Ground beef is ideal for preparing nutritious diet meals. It is useful for soups, homemade pies, casseroles, meatballs, stuffed vegetables, stews. To enhance the taste, add fried or raw onions, garlic, herbs and spices.
Pick your recipe
Rules for the selection and preparation of minced meat
Minced beef is a healthy, easily digestible product with high nutritional value. It is rich in proteins, valuable amino acids, and B vitamins. Calorie content depends on the parts of the carcass that went into the preparation of minced meat. If slices of fat are added to lean meat, the mixture will be more juicy, but such a product can no longer be considered dietary.
Ground beef can be bought at the store or cooked by yourself. The latter option is preferable: the hostess will be able to control the quality of meat and the amount of additional ingredients. Another option is to order the preparation of minced meat in a specialized store, the seller will grind the selected piece of beef in the presence of the buyer. A little trick: at home, you must pass the minced meat through a meat grinder again, it will become more tender and airy.
If you are using a finished product, you need to buy packaging marked "A". This means that the highest quality meat was used for scrolling, without extraneous additives. To make the dishes delicious, it is important to use fresh, unheated minced meat. The ideal product has a uniform rich red color with a slight sheen. If the meat is dull, gray, watery or excessively dry, it is better to refuse the purchase. When choosing a package, you need to pay attention to the date of packaging and the period of implementation. It is preferable to buy not frozen but chilled products, if there is a suspicion that the minced meat was subjected to secondary freezing, it is better to refuse the acquisition.
For the preparation of minced meat at home, it is not necessary to use fillets, any parts of the carcass are suitable: shanks, peritoneum, neck. The meat is passed through a meat grinder, for splendor, you can add a little bread soaked in milk or warm water, the raw egg white makes the minced meat more dense. Mandatory ingredients - salt and chopped onions, optionally add ground black pepper, garlic, fresh or dried herbs to the minced meat. Ground beef can be mixed with other types of meat: pork, chicken, turkey. The finished product with spices is not stored in the refrigerator, but the formed products (meatballs, meatballs, stuffed cabbage) can be frozen.
Meatball Soup: Step-by-Step Cooking
The classic diet and baby food is low-fat, but very nutritious meatball soup. In addition to meat, vegetables and tender, quick-boiling vermicelli are included. To keep the broth transparent, it is better to cook the vermicelli separately and add to the soup immediately before serving.
Ingredients:
- 200 g of purchased or homemade ground beef without additives;
- 50 g of vermicelli;
- 1 carrot;
- 1 large potato;
- 1 onion;
- 1.5 liters of filtered water;
- salt to taste;
- Bay leaf;
- black pepper peas;
- refined cooking oil for frying;
- fresh herbs (parsley, dill, celery).
Prepare the minced meat by passing the beef through a meat grinder or scrolling in a blender along with half the onion. It is better to crank the finished product, bought at the store, through a meat grinder: the meatballs will turn out to be more tender and uniform, without hard veins. Roll the same small, but not too small balls from the minced meat. It is worth considering that when cooking meatballs will decrease in size. Boil the vermicelli in salted water, drop it into a colander.
Pour water into the pan, bring to a boil, add salt, black pepper, peas, bay leaf. Pour potatoes, peeled and diced. Boil root crops until half ready. Fry a finely chopped half of the onion and carrots grated on a coarse grater in a pan. Put the frying in the broth with meatballs, cook for 10 minutes until the potatoes are soft. Allow the dish to brew for another 5-7 minutes under a closed lid, add pre-boiled vermicelli and pour the soup on warmed plates. If desired, add chopped fresh herbs to each and put a spoonful of thick sour cream.
Meatloaf with egg: step by step recipe
From ground beef you can cook a simple but very interesting dish - meatloaf. A product cut into pieces looks very impressive in photographs, it can be prepared 1-2 days before the celebration and stored in the refrigerator, warming up before serving.
Ingredients:
- 1 kg of beef;
- 4 eggs;
- 1 large onion;
- 1 egg white
- dried or fresh herbs;
- salt and ground black pepper;
- breadcrumbs (if necessary).
Hard-boiled eggs and pour cold water for easy and accurate cleaning. Scroll the meat twice in a meat grinder, mix with beaten egg white. To force the minced meat to be tight and to keep its shape better, they roll it into lumps and sharply throw it into a bowl. A roll prepared from such stuffing will not fall apart when cutting and will easily be divided into neat slices.
Grind onions, add to the minced meat along with salt, pepper, dry herbs. The proportion of spices can be varied as desired. If the semi-finished product is too liquid, you can mix a little breadcrumbs into the minced meat.
Cover the rectangular baking dish with cling film. Put a layer of minced meat with a thickness of about 1.5 cm, flatten with a wide knife or a cooking spatula. Peel the eggs and lay them at an equal distance from each other. Cover with a second layer of minced meat. Wrap meatloaf tightly and lay so that the seam is at the bottom.
Put the meatloaf in the oven, heated to 200 degrees, bake for 1 hour at an average level. The finished product acquires a delicious golden crust. Take the roll out of the oven and cool slightly in the handicap. If you cut it hot, the stuffing will fall apart under the knife. Serve the roll warm, garnished with cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs, pickled vegetables. You can put the slices into separate plates by pouring each serving with tomato or cream sauce.