Cooking ground beef until it's browned and tender is the first step to many of our favorite comfort food recipes, from shepherd's pie to spicy chili. It's a pretty straightforward process, but just in case you'd like a refresher, here's how I do it.
Buy the best and freshest ground beef you can find. Bright pink meat isn't always an indicator of this since packages are often filled with carbon monoxide to keep the color stable. I really appreciate how Whole Foods posts signs for when their meat was ground and wish more stores did this. Otherwise, go by the freshness date on the package. Plan to use or freeze your ground beef within a few days for maximum flavor and freshness.
The trend with ground beef is also to go as lean as possible, but personally, I like a little fat in there. Without it, I find that the beef ends up rather dry and tasteless. I like an 85% lean/15% fat blend the best for most general cooking purposes. If only extra-lean meat is available, I'll sometimes add a little bacon fat to the pan to give it some help.
Apply this same cooking technique to any ground meat you use: turkey, chicken, pork, lamb, or any combination thereof. Cook the meat first, remove it from the pan, then cook your vegetables in the leftover fat from the meat for extra flavor. From a strict cooking standpoint, you don't have to remove the meat from the pan, but I find the vegetables cook better when they're less crowded and this also prevents the meat from drying out or becoming too crumbled.
How to Cook & Brown Ground Beef
Makes about 3 cups of browned beef; this technique can be easily adjusted to the amount you're cookingWhat You Need
Ingredients
1 teaspoon vegetable oil or bacon fat (optional)
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Spices (optional)
Equipment
Large skillet - cast iron, nonstick, or stainless steel
Spatula
Instructions
1. Film the Pan with Oil (Optional Step): Filming the pan with a little oil helps prevent the ground beef from sticking and scorching in the pan, especially if you are using a stainless steel skillet. Use a little extra fat if you're cooking a lean beef. It's fine to skip this step if you'd like to avoid the extra fat, but pay extra attention to the meat in the first few minutes of cooking to make sure it doesn't burn.
2. Add the Meat to a Hot Skillet: Warm the pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add the beef to the center of the pan.
3. Break the Meat into Large Pieces: Use a stiff spatula to break the ground meat into several pieces.
4. Break the Meat into Smaller Pieces and Brown: Continue breaking the ground meat into smaller and smaller pieces. Sprinkle with salt and any spices you are using. Stir the beef occasionally to make sure it's browning evenly.
5. Finish Browning: The beef has finished when it is evenly browned and shows no signs of pink. Break open a few of the larger crumbles to make sure that it has browned all the way through. Browned ground beef can be used immediately, refrigerated for up to a week, or frozen for three months.
Want more smart tutorials for getting things done around the home?
See more How To posts
We're looking for great examples of your own household intelligence too!
Submit your own tutorials or ideas here!
(Images: Emma Christensen)
10 Easy Vacation Meals to Feed a Crowd
Recipe: Chopped Brown Rice Salad with Grapes and Pecans
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Martha Concrete Lam...
8 Secret Spots to Hide Valuables at Home
The Live/Work Studio of Robert Siegel Handmade Ceramics
Exactly how I do it! I always brown my meat or fish first in the pan (especially when making stews and risottos) then cook the veggies on their own-that way the meat keeps the brown, crispy texture! Yum!
I also think the tool you use makes a big difference. I used to find it difficult to get the ground meat into small enough crumbles until I started using a wooden spatula like the one in the photo. Having a the big flat edge (I find wood sturdier than plastic or metal) makes it a lot easier.
I'd say, don't play too much with the meat in the pan at first otherwise too much water comes out and the meat ends up boiling rather than pan frying, and it will turn in a greyish/dull in color. And always start with a very hot pan, spread out the meat in the pan, then don't touch it until it's ready to be stirred and turned around.
A friend once taught me to use a *very* hot pan, plop the meat in the middle and leave it until the bottom has caramelized. Then flip it and leave it a little (almost like cooking a steak), *then* start breaking it up. It's easier to break up that way, and you get a nice crusty brown meat. You do have to be careful not to overdo it, though.
If you are going for larger ground beef crumbles I would agree with the medium-high heat or very hot pan recommendation. I find though that if I want a smoother texture with smaller crumbles it has worked better for me if I cook the meat low and slow, kind of like like scrambled eggs. Went with that method for a chili recipe recently and got a lot of compliments on the texture of the meat.
Agree with @Areana and @Shell.strand. Leave well alone until it's browned on both sides, like a big burger, then it breaks up easily, and you get nicely browned, not grey, mince.
Ground beef cooking has to be one of the worst smells ever.
I find that seasoning the meat just before it goes from pink to brown/grey with a little bit of whatever is going in the dish (cumin & oregano in Mexican, italian seasoning in pastas) gives it a flavor boost.
And thanks to Jamie Oliver, I always grind my own beef. 100% chuck (one with nice marbling) for most recipes, although for burgers I use half chuck and half sirloin.
-Ruth
This exact thing. You get actual, real browning this way and a nicer flavor.
I buy my ground beef at Costco. They also list when the meat was ground. I brown it all in my big stainless steel pan. The best way to break up the meat is with an old fashioned potato masher. Works great to get a nice crumble.
I buy the 80/20% meat and I start out with a pretty hot pan but I almost always get a puddle of watery liquid in the pan when browning - about 1/4 cups of it. I usually drain it and continue cooking until it's no longer pink. The finished product isn't brown - it turns gray. I drain cause that's what my mother always did. Also, I thought if I cooked ground beef too long, it would get hard and chewy so I don't keep cooking once the pink is gone,
My question - is it better to drain it or raise the heat and keep cooking until this liquid cooks out?
I am not understanding why it matters when the beef was ground . . . shouldn't it matter when the beef was slaughtered? Isn't that what would indicate freshness? You can certainly grind old beef so I don't see where the "ground on" date tells you anything . . . ?
Ground beef can last well up to one week if it is stored properly in the refrigerator. It will then become a little 'gassy', but still can be used. Once the beef starts to turn brown on it's own, still in the package, you should just discard it and start over. It doesn't matter when the beef was slaughtered. Most ground beef is shipped frozen or processed that week at the store you purchased it.
This is so silly, but I've never thought about browning meat off when I get home from the store and THEN freezing it. My husband has this weird thing about cooking meat that's been frozen (forget explaining to him that *everything* we get from the grocery store has likely been frozen before we even buy it), so this might be a good solution.
Wow, $5.49 lb for ground beef. I wish I was affluent enough to justify that. I have a hard time paying $2.49 lb for ground beef. That always gets me when people talk about this cut or that cut being cheap at $5-$10 lb (America's Test Kitchen is notorious for this despite Chris Kimball and his three kitchens claiming to be a poor farmer.)
That said, I've never successfully browned ground beef in cast iron. I usually end up with a puddle of fat and have to drain the meat.