January 16, 2019

How to Freeze Your Ground Beef – and Use It, Too!

Do you have ground beef sitting in your freezer, waiting to be used?

You know that mound of ground beef you have sitting in the freezer? You keep forgetting to take it out to defrost the day before you need it and it just doesn’t defrost fast enough to use the same day.

Well, here’s the solution.

ground beef The day you buy your meat, immediately separate it into the amount you typically use at once. One to one and a half pounds is the ideal amount for a gallon size ziploc bag.

Put the meat in the bag and close the bag almost completely. Spread the meat all through the bag as flat as possible, and then completely seal the bag.

ground beef Freeze flat (after writing the date and amount, of course).

Now it’s 4:30 and the kids are coming home and you still haven’t gotten dinner ready. No problem! Remove that flat bag of meat and run it under tepid water for about 3 minutes. Now you can break it into chunks and it’s ready to be browned! Add your favorite tomato sauce and spices and you’ll have meat sauce ready to serve in the same amount of time it takes to boil the pasta!

Click to see The Coca-Cola Meatballs Your Kids Will Request Again and Again

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Esti Waldman

Esti’s career has brought her behind the lens of food, fashion, books, and families as a leading photographer. Her talent and technical know-how make the photography you see on the site so appealing.

Filed under: Tips & Tricks

Tagged with: food hack, freezer friendly, hacks

8 responses to “How to Freeze Your Ground Beef – and Use It, Too!”

Leah

January 16, 2019

What an innovative idea!! Thanks for the great post!

Reply
Sima

January 16, 2019

Brilliant idea! Thank you so much!

Reply
Shaindy Menzer

January 16, 2019

This will be a game changer for me! Thanks again Esti!

Reply
Miriam Hammer

January 17, 2019

Genius! I try and make meatballs as soon as I buy my ground beef and portion it into small containers. 10 minutes in the microwave, then 10 minutes on the stovetop and they’re ready.

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Leah

January 20, 2019

Lot of fun for kids to help with this too! Sensory experience to spread out the meat in the bags :-). Heading off to do this now with my latest meat order!

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Hadassah

July 30, 2019

I add the pasta straight into the meat with a little more water and it’s a one pot dinner, and amazing. The pasta soaks up the flavoring

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Lisa Neuman

January 16, 2020

Here’s one hack more. Take that flat freezer bag of ground meat and one chopstick. Press on the closed bag horizontally and vertically to make two evenly spaced indents in both directions creating 9 equal squares. When frozen fold the bag on the indents in each direction. And replace in the freezer. Presto….9 hamburgers ready to sous vide as is or grill or bake from frozen!

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Audrey Barasch

July 27, 2022

This trick works great with sushi rice also!

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