{/} How About Hamburger Helper? {/}

November 17, 2015 8:06 AM

We've got more hamburger meat in our freezer right now than we've probably eaten in the past ten years. We've found two recipes for it that we like--can you point us to more like these two, so we can get some more hamburgery variety?

Here are the two recipes we've found are awesome:
Laab
This lebanese dish with butternut squash

These recipes are both really spicy. They both also involve a bit of sweetness (lime juice in the laab, butternut squash in the other one). I think the spiciness + sweetness is why I like them so much: that combination really cuts through the oiliness and greasiness of hamburger meat. That's perhaps what's most important for me, finding ways to minimize the greasiness of the ground beef.

I'm sure the cuisines of the world have far more variations on this sort of ground meat recipe. We love spicy food, and we love exploring flavor combinations that are new and unusual for us (white Americans). So, what recipes can you point me towards?

posted by meese to Food & Drink (23 answers total)

Pastitsio
posted by fourpotatoes at 8:16 AM on November 17, 2015

Koftas. Traditionally made with lamb, but beef works great too. The Tzatziki helps with the cutting the fat that you're after.
posted by wwax at 8:21 AM on November 17, 2015

Kefta/kofte/kofta, koobideh.

Kibbe/kibbeh/kibbi (also kibbeh in a pan).

This is a "lazy" casserole version of Polish golumpki (cabbage rolls). It's really good, our weather has just turned cold and I'm ready to make some of this.

Empanadas (I buy Goya empanada wrappers in the freezer section).

Pasty: Michigan, Cornish, Devon.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:35 AM on November 17, 2015

Also: homemade Cheesy Mac Hamburger Helper, which you can fancy up in a number of ways if you choose. (Highly recommended: a drizzle of Worcestershire + a squirt of sriracha.)
posted by Lyn Never at 8:39 AM on November 17, 2015

Neither of the recipes you mention includes this step, but do you drain the fat off of the ground beef after you brown it? Your palate might be a little more favorable toward classic Americana dishes like a Midwestern-Style Goulash or Potato Hash if you remove all of that oil from the equation entirely.
posted by Andrhia at 8:41 AM on November 17, 2015

Pasty: Michigan, Cornish, Devon.
You can't make a pasty with ground meat. That would be an abomination.

How about meatball curry, though?
posted by pipeski at 8:42 AM on November 17, 2015

My mom made a lot of picadillo growing up; I'd add mixed veggies (I don't know why, but it's good) and a lot more spice to this recipe.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:48 AM on November 17, 2015

Keema or Qeema or Kheema or Morteza is a traditional South Asian meat dish, derived from Persian qeymeh. The name qeema is an ancient Akkadian word meaning 'finely chopped'.
posted by axismundi at 8:59 AM on November 17, 2015

This recipe for "Greek Nachos" might fit the bill.
posted by taz at 9:01 AM on November 17, 2015

In my experience Mapo Tofu is almost always made with ground pork but there's no reason you couldn't do it with ground beef and the internet confirms that it is a thing. Like much Szechuan cuisine the final dish is often quite oily with a thick layer of spicy oil but you by no means need to serve it like that. The body of the sauce will come from stock and corn starch and if you drain the fat off the beef I think it would quite suite your palate with its comforting rich and spicy flavour profile. You can google for recipes and it's quite flexible but here's a good one from Serious Eats that calls for beef. Potent with chili and szechuan peppercorn and generously topped with sesame seeds and green onion, it's my favourite ground meat comfort food.
posted by kaspen at 9:23 AM on November 17, 2015

While not spicy, faux gyros come out fairly non-greasy. Basically you beat the heck out of the beef, integrating the fat very well along with gyro-type spices. After you man-handle the ground beef and spices, cook it like a meat loaf, then slice thin. Put on flatbread with tzatziki, onion, lettuce and what-have-you, and the taste and texture are a pretty good fake.
posted by thebrokedown at 9:47 AM on November 17, 2015

This recipe from Fuchsia Dunlop is one of our favorite ground beef recipes. Spicy, crunchy and a bit tangy from the vinegar... all of which help to cut the greasiness of the beef. You can skip blanching the celery if you want (I won't tell), but make sure you have a good amount of rice to serve along side.
posted by jenquat at 9:48 AM on November 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

2nding the Send Down the Rice Chopped Celery with Beef that jenquat linked to - I eat this probably every other week. If you have trouble finding toban djan (I did after moving out of NYC), your local supermarket may have a premade "sauce for ma po tofu" (made by the same company) - which is like 95% toban djan and works just fine in that recipe.
posted by melissasaurus at 10:01 AM on November 17, 2015

Shepherd's Pie, or Chili Verde.
posted by Oyéah at 10:20 AM on November 17, 2015

There's a quick-and-dirty recipe I found for a ground beef-and-Japanese-eggplant stirfry; the marinade is very similar to the marinade for the laab recipe, and otherwise it's just ground beef and about two sliced-up Japanese eggplant (the long skinny kind of eggplant), and then you throw in some chopped basil at the last minute and serve over steamed rice.

