Wouldn’t it be nice for our ground beef or turkey to cook by itself? Yes, it can if you throw it into your crock pot or slow cooker!
There’s great advantages to using this babysitting trick:
- You can fix it and almost forget it
- You can brown up to five pounds at one time
- You can mix in all sorts of hidden finely diced, pureed or shredded vegetables for future meals like spaghetti, chili, taco meat, burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, soup, sloppy joes, pizza, stuffed pepper filling and more.
- You can season all or part of it for future meals (try homemade taco seasoning for 5-minute tacos)
- You can keep it warm and serve a large crowd buffet style
- Of course, you can freeze it in labeled quart size bags for future use super quick meals
I suggest thawing your quart size bags in a thawing box overnight and incorporating it into your meal the next day.
Steps for crocking finely ground beef or turkey and freezing:
- Add one to five pounds of thawed beef or turkey in your crock pot.
- Add enough water to make it super mushy (trick to making finely ground meat)
- Add hidden vegetables if desired.
- Crock on high up to four hours or low up to six hours.
- Drain in colander and rinse in hot water to remove excess fat.
- Season with your favorite seasoning the last hour of cooking and set on warm.
- Allow to cool for two hours at room temperature.
- Refrigerate and bag in labeled quart freezer bags for future use (tutorial here)
- Freeze flat.
Reheating Instructions:
- Thaw overnight in a thawing box (plastic shoe box)
- Open bag and reheat meat on 70% power for 5 minutes in microwave or medium high heat on the stove-top until hot.
What’s your favorite cooking method for bulk cooking ground beef or turkey?
