Check out this collection of tasty, easy and healthy ground beef recipes! Ground beef is affordable, nourishing, and – when properly cooked – very tasty.
The reason I have so many ground beef recipes on this blog? It’s one of the easiest dinner ingredients. Ground beef is affordable, nourishing, and – when properly prepared – very tasty.
It’s easy to stock up on ground beef and keep it in your fridge (the vacuum-sealed packs last for quite a while) or in your freezer.
Is ground beef healthy?
Red meat is a contentious topic among those who care about their nutrition. Some believe that it’s unhealthy, and have the research to back it up. Others feel that it’s a great source of highly bioavailable nutrients and that risks have been greatly overestimated. And they too have the research to back it up!
I think it’s important to differentiate between processed meat, which everyone agrees should be limited, and fresh red meat. Fresh red meat doesn’t carry the same risks.
Ultimately it’s up to each of us to decide how we feel about red meat. I belong to the camp that sees it as a great source of high-quality nutrition. Although I don’t think we should eat it every day. I also believe that it’s important to balance it out with plenty of vegetables.
How to cook ground beef recipes safely
Ground beef carries a higher risk of contamination than roasts or steaks. You can easily kill bacteria on the surface of steaks, for example, during cooking. But when we ground beef, bacteria from its surface are mixed throughout the meat. So in order to kill the bacteria, we should cook ground beef all the way through, to an internal temperature of 160°F.
Not everyone does this, of course. Many people eat steak tartare or rare burgers with no ill effects. But one should be very aware of the risks and make an informed decision.
Generally speaking, most of my ground beef recipes instruct you to cook the beef so that it’s cooked all the way through. When one of my recipes leaves ground beef at a medium temperature (mostly for burgers), I say so in the recipe.
What ground beef to use in these recipes?
I almost always use lean ground beef – 85/15, which means 85% lean beef and 15% fat. I either buy the prepackaged vacuum-sealed packs, or I ask the butcher to grind some beef round.
In my opinion, 85/15 ground beef has the perfect ratio of lean beef to fat and a very good flavor. However, in many recipes – such as casserole recipes – I drain the fat. So I find that it’s fine to use extra lean ground beef (90/10, or freshly ground sirloin) in these recipes.
Some people swear by 80/20 ground beef (ground chuck) in terms of texture and flavor. But personally, I find it a bit too rich. And as I said, in many of these recipes I end up draining the fat anyway.
It’s not that I object to fatty cuts of beef – on the contrary. But I prefer them in steaks and roasts, such as this amazing ribeye roast.
How to store leftovers
If you refrigerate cooked ground beef within two hours of cooking it (1 hour if the temperature is above 90 °F), you can safely keep it in the fridge, in an airtight container, for 3 or 4 days. You can also freeze it for up to 4 months.
Reviews of these recipes
I love finding reviews of my recipes on Pinterest! The good reviews make me happy, of course. And the not so good reviews make me aware of issues in my recipes and enable me to improve them.
Many of these ground beef recipes have Pinterest reviews. These include my recipe for ground beef casserole, my recipe for zucchini lasagna, and my recipe for cheesy kale casserole.
20 delicious and healthy recipes made with ground beef
I make these recipes regularly for my family. They are tasty, easy to make, and leftovers are fabulous the next few days.
Vered DeLeeuw, LL.M., has been following a healthy real-food diet and blogging about it since 2011. She has taken 
