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Minced Meat - Quick and Easy Recipe
Minced Meat Cooking in a Saucepan
Minced Meat is Easy to Make - a Beginner's Recipe
All my family love minced meat because it is so versatile. By adding or removing some of the flavoring, I manage to make it a bit different every time I cook it. And there are lots of different ways that I use it, such as with taco shells, spaghetti, tortilla wraps, kidney beans and as a filling for pies and to make beefburgers and meat balls.
As you can see, Mince Meat is a good basic recipe which you can use in a variety of ways - useful for College students cooking for the first time (Jamie Oliver would definitely approve!).
I'm going to show you how to prepare this simple recipe, and the many ways you can put mince meat to good use. It is as versatile as chicken, and a little goes a long way, with potato, pasta, rice, beans or pastry.
If you have a family who are not keen on vegetables, you can secrete quite a large amount into the mixture, without anyone noticing, so they still get their nourishment without the complaints.
Everyone seems to make it slightly differently - this is my way of cooking Mince Meat.
Equipment for Cooking Minced Meat
The main utensil is a large Saucepan
Equipment for Cooking Mince:
- Large Saucepan
- Wooden Spoon for mixing
- Food Processor for grating and chopping, or a grater
- Kitchen Knife
- Chopping Board
NB:
Most of the ingredients listed below are optional - this means you can mix and match them according to what's in your cupboard and what you like.
Only the meat, cooking oil and onions are essential.
Next in importance comes tomato.
Assemble Your Minced Meat Ingredients
Useful Tip - Always Assemble the utensils and Ingredients before you start
First of all, it's quicker.
And Secondly, it saves you
finding out half-way through
the cooking that you haven't
got one of the basic ingredients.
Reader, I've learnt the hard way!
Ingredients for Minced Meat
Cook Time
Prep Time: 10 minutes and 20-30 minutes cooking
Total Time: 30 - 40 minutes
Serves: 4
Apart from the meat, onion and tomatoes, all the other ingredients listed below are optional, and you can add all or any of them in any quantities to suit your taste.
Just keep trying various flavorings out, until you find the taste that you like for your minced meat. Every time you make it, the taste will be slightly different.
I add all sorts of things to the basic minced meat mixture, to make it more nutritious and of course, at the same time this also makes it go further.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. Minced Beef preferably lean (lower fat)
- 1 Medium Onion chopped small
- 1 or 2 Tins of Chopped Tomatoes (or whole tomatoes chopped up)
- 1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
- 1 - 2 Cloves of Garlic crushed and chopped small
- ANYTHING BELOW THIS HERE IS OPTIONAL
- 1 inch of peeled chopped crushed ginger (powdered or bottled ginger are OK too)
- 1 Stick of Celery finely chopped
- 1 Grated Carrot
- 2 - 3 finely chopped Cabbage Leaves
- 1 - 2 Cloves
- Half Teaspoon of Mixed Spice
- Half Teaspoon of Allspice
- 1 - 2 tablespoons of Soya Mince
- 1 Bayleaf
- Salt to taste
- Half Teaspoon of Paprika
- A pinch of Chilli Powder
- 1 Teaspoon of Mixed Herbs
- A Splash of Worcestershire Sauce
- A Splash of Mushroom Sauce
- 1 Teaspoon of gravy mix (eg Bisto)
Instructions
- Fry the onions in the oiive oil on a medium heat until they are slightly brown, adding the garlic and ginge which should be crushed, as this releases the oils, and chopped small because nobody wants a mouthful of strong spice.
- Add the minced meat and keep squashing and turning it to break it up and brown every part of it. This will stop it sticking to the pan and stop it being lumpy. This will take 2 - 3 minutes or about 7 - 8 minutes if cooking from a frozen lump of minced meat..
- Whilst stirring, add the other flavourings to suit your taste. Add the tinned tomatoes, and only then add the soya mince (which need the moisture from the juice to soften it up). Add the grated carrot and finely chopped or grated celery. You can also add a little cabbage finely chopped or grated. Ensure there is sufficient liquid to allow the soya to absorb it whilst the mixture is still covered in liquid - you can top it up with a little water or even a further tin of chopped tomatoes.
- Simmer the mixture for about 20 minutes, stirring every now and then to prevent sticking. The minced meat is quite edible at this stage, if you don't want to wait, but improves with longer cooking; so I would recommend 40 minutes in total, although some people recommend at least an hour. Make sure it doesn't dry out, You can add gravy thickening (Bisto or the equivalent) to thicken up the juice if it is too runny.
Here's a Sneaky Tip in Case Your Kids Don't Like Vegetables: - Children can be very picky eaters, but you can disguise a load of vegetables in this mince meat
This won't work with all vegegetables, but I have personally tried and tested the ones below on two generations of children:
Soya mince - looks and tastes like mince meat, so you can add a bit of this nutritious vegetable with impugnity.
Grated Carrot - as long as you don't put too much in, it merges with the meat and the colour is unnoticeable - anything more than one carrot would be obvious..
Celery - contains lots of fibre and nutrition - chop it very finely so that there are no obvious lumps; it has a strong flavour so don't use more than one stick of celery.
White Cabbage finely chopped. The dark cabbage looks too obvious and is a dead giveaway, but the light cabbage is mild in flavour and because it takes up the colour of the mixture, it merges in quite well. Use about 3 large leaves.
A Dish of Lasagne for the Family
Use Minced Meat in a Variety of Ways
Mince Meat Freezes Well too
This is How You Can Use Your Mince Meat:
You may need to reduce the liquid for some of these dishes, to stop it being messy.
- Spaghetti Bolognaise - just boil some spaghetti to go with it
- Minced Meat and Rice - add a spot of Chilli or Curry Powder, and cook some rice to go with it
- A filling for Lasagne
- A savory meat filling for small pies and turnovers - add a bit of chilli or curry powder and just wrap some ready-made pastry round it and cook according to pastry instructions
- A filling for Taco Shells or Tortilla wraps - add any combination of chilli, lettuce, tomato and onion
- Chilli con Carne - add a tin of Red Kidney Beans and some chilli
- As a topping on Baked Potato
- As a soft baby food or invalid food - possibly giving it a swirl in the food processor to make it as fine as possible
Another Idea
Why not cook a lot more than you need at present, and freeze it for a rainy day when you are in a hurry or unexpected guests arrive, and you just want something to grab?
My Favorite Ingredients for Nearly Every Savory Meal I Cook: Onion, Garlic and Ginger
More Recipes Using Minced Meat and Onions:
- How to Make Shepherds Pie (or Cottage Pie)
This is one of our family favorites - my mother's recipe, passed on down the generations - Beefburgers - Quick and Easy Recipe
When you make your own beefburgers, you know what's in them, and I bet they're a lot healthier than ready-made burgers - How to Cook Vegetables - Onions
This is one of a collection of web pages I have written about How to Cook Vegetables.
Using Minced Meat to Make Lasagne - YouTube Video Featuring My Favourite British Chef
Condiments - Flavor Enhancers
Do you Use Ersatz Flavour Enhancers? - Take The Poll Below and See How Many People Share Your Views
I use all manner of flavourings to jazz up my food, including bottled flavorings such as mushroom sauce, fish sauce, brown sauce, worcestershire sauce, bottled chopped garlic, bottled chopped ginger, bottled prawn and chilli sauce, soy sauce and pomegranate sauce .
So, what about you - would you use flavour from a bottle?
Which is your FAVORITE flavour enhancer from a bottle? I'm talking bottled stuff here, not powdered or fresh.
