meat. Really, the possibilities are limitless.
The following recipes center around using ground beef for a weeknight dinner for the family.
1) Spaghetti Bolognese
This is a classic Italian bolognese sauce made with beef, onions, and garlic, and either canned marinara or crushed tomatoes or tomato paste, served with spaghetti noodles and parmesan on top. I like to use canned diced tomatoes and crushed tomatoes together with a little bit of tomato paste, so you get some consistency changes in the tomatoes you’re using. And if you cook it long enough, it breaks down really well anyway.
I like to cook my meat first, crumbling it up and trying to get as much browning on all the little pieces as possible. Then take it out of the pan and cook the onions and garlic and any other veggies you might be adding in the rendered beef fat with a little olive oil and butter, and then add your meat back in and the sauce.
If you want to add a little bit of dairy for creaminess, I would avoid milk because it might curdle, and go for heavy cream, or if you need to, maybe goat cheese or cream cheese.
2) Regular Beef Tacos
These are tacos made with ground beef seasoned with Mexican spices similar to taco seasoning, such as chili powder, oregano, and cumin. I like to keep a couple boxes of crunchy taco shells closed up in the pantry for nights like this when I really need to make something last minute. Tortillas can work as well if you’re going for a soft taco.
Cook your beef until it’s brown all over and then add your seasonings. Cumin, chili powder, oregano, salt, pepper, and I like to do a little bit of onion powder as well. Stir that around for a little bit before you add some water. The water will pull all the color and seasoning off of the pan, but you want to let the spices warm up first before you add the water.
You can really dress this one up with the toppings that you leave out, like salsa, chopped onion, lime, cilantro, avocado, hot sauce, really whatever you have, even shredded cheese.
3) Sloppy Joes
This is ground beef that has had chopped pickles mixed into it, along with a sauce made of ketchup and mustard, served on a bun with fries or carrot sticks. While your beef is cooking in a hot pan and it’s starting to brown, make your sauce separately on the side before you add it in. I like to do ketchup, mustard, and a little bit of either molasses or brown sugar.
I like to lightly toast the buns so they hold up a little bit longer, and you can get a few bites holding it in your hand before it completely falls apart.
4) Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry
This is Asian seasoned ground beef and broccoli cooked in a garlic soy ginger sauce. I would make the sauce on the side and then cook my beef. Take the beef out of the pan when it’s mostly cooked, add the broccoli and give that a little bit of a head start, and then add the ground beef back in and finish it with the sauce, turning it down low to let it all simmer in the sauce to cook the broccoli thoroughly.
You could add a cup of frozen mixed veggies to this and serve it over rice to really bulk up this dinner.
5) Beef Chili
This is a chili made with canned tomatoes and beans, chili powder, cumin, browned beef, and onions, with medium spicy heat and hot sauce served on the side. When I’m making chili at home, I like to get all of the ingredients ready ahead of time. Open all my cans of beans, drain them, and rinse them. Open my cans of tomatoes, have all my veggies cut up and my meat ready to go, and then I can really pay attention to the chili while I’m making it.
Start with the beef. Cook that until you’re getting some fat out of it and some good color on it, then add your harder veggies, like if you’re doing bell pepper or onion. Once those are all nice and golden brown, or at least a little bit sweated, then you start adding your tomatoes and your beans, and I always like to do either beef stock or veggie stock.
Serve this with tortilla chips or corn chips or saltine crackers and shredded cheese.
6) Beef Enchiladas
This is a take on beef enchiladas made in a pan, as opposed to baked in the oven, with enchilada sauce, beef, cheese, and tortillas. If you’re going to layer this in a pan to cook it similar to enchiladas, I would get the filling done first. Cook your beef and add your enchilada sauce into it, beans too if you want, set it aside, mix the cheese in, and let that sit.
Then do a little bit of enchilada sauce, then tortillas, and then your filling, and repeat that over and over before covering it to let it cook. Throw some cheese on top and let it melt, and if you really want it to get a nice golden brown, go ahead and put it in the oven in the pan, as long as it’s got a metal handle and not a plastic handle, because that’ll melt.
