13 Vintage Ground Beef Recipes - Retro Housewife Goes Green (2024)

February 9, 2022 By Lisa Sharp 1 Comment

Not sure what to make with ground beef? These vintage ground beef recipes will help you make easy dinners for your family fast. And they all have a fun vintage flare!

Living in Oklahoma I feel like most of our freezers are full of ground beef. As a kid, we even would buy a side of beef some years from a local farm.

There is always a lot of ground beef in my freezer, it’s an easy meat to just pull out and turn into a delicious dinner. It’s the most common cut of beef we eat.

Ground beef has been popular for a long time and has often been used as a way to stretch the meat budget because it’s great used in small amounts in other dishes.

With rising food costs it’s a good time to bring back some vintage ground beef recipes that were really good at being budget-friendly! And don’t worry, these dishes are all delicious and not weird.

How to Cook Ground Beef

Before we get to the recipes for ground beef it’s a good idea to learn how to cook ground beef properly. Knowing this will help you make the best ground beef recipes possible.

The first thing you want to do is make sure to look for fresh ground beef. I like to get mine from Crowd Cow because it comes from small farms and is frozen when it’s first ground so when I pull it out to cook it I know it’s fresh.

If you are buying your ground beef from the grocery store be sure to look for bright red beef and look for the sell-by-date that is furthest from the day you are shopping. Also, be sure where you are buying the ground beef is cold and make meat your last stop before the checkout line to help keep it cold.

Another thing to know before cooking your ground beef is how lean it is. 85/15 is a good all-around ground beef but since it’s quite lean you will want to add some fat when cooking. If you get a fatty cut, especially something like wagyu, you may not need any fat added to the pan.

This is a very simple way to cook your ground beef-

• Heat the pan. If using lean beef be sure to oil your pan. You need the pan to be hot or your beef will steam instead of brown.
• Add your meat to the pan. Break the beef up into small pieces and let it start to brown.
• Break up the meat as it cooks. When the beef starts to brown you’ll want to continue to break up the meat into smaller pieces.
• Cook until brown. Avoid stirring too much.

You can also cook ground beef from fresh or frozen in an Instant pot!

How to Defrost Ground Beef

The USDA says that the safest way to thaw ground beef is in the refrigerator. This keeps the meat cold and prevents it from getting to a dangerous temperature which can cause bacteria to grow.

A couple of ways to defrost ground beef safely if you forget to put it in the refrigerator in time include, the microwave, in cold water, or you can cook it in the Instant Pot.

For the microwave just go slow and keep an eye on it. With cold water, you want to put the meat in a watertight plastic bag and submerge it in ice water. Change the water every 30 minutes.

You do want to cook ground beef immediately if you microwave it as some areas may start to cook. It’s also best to cook the beef right away if you are using the cold water method. If you are using the refrigerator method you want to cook or refreeze the beef within 1-2 days. Don’t refreeze ground beef until cooked if you thaw in cold water or the microwave.

You never want to thaw ground beef on the countertop as meat shouldn’t be at room temperature for more than 2 hours. Your beef is unlikely to thaw that fast and it’s risky to try.

And before you start saving these recipes, be sure to sign up for Crowd Cow to get free ground beef for life!

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