When I was younger, most family meals we shared started with a pound of ground beef. And there was very little I didn’t like. It’s convenient, crowd-pleasing, quick to make, freezes well, and is way more economical than any other cut of beef I can think of.
Although beef prices have skyrocketed in recent months, ground beef remains a relatively affordable meat, especially when you complement it with staples like pasta, potatoes and rice.
Could you make the following recipes with ground turkey or meatless ground beef? Sure! That’s the great thing about it. Ground beef is so versatile, it doesn’t even have to be beef.
The ultimate comfort food, this recipe has many variations and aliases: slumgullion, American chop suey, goulash. It's not chop suey and it's not real goulash, but it's on the table in half an hour and makes for divine leftovers… if there are any.
When I was a kid, it was a staple of church basement meals, and probably still is. While the hamburger is the star, in some parts of the country, when you say “vegetable soup,” that’s what people mean. Either way, it’s both flavorful and filling, and pairs perfectly with rolls or crackers.
Simple recipes / Marta Rivera Diaz
Did one person invent taco soup? If so, wherever and whoever you are, I want to hug you. Many a night when opening cans and sautéing beef was all I could do, your genius concoction brought smiles to my family's dinner table and relief to my harried soul after a day of work. I still prefer taco soup to real tacos.
Neal Santos
Make way for bulgogi. Or at least, prepare to share the stage with your time-saving younger cousin. The brainchild of Korean-American chef Peter Serpico, ground beef bulgogi is a fun meal where you can tuck the beef into a ssam lettuce wrap, or use it as a filling for Korean tacos. Honestly, I ate it straight out of the pan. It’s salty and intense, so serve some fresh, crunchy raw veggies on the side.
My mom made stuffed peppers regularly, and so did Simply Recipes founder Elise Bauer’s parents. In fact, her parents each have their own versions of stuffed peppers. One notable difference? Dad has a ketchup filling, Mom doesn’t. Which would you choose? Nowadays, I eat the pepper no matter what, but when I was younger, I treated the filling like my own meatloaf and left the pepper to Mom. It’s a win-win!
Simple Recipes / Cambrea Gordon
Here it is, one of the most viewed recipes of all time on Simply Recipes. People all over the world make it and often share their variations. What would yours be?
This creamy and spicy pasta bake goes right into the oven in the pan you used to cook the simple chili. The buttery, chili-spiced breadcrumbs give it a crunch that's well worth the extra few minutes.
This recipe takes full advantage of the glory of a sheet pan dinner. While your barbecue-painted mini meatloaves cook, you arrange mustard potatoes and broccoli florets on the sheet pan to bake alongside in the oven.
Easy Recipes / Photo by Jen Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Accessories Styling by Lindsey Lower
Instead of making individual patties and searing them one by one, simply cook ground beef in a skillet and toss it with sautéed mushrooms and a savory sauce for a 30-minute meal. It has all the flavors of the original without the hassle.
Easy Recipes / Photo by Jen Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Accessories Styling by Lindsey Lower
If you love the flavors of beef and broccoli, make this quick, easy, and affordable version. Ready in just 30 minutes (just enough time to cook rice at the same time), it's a perfect family meal.
Make a pot of pasta sauce with lots of beef, fresh herbs, garlic, onion, and Italian seasonings. This type of recipe becomes a template for all sorts of variations and is great for new cooks.
Our founder, Elise, was one of six children, and her resourceful mother knew how to stretch a meal to feed a crowd. Here, canned pinto beans become a canvas for chili spices and a bit of ground beef to, well, beef it up. The result is sheet-like comfort.
There is a Hamburger Helper version, but with such a simple recipe, what good is a convenience product? Cook salted mushrooms with the beef, add sherry or white wine (or just plain water) and add the necessary amount of sour cream to finish.
Nick Evans / Simple Recipes
There’s a theme here, for sure: Take a beloved dish and make it quick and fun with a ground beef twist. Philly Cheesesteak purists may snicker, but in the meantime, you’ll be enjoying a pile of melty, gooey cheese. Which just goes to show that snobbery doesn’t pay.
In my life as a mom, I've noticed that the dishes I put the least effort into are the ones that are most enjoyed. Using that formula, this one is a winner! The twisted pasta cooks right in the skillet for those nights when washing an extra pan is a hassle.
Simple Recipes / Nick Evans
If cheeseburgers were made into soup, this is what they would be like. Cheeseburger soup is creamy and rich, with bacon, milk, cream cheese, and lots of cheddar. Russet potatoes give it body.
This Mexican Meatball Soup pairs meatballs with a broth rich with tomatoes and vegetables. Elise adds chopped fresh mint to her meatballs, an ingredient that almost every reviewer seems to insist on with conviction. Where are you sitting?
A classic mid-century recipe, reworked for the convenience of an Instant Pot (or pressure cooker). The porcupine-ness the name alludes to comes from the way the bits of rice in the meatballs stick out after cooking like porcupine quills.