7) Hamburger Helper
This is a childhood classic, tender noodles and ground beef in a creamy, almost gravy-like sauce with cheese. Instead of milk for this one, you’re going to want to do something like heavy cream, not half and half, because milk and half and half will split and curdle. You can use milk if you build a roux in the pan first, otherwise I would stick with heavy cream.
Cook your noodles separately, probably egg noodles, and then get your sauce all done and ready to go, and then just add the noodles in as you serve. That way they don’t get overcooked if you’re waiting for your sauce to thicken up. I always like this one with bread and butter.
8) Kofta Meatballs
This is ground beef that’s been seasoned with onion, garlic, cumin, parsley, and coriander, seared or baked, and then served with a lemon yogurt sauce, with the option of rice or flatbread. You can make these ahead of time and even cook the meatballs ahead of time, and then just heat them back up and serve them with the sauce.
A quick and simple way I like to make the veggies that I’m putting into meatballs is to just put them all in a food processor and pulse them until they’re all finely chopped, and then they fold into the meat a lot easier. If you’re baking these meatballs and you want to get a good color on them, just turn the pan every five to ten minutes in the oven, and each surface will get some nice color.
9) Simple Meatloaf
This is ground beef that’s had breadcrumbs and eggs mixed into it, shaped into a loaf or put in a loaf pan, and baked in the oven with a glaze that consists of brown sugar, vinegar, and ketchup. I like to sneak veggies into this one for my kids. I’ll put carrots and onions and garlic and celery in my food processor and blend it up until it’s pretty finely chopped, and then just fold it right into the meat, and they don’t even notice. It actually keeps the meatloaf pretty moist.
When we do this one at home, we just do a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and make almost a half football shaped loaf and bake it in the oven. That way there’s a lot more surface area for your glaze, as opposed to doing it in a bread pan where you’re only able to put it on the top.
10) Stuffed Peppers
This is cooked rice and spices with chopped tomatoes, mixed with browned ground beef, stuffed into bell peppers, and baked in the oven. For this one, I would brown the beef and then add the chopped tomatoes, or probably a tomato sauce like a marinara, to the beef, and then add the raw rice right into that, stirring it just to warm it up. When I put it in the peppers, the rice will finish cooking the rest of the way as the peppers roast in the oven.
When you’re picking out the bell peppers at the store for this, look for ones that have nice flat bottoms and can stand up pretty well. You’ll still want to put these in a casserole dish when you’re baking them in case they tip over, but if you’ve got some nice flat ones, you’ll have a lot better luck not making a mess.
11) Taco Rice Skillet
This is taco seasoning spiced beef with rice and broth, baked all at once in the same pan, with the option to add beans or corn. I would do a little bit less broth and then add some mild salsa in its place, to replace the amount of liquid you took out and give you some sort of Mexican rice flavor.
Cook the ground beef first to get a nice color on it. Otherwise, if you just cook it right in the broth, it will just boil and you won’t get all those extra flavors that you get from browning meat. I like to do the corn along with the beef so it gets some color on it too, and then the beans I would just add in with the broth and the rice.
Adding some chopped pickled or fresh jalapeno is a great way to add a little bit of spice to this. You can add just a little bit, or a lot if you like more heat.
12) Cottage Pie
This is like shepherd’s pie, but that technically has to be lamb, so cottage pie is ground beef and veggies in a gravy-like stew with mashed potatoes on top, baked in a baking dish in the oven. I like to top mine with a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese as well, and then you get a really nice gooey top and golden brown color.
When you’re making your stew, you can use frozen mixed veggies or just frozen peas and carrots. I usually just like to do ground beef and onion, and I’ll add red wine and then beef stock, and if I have tomato paste, I’ll add that. If I don’t, I like to do a little bit of pizza sauce, and nobody really notices the difference.
Make sure whatever dish you’re using, you’ve got your filling in the bottom with your beef and then your mashed potatoes on top, and you get a good seal around the edge with your mashed potatoes. Otherwise, you’ll get all the liquid bubbling out and it’ll make a big mess in your oven.
