Easy Seasoned Ground Beef
This seasoned ground beef recipe is: Gluten Free, Paleo, Primal and Wheat Belly Friendly.
Beef. It’s just so good. This is a base recipe that you can use to build a ton of different dishes. You can use seasoned ground beef in tacos (including those made in romaine lettuce leaves), on nachos, in marinara sauce, as a salad topper, in chili, in stuffed peppers, in soup… the list goes on from here. The key is the seasoning. It has to taste good in all these different things. For that reason, we’re going to keep it simple. Garlic. Onion. Cumin. Cayenne. A match made in heaven.
Seasoned ground beef can be made ahead and stored for at least a week in the refrigerator. If you are planning on keeping some in the fridge, my suggestion is to keep all the fat with the beef. When I was growing up, we put the beef on paper towels to soak up the fat. That’s all fine and good, but when you go to reheat your delicious seasoned ground beef, it will be dry and crumbly. Nobody wants dry, crumbly beef.
One of my favorite things about this dish is that it is inexpensive. Ground beef is always going on sale at the grocery store. Today I picked up 2 Lbs of local ground beef for about two bucks a pound. I was double thrilled because not only was in inexpensive, it was 80/20 as well. That means 80% lean and 20% fat. The lowest to go is 85/15. When you get into the 90/10 and 93/7 your beef will be dry and lacking in body. In this dish, the fat definitely makes the flavor.
QUICK COOKING TIP: It is a really good idea to use a cast iron or other heavy-duty pan when cooking ground beef, pork, chicken or turkey. When you put 2 or 3 pounds of ground meat into the pan, it is going to pull a lot of the heat out of the pan very quickly. If your pan isn’t heavy duty, it will get too cold and then you will end up steaming the meat rather than sauteing it. Steamed beef turns gray rather than brown and doesn’t develop the depth of flavor.
Enough with the talky-talky. Let’s get to the recipe.
SEASONED GROUND BEEF RECIPE
Ingredients
- 2 LBS Ground Beef
- 2 TBSP Olive Oil
- 1 TBSP Granulated Garlic
- 1 TBSP Granulated Onion
- 2 TSP Ground Cumin
- ¼ TSP Cayenne Powder or more for punched up heat
- 1.5 TSP Kosher Salt
- Fresh Cracked Pepper
Instructions
- Add the oil to a large heavy duty pan and put over high heat.
- When oil is just starting to smoke, add the ground beef.
- Break up the ground beef with a wooden spoon and distribute evenly throughout the pan.
- Add the seasonings. Crank a healthy dose of fresh cracked pepper.
- Stir occasionally and break up any chunks of beef.
- Continue to stir and cook for approximately 15 minutes, or until the beef is browned and delicious.
- Serve hot and enjoy!
Nutrition
PLEASE NOTE: The nutritional data is provided by NutriFox and may not be 100% accurate.
Final Thoughts on the Seasoned Ground Beef Recipe:
After finishing my workout today, I came home and knocked this recipe out in about 15 minutes. The cool part is when my wife came home and saw the seasoned ground beef she went into the fridge, grabbed a ripe avocado and some Chipotle Tabasco sauce and her lunch was ready. I’ve never thought to put these flavors together, but they were absolutely delicious. Tomorrow for lunch I’m going to put down a nice base of chopped romaine, some seasoned ground beef, make a quick tomato salsa, add some diced avocado with the Chipotle Tabasco. I can’t wait for lunch tomorrow.
If you made this Seasoned Ground Beef Recipe or have other favorite ways to use it, tell us about it!
Love just how easy this is. Never made this before, but it was perfect in my tacos. So much better than taco bell.
Hi Renee:
Thank you for trying it and for sharing your thoughts. It’s absolutely delicious!
Have a fantastic day in the kitchen!
Scott
That looks really good! Love the serving spoon, looks like something from Kenya.
Hi Vanessa:
The spoon is made in Kenya indeed. But the good news is that you don’t need to go there to buy it. I bought it from Amazon:
https://amzn.to/2Hv58rq
Hope this helps. Have a great day!
Scott
Honestly, I wondered how different this would taste compared to my ground beef I prepare. Cast iron pan vs. non-stick? Add oil before sautéing? Don’t stir it a lot and let it really brown? My ground beef never “browned”….until I tried YOUR recipe! I’m in my 50’s and have been frying ground beef for eons in a nonstick skillet on medium heat (so I don’t have grease splatter to clean afterwards). This was AMAZING!! My keto lifestyle has vastly improved with this simple recipe that you explained so well Ü Thank you over and over! My taco salads and Keto meatzas are so much tastier. Thanks so much for sharing, Scott!