These recipes only take about 30 minutes from start to finish, and most of them can be made with kitchen staples like canned beans or dried pasta. Meghan Splawn is a food editor and on-air ground beef stroganoff who wants to make cooking for your family a little more fun.
She’ll probably introduce you to your favorite sprinkles. Scenario: you pulled some ground beef from the freezer to thaw for dinner tonight because you already know that a pound of it can cook in about 8 minutes and be turned into tons of different dinners. One of these 15 dinner recipes that use ground beef and takes around 30 minutes from start to finish. Most of them can be made with kitchen staples like canned beans, dried pasta, or burger buns and are almost guaranteed to be crowd pleasers. Save even more time and swap all the individual toppings for a bagged slaw or salad.
Every kitchen needs two kinds of chili—the long, slow cooking kind made on Sundays and the lightening fast version that can be made from a few pantry staples on a weeknight. If you think burgers are a weekend only recipe, think again. Burgers are actually very quick cooking and can be the on-the-fly dinner you need tonight. Continue to 5 of 15 below. This recipe will make you so happy you skipped the drive-thru! Seriously, this salad starts with seasoned ground beef and ends with special sauce all over crispy lettuce, creamy cheddar, and sweet tomatoes. You’ll be making this even when you aren’t super busy.
50 minutes with chopping and cooking all the vegetables! For those unfamiliar, Texas chili has tons of meat, deep flavor, and no beans. It cooks quickly and can be used for topping tortillas chips or hot dogs for a quick but filling dinner for a crowd. But the best part of this recipe is actually the salsa cooked ground beef. You brown the beef and add both broth and salsa and then add French dressing off the heat. Sounds weird but this Tex-Mex mash up is a huge hit at the dinner table. Continue to 9 of 15 below.
Stuffed peppers are a great way to use up leftovers but the classic oven baked method takes over 90 minutes to make. Nachos are one of the best vehicles for ground beef and this recipe turns the basic sheet pan method into a deep dish casserole of layered beef, cheese, and chips. After baking, top the whole thing with your favorite toppings or scoop up individual servings and let each diner top their own. Beef kebab lovers have long been hip to pressing seasoned ground beef onto skewers and grill, and now you can be too. You can cook these skewers on the grill or in a pan and then turn them into a meal with pita, hummus, and chopped fresh veggies in less than 30 minutes. These burritos take just over 30 minutes, but the extra 5 minutes is totally worth it. The ground beef and beans are simmered with enchilada sauce and then wrapped up with cheese into a cozy burrito.
You’ll even have time to crisp the finished burritos in a hot pan. Continue to 13 of 15 below. This sandwich is a little like a cheesesteak sandwich with its creamy comforting sauce, melty cheese, and tender beef on crispy bread—but, of course, it takes way less time. Goulash dishes range from long braised beef and lamb dishes to quick cooking ground beef varieties.