I've also used ground beef as the protein in a similarly quick-and-dirty recipe I have for Yakisoba.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:29 AM on November 17, 2015

Taco meat! Dead simple and there are endless variations available.
posted by mmascolino at 10:32 AM on November 17, 2015

Oh! Oh, my Belgian roommate just used ground meat in last night's dinner and it was awesome; a stuffed-squash recipe. The filling was ground beef with a little onion and garlic, and some chopped tomato; she used it to stuff a softball-sized pumpkin split in half (one half for each of us). You fry up the filling, cut the squash of your choice in half and scoop out the seeds, stuff with some of the meat mixture and then top with a crapton of grated cheese and then you bake it until the squash is done and the cheese is melty. She says this is sort of a traditional recipe, but I don't know if it's something her family came up with or if it's a longstanding belgian thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:33 AM on November 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thai-spiced beef in lettuce wraps
Stuffed zucchini with greek-style spicing
posted by kadia_a at 10:50 AM on November 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Here's the full recipe for homemade gyros thebrokedown is undoubtedly referring to.
posted by O9scar at 11:06 AM on November 17, 2015

Most of our meat is very lean game, so you may end up with an excess of fat when you cook this, but try.


Lahma bi Ajee

Dough
1 cup water
1 tbsp yeast
pinch of sugar
1 tsp salt
3-4 cups of flour

Mix the dough to make a very stiff dough. Let it rise for 2-3 hours.

Meat Filling
1# ground meat
1 large yellow onion, diced fine
1/2 can tomato paste
1 metric shit ton of minced garlic (Anywhere from a tbsp to a half cup, I used a half cup)
3/4 tsp ground allspice
Olive oil
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground pepper
3 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 tbsp sugar
juice of half a lemon
2 dashes of hot sauce

Sautee onion in a few tablespoons of olive oil until the onions are translucent but not brown. Remove from heat and stir in the minced garlic. Allow onions and garlic to cool for a few minutes and then mix all of the meat filling ingredients together. Cook a small amount of the filling in a frying pan to test for seasoning, adjust as necessary.

Cooking the Lahma bi ajee
Preheat your oven to 450 with a pizza stone or a cast iron pan in the oven.
Pinch off walnut-sized lumps of dough and roll them out to 5 or 6 inch circles on a lightly floured board. This will be very thin. Spread about 1/3 cup of filling on the dough to about 1/8 inch thick.
Place the lahma bi ajeen onto the stone and allow to cook until meat is cooked and the bottom of the dough is browned (3-5 minutes). Assembled the next while the first cooks.
When each is done, pull the pie from the oven and leave on a plate. When you are ready to eat, you can crisp/reheat them on the stone again.

Makes about 8-10 individual pies.
Serve with hot sauce and tzaziki or just plain.
Goes great with beer.
These freeze and reheat well, if you have any left.
The flavoring can be adjusted to suit your tastes. My version is really garlicky with only a hint of allspice. Other people really like it to have a strong allspice/cinnamon flavor.
posted by Seamus at 12:46 PM on November 17, 2015

Oh. OH.

Make THESE.

You can totally cheat and just use storebought pie crust if you want. but yes, make those.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:34 PM on November 17, 2015

In the same vein as kadia_a's suggestion of Thai-spiced beef, a search for Vietnamese/Cambodian/Thai plus 'minced beef' should yield some potential recipes for you to try. I don't have a specific link, but I have definitely made some delicious dishes where the fattiness of the meat is balanced by salty fish sauce, sour lime juice and sweetness too. One I remember was Jamie Oliver's Dan Dan Noodles (which I am sure you can find many links to), which was deliciously spicy and fresh.
posted by schmoo at 1:26 AM on November 18, 2015

Moroccan keftes and rice! Rice and meatballs are cooked together, so the rice soaks up any fat from the meat and is delicious.
posted by palliser at 11:05 AM on November 18, 2015 [1 favorite]