13) Swedish Meatballs
These are ground beef meatballs that have been seared and cooked in a creamy broth with heavy cream, Dijon mustard, and nutmeg, served with either mashed potatoes or noodles, like egg noodles, on the side. When you’re making your meatballs, try not to overwork the mixture or they could get tough.
I sear my meatballs in a pan, getting a good amount of color on all sides and cooking them most of the way through, then take them out and set them aside. Then build the sauce in the pan, get the flavor of the sauce right, and put the meatballs back in to finish cooking on low with the lid on top.
14) Beef Quesadillas
This is beef seasoned with garlic and cumin, cooked and put inside tortillas with cheese, and toasted until they are crispy, served with sour cream. I like to put the salsa right inside when I’m making these. Instead of just using one tortilla and trying to fold it in half, which can get messy, I like to put a whole tortilla down in the pan, then the cheese and the filling, then more cheese and a second tortilla right on top, and then just flip it over with two spatulas and cut it up into lots of pieces.
These are a great one if you want to fit some veggies in there too, because I like to cut up bell pepper and onion really fine, and even cook it with corn, and then add the beef, and that can be the filling for the quesadillas. I also like to get mild taco sauce from the grocery store, and if I put a ton of that in here, my kids won’t stop eating them.
15) Basil Beef
This is ground beef that has been browned and cooked with chili and soy, some sugar, and garlic, and then fresh basil at the end, with fried eggs on top for a fancy extra touch. Mix the soy and the sugar together first so the sugar can fully dissolve.
If you stack your basil leaves up from biggest to smallest, roll them as tightly as you can, and then slice from one end to the other, you can get some nice thin strips of basil, which are appetizing to eat. This is called chiffonading.
Cook your eggs a nice over medium, so there’s still some runny egg yolk in the middle, but the whites are fully cooked. I like to put a little bit of chili crisp right in the egg when I crack it into the pan, so it’s cooked into it.
16) Taco Salad
This is taco seasoned ground beef on top of a salad of crispy lettuce and crushed chips, with salsa mixed together with sour cream for a dressing, and beans and tomatoes as well. I always do shredded cheese on my taco salads, as well as canned corn.
Once your seasoned ground beef is done cooking, you want to let it cool off most of the way before you put it on the salad, otherwise it can wilt your lettuce. I like to mix a little bit of hot sauce, like chipotle flavored hot sauce, with ranch dressing for a great dressing for this salad.
17) Beef Lasagna
This is ground beef with jarred marinara layered in between no boil lasagna sheets with ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese. I like to mix my shredded mozzarella and my ricotta together with Italian seasoning, or fresh herbs if you have them, and then the beef and marinara sauce will be separate so you can layer everything distinctly, not just mix all the cheese and meat together.
I always go for no boil lasagna noodles. I don’t know what I would do without them. Once this comes out of the oven and it’s nice and golden brown, you’re going to want to let it sit as long as you can stand before you cut it, so it doesn’t fall apart on you.
18) Korean Beef Bowls
This is a soy sauce that has been sweetened with either brown sugar or honey, with garlic, sesame, and ginger added to it, added to your cooked ground beef and served over rice. Asian ground beef is definitely a weekly occurrence in our house. My wife does a great job making it.
She uses lots of garlic and fresh ginger, and she adds a little bit of frozen mixed vegetables to it as well, so you’ve got some veggies in with your beef. We’ll make rice to have with this for the kids, and then lettuce cups for us using butter lettuce. Chili crunch is great on these too if you want some heat.
19) Salisbury Meatballs
For this one, you take your ground beef and make it into patties or big meatballs, sear it, and make an onion gravy, with lots of gravy on the side to go with roasted potatoes. I would go for a patty shape, maybe not as thick as a burger patty, but I think that would work a little bit better than a meatball, because you’d be able to get a nice even cook on it without the inside either getting undercooked or dried out.
Season your patties with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then sear them in the pan really well on both sides, set them aside, and start building your onion gravy. Start the potatoes in the oven first, depending on how big they are and how long you’re roasting them. You probably want to give them a head start on the patties, because they’ll take longer to cook.
When you make the gravy, if you find that it’s too thick, you could just add a little bit of water or stock or even heavy cream to thin it out.
