Best Ground Beef Recipes

By Food & Wine
Updated April 02, 2019
From pasta to curry, F&W has terrific ideas for easy ground beef recipes. Laab, a fast and easy dish, is a traditional Thai meat salad that can be eaten warm or at room temperature. Adding thin noodles is a simple way to turn it into a pasta salad, but the meat mixture is also great on its own. Plus, more amazing recipes for ground beef including the best meat loaf and Sicilian-style meatballs made with pine nuts.
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Cuban Beef Casserole with Corn-Scallion Biscuit Topping

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Inspired by a Cuban picadillo, this recipe perfectly balances savory and sweet with warm aromatic spices, sweet raisins and tangy green olives.

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Macaroni-and-Beef Casserole

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This hearty cumin-scented casserole has an irresistible cheesy-crisp topping.

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Natchitoches-Style Meat Pies

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A meat-pie shortcut for the home cook: Use store-bought empanada dough instead of making your own. The cooks at Besh Steak use duck fat to sauté the meat filling. At home, butter is a perfectly fine substitute and much easier to find.

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All-Time-Favorite Hamburger

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The ideal hamburger combines the fattiness of chuck with the rich, beefy flavor of sirloin. Grace Parisi uses equal parts of both cuts in her mix, a foundation you can transform into all sorts of variations. When she has the time, she grinds her own meat after salting it overnight: It's an extra step that makes the burger truly superb.

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Beef Chili with Beans

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The smoky, spicy chili here is a slightly modified version of Grant Achatz's mother's chili, made with ancho, pasilla and chipotle powders, plus a homemade blend of seasonings and fresh herbs.

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Beef Keema

© Andrew Purcell
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Although this ground-meat curry is often made with lamb, we've found that the distinctive combination of spices tastes just as good with beef. Serve the thick, chili-like keema with warm naan (Indian flatbread), if available, or pita.

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Thai-style Beef Salad over Angel-Hair Pasta

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Laab—ground beef seasoned with chiles, lime juice, fish sauce, and mint—is a traditional Thai meat salad eaten warm or at room temperature. We've added thin noodles to turn it into a pasta salad, but you can always eat the meat mixture by itself; just cut down on the fish sauce, or the beef may be too salty.

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Grandma's Lasagna

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Although we tested three different Bolognese-style lasagnas with creamy béchamel sauce, we decided that the definitive lasagna had to have tomato sauce, chunks of meat, shredded mozzarella and creamy ricotta cheese.

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Slow Cooker Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

FREDRIKA STJÄRNE
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These meatballs are served in a bowl, but they are equally delicious with spaghetti or on a hoagie roll.

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Picadillo

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Chef David Guas describes this traditional Cuban ground-beef stew with raisins, onions, olives and tomato as an “à la minute chili.” According to him, it’s a simple dish with countless variations. “My mom and I used to argue about picadillo: My grandmother made it a certain way, my father another,” he says. “Now that I’ve tasted versions of it in Cuba, I’m able to get my head around some of these slight differences.”

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Meat Loaf with Creamy Onion Gravy

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"This is a culmination of all the meat loaves I've ever eaten," says Andrew Curren. "My mom always made a good meat loaf—it never had the tomato goo on top of it. Then I tasted a meat loaf that had cheese in it; that was a good idea. In Italy, I was introduced to soffritto and realized the importance of cooking with carrots, onion, celery." Curren serves the meat loaf with creamy gravy, which is also excellent on lunchtime meat loaf sandwiches.

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Grilled Beef Rolls with Nuoc Cham Dipping Sauce

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For these Vietnamese-style grilled-beef rolls (bo la lot), Andrew Zimmern wraps flavorful ground sirloin in briny grape leaves and serves them with a sweet, spicy, tangy dipping sauce. Traditionally, they are made with the betel leaf, which is also delicious and can be found at some Asian markets.

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Classic Spaghetti and Meatballs

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Spaghetti and meatballs is a crowd-pleasing classic Italian-American dish. The mixture of beef, veal and pork makes the meatballs really flavorful.

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Moussaka with Yogurt Béchamel

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Meat-Stuffed Poblanos with Cilantro-Lime Sauce

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Pasta Bolognese

Fredrika Stjärne
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Sicilian-Style Meatballs

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Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli say that dried currants and pine nuts make these meatballs distinctly Sicilian.

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Beef-and-Vegetable Potpie with Cheddar Biscuits

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"I have a hard time getting excited by beef," Kristin Kimball confesses. "We do a lot of ground meat, and I get tired of coming up with new ideas for it." This luscious potpie—with its buttery cheddar crust and filling mixed with parsnips, carrots and peas—would be a perfect addition to her repertoire.

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Baked Shells with Pesto, Mozzarella, and Meat Sauce

© Bree Hester
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Here's a true crowd pleaser: pasta shells in a simple sauce of ground beef, tomatoes, and pesto, layered with mozzarella and Parmesan and baked until bubbly. Fusilli or orecchiette would work well here, too.

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Mini Panamanian Beef Empanadas

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Chef Tip: For a flakier empanada, use leaf lard instead of butter.

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