20) Beef Vegetable Soup
This is a vegetable soup with broth and browned ground beef, with small pasta or barley and bread served alongside. You can use really whatever veggies you’ve got in the fridge that you need to get through. Mushrooms, peppers, onions, garlic, celery, as long as you cut them small enough that they’ll fit in a spoon when you’re eating it.
Cook your beef first and then cook all your veggies in the rendered beef fat. Whenever I have a soup that has pasta in it, or is supposed to have pasta in it, I’ll make the pasta or the orzo or farro on the side and then just add it to the soup as I’m serving it, instead of storing them together, because then the grains or the pasta will soak up all of the liquid.
21) Beef Empanadas
These are little handheld pastries, little pies made with store-bought pie dough or puff pastry and filled with seasoned ground beef and onions. You want to bake these in the oven. Pie dough is great, but it will get kind of crumbly and might not hold up as well, and puff pastry is really nice and fluffy and flaky. Either way, just make sure you really seal the edges of your empanadas before you bake them.
You want to cook your ground beef and your onions and anything else you really feel like adding in there before you put it in the puff pastry and bake it in the oven. Otherwise, you’ll never get it cooked all the way.
22) Beef Nachos
This is beans and beef over chips with cheese and then melted salsa, with fresh things on the side. I really like to load up my nachos at home. I’ll saute peppers and onions and have those as a topping along with my beef, and I like to throw in a can of corn with the beef once it’s browned.
Just pile everything on a sheet pan with some parchment paper, chips, and then all your toppings. Make sure to layer cheese in between, and then just bake the whole thing in the oven, and everyone can eat it family style.
23) Greek Beef Pitas
For this one, you’re going to season your beef with oregano and garlic and a little bit of cinnamon, cook it, and then serve it in a soft pita with cucumber, yogurt, and lemon. Pickled onions would be a really nice addition to this, as well as feta cheese and kalamata olives to keep things in the Greek theme.
Warm up your pitas a little bit by toasting them in a skillet with no oil or butter, just for a few minutes on each side on medium high. This will make them more flexible, and it’s so nice to eat a really warm pita.
24) Beef Potato Hash
This is crispy potatoes with ground beef cooked together and then served with eggs on top. Cut your potatoes up decently small, and you’re going to want to cook those first before you add your beef so you can get some nice browning on them.
A nice trick I like to do to jump start the cooking process with any kind of home fry potato like this is to cut it into little cubes, put them on a microwave safe plate in a nice flat layer, and give them about five minutes in the microwave. This will steam the potatoes all the way through, then you toss them in oil and salt, and when you fry them or bake them in the oven, they get really crispy but stay super fluffy inside, and they take barely any time.
Do fried eggs on this one, and keep them runny.
25) Beef Lettuce Wraps
This is Asian seasoned ground beef with garlic, soy, and a little sugar or honey, served in crispy lettuce with shredded carrots and cucumbers. I find that butter lettuce is the best lettuce for lettuce cups like this, especially Asian lettuce wraps. I like to put sweet chili sauce in this ground beef as well when I’m making it.
Cool your ground beef off a little bit before you add it to the lettuce though, to keep it from wilting, or if the lettuce breaks, the ground beef could burn your hands. Add your cucumbers and your carrots cold at the end.
26) Stuffed Shells
This is beef mixed with ricotta cheese and herbs, stuffed into jumbo shells with marinara, and then topped with mozzarella cheese and baked. Cook your beef all the way and add the Italian seasonings to it, maybe a little bit of minced garlic and minced onion, and then cool it off before you add it to the ricotta cheese mixture. If you’re trying to put hot beef and hot ricotta into shells, you’ll just wind up making a big mess.
I like to put a little bit of marinara down in the baking dish first, then stuff all the shells separately and set them on top of the marinara, and then just add a little bit more over top before I bake it. Bake it covered, and then towards the end, take the lid or the foil off, put the shredded mozzarella on top, and finish baking it to brown the cheese.
27) Beef Picadillo
This is beef that’s cooked with warm spices and tomatoes, and occasionally olives, with diced potatoes mixed in, so it’s a big one pot hearty dish. I like to toast my spices first and then add the ground beef and cook it right in there, and for tomatoes, I like to do canned diced tomatoes. If you’re doing diced potatoes, cook them part way or all the way first before you add them into the pot.
28) Beef Ramen
This is ground beef with a garlic and soy seasoning mixed into ramen broth and noodles. Lightly season your beef with your favorite Asian condiments or spices, and then you’re going to let the ramen broth do most of the work flavor-wise.
Soft boiled eggs are great to really dress this up, or some fresh green onion, or even sliced mushrooms that have been crisped up a little bit in the pan and then set on top of your soup.
29) Beef Manicotti
This is beef and ricotta cheese with spinach that is stuffed into large tube shaped noodles. Cook your spinach down most of the way first, and then cook your beef and combine the two. That way you don’t wind up with a bunch of spinach water in the beef. Then you’re going to cool these two down and mix them with your ricotta filling.
What I like to do then is just put it all in a large gallon Ziploc bag, cut the corner off with a pair of scissors, and then you can just squeeze the bag and pipe the filling right into the manicotti.
30) Beef Curry
This is beef that’s been seasoned with curry powder and cooked with onions, tomatoes, and potatoes. Heat up your pan, add a little bit of oil, and then add your curry powder, stirring it around for just 30 seconds to a minute to really get the flavor out of it, and then cook your beef until it’s browned all the way. Then you’ll add your onions and then your tomatoes.
For the potatoes, I would do potatoes that have been crisped up and baked in the oven, so they can hold up to the sauce once you add them in. To make this creamy, you could add heavy cream, or even better would be some coconut milk or coconut cream.
31) Beef Casserole
This is a casserole with a ground beef and tomato base and cornbread batter for a topping. With this one, considering the cornbread, I would likely season my beef similar to chili, with lots of chili powder and cumin and garlic.
You could cook some onions and bell pepper and then add your beef, and even add a couple cans of black beans or pinto beans to this, and then mix that with your tomatoes before you put the cornbread batter on top and bake it in the oven. I like to spice up my cornbread by chopping up some fresh jalapenos and some sharp cheddar and mixing them into the raw batter.
32) Bulgogi Beef Bowls
This is a sweet soy garlic sauce on ground beef, served over rice with shredded lettuce. You’re looking for a hot and cold combination here. Mix up your sweet soy sauce first. I like to do equal parts soy sauce and brown sugar and then just a little bit of minced garlic and minced ginger, and then bring that to a simmer and cook it for five minutes.
Go with just plain white rice for this. You’re going to crisp up your ground beef, then add your sweet soy sauce, and then dump that over the rice, along with shredded lettuce on the side.
33) Beef Minestrone
This is browned ground beef with onion, carrot, and celery, tomatoes, beans, and typically a vegetable broth. If you’ve got a real parmesan rind in the fridge, you can throw it in and cook it the whole time you’re making the soup. Just take it out at the end. It’ll give you a really great extra boost of flavor.
If you can find them, I like to do fire roasted diced tomatoes with this. I think it adds a really nice flavor. I like to do ditalini or any kind of small pasta, but I’ll cook it separately from the soup and then just serve it on the side.
34) Cheeseburgers
This is ground beef that has been shaped into a patty, seasoned, and fried in a hot skillet with cheese melted on top, served on a bun. It doesn’t get much better than cheeseburgers. Just be careful to gently form your ground beef so you don’t wind up with too tough of a patty.
Generously salt and pepper your ground beef. Beef really likes salt, and when burgers are getting crispy and fried up in a pan, that flavor will really come across. Go with a milder cheddar cheese, or better yet, American cheese with this. Sharper cheddar has a hard time melting.
Toast your buns first and set out your favorite condiments like ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and onion slices.
Tools That Earn Their Drawer Space
The kit that quietly does the heavy lifting in most of these recipes.
- Greater Goods Cast Iron Skillet. The pan that gets the hardest sear and goes from stovetop to oven without a thought.
- WOODLANDS USA Teak Wooden Ladle with Spoon Rest. Deep teak bowl for soups and stews, a hook handle, and a spoon rest so the counter stays clean.
- Stainless Steel Loaf Pan Set. Meatloaf and banana bread both come out clean and hold their shape.
