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Sidetracked Sarah

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20 Ground Beef Recipes for the Slow Cooker

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20 Ground Beef Recipes for the Slow Cooker - SidetrackedSarah.com

 

Several years ago, before I knew much about easy crockpot meals, when I was a young married woman, I would fix my husband spaghetti every week. I thought it was no.big.deal because I LOVED spaghetti. My husband…not so much.

He’d complain and say, “Spaghetti again?” or say he was already too full and then make a peanut butter and jelly on the side.  Luckily for him, I didn’t take it too personally because I could see his point. But I didn’t know what else to do. Money was tight and I wasn’t sure what else to serve him that was both easy AND affordable. 

Fast forward twenty years…and plenty of experimentation and I’ve found that I can make a lot of other foods with ground beef that aren’t much harder than spaghetti and still satisfy the diversity that my husband craves at meal time.

These 20 hamburger recipes have saved our dinner time!  While we do still occasionally eat spaghetti, we love each of these ground beef recipes equally as much, if not more.  (My husband actually loves them more, lol)  Plus, there’s an added bonus!  We save time AND we save money by using them, because they are super Easy Crockpot Meals!!

How We Save Time by Cooking in the Slow Cooker

  • We utilize Crockpot Freezer Meals by doing all of the preparation and assembly work all at once.  Typically, I do this on a Saturday or Sunday and prepare a week at a time.  It only takes an hour or two at the most and it eliminates a lot of cooking time on my part.  I do the chopping of all my veggies, precooking of any ground beef or other meats, all at once.
  • By quickly dumping my meal into the slow cooker, in the morning or early afternoon, I don’t have to spend that 30 minutes to an hour preparing the evening meal.  I’m always impressed with the amount of extra time I have in the evening, when I have cooked my meal in the slow cooker.

How We Save Money By Cooking in the Slow Cooker

  • We buy cheap cuts of meat, such as ground beef and chicken.
  • We don’t eat out nearly as often, because we have a delicious home cooked meal ready for us.
  • When I know I’m going to have a ground beef Crockpot Freezer Meals cooking session, I can buy my ground beef in bulk.  I do that by buying a side of beef from a local farmer or by purchasing a case at Sam’s club, in the meat market.

The Best Slow Cooker to Cook These Easy Crockpot Meals In

Of course, having the best slow cooker for your family will be worth it’s weight in gold!  Here’s a general guideline you can go by:

  • 1.5 – 2.5 quart slow cookers are great for singles or couples.  You will likely not fit leftovers in this size though.
  • 3.5 – 4 quart slow cookers will feed 2 to 4
  • 5 or 6 quart slow cookers are will feed 4 to 6
  • 7 quart and up are perfect for large families or people who cook a lot for large get togethers.

For most of my recipes here on this site, I would probably suggest using at least a 6 quart slow cooker.  If I were to pick one out for your family, I used to think that I would first suggest the Instant Pot because it has so many other features that you can take advantage of, like pressure cooking, steaming and more!  It’s generic name is actually a multi-cooker, but… slow cooking is supposed to be one of its many great options.  But…. I’ve since found that the slow cooker button, doesn’t work too well.  The inner stainless steal pot of an Instant Pot does not cook in the same way as the ceramic ones that the slow cookers have.  There’s definitely a place in my house for both though.  I’ve found that on days that I forget to start my slow cooker, my Instant Pot saves the day time and time again.

 


Instant Pot

 

My best suggestion for a slow cooker is one with a digital programmable slow cooker with a locking lid like this 6 quart version:

 

Crockpot Programmable

 

It is relatively inexpensive, even though it has all of these great features.

 

Of course, there’s some other really good options as well.  If you want a little more help picking out the best slow cooker for your family, be sure to check out my post where we dive a little deeper into sizes, colors, features and more.  They have some really cool colors out there these days.  I am in love with this blue one:

Blue Slow Cooker

 

Tips for Slow Cooking with Ground Beef Recipes

One of the most common questions I get, when we talk about cooking easy crockpot meals using ground beef recipes is this:  “Can you just put it in the slow cooker with the rest of the food, without pre-cooking it?”  That is a great question!  Read my tips below to decide what you think:

 

  1.  You always want to precook it, if it will be mixed into something, and drain (and possibly even rinse)the grease.  For example, if you’re following my Freezer to Slow Cooker plan, you don’t want to precook a meatloaf, but you DO want to precook the ground beef if it will be in lasagna or soups.
  2. Don’t let ground beef cook for long periods of time in it’s own grease. Otherwise, it will end up taking on a weird, greasy after-taste, even after the grease has been drained.
  3. When cooking in a slow cooker, it’s a good idea to use a lower fat ground beef.  That way if any grease did not get drained off, your dish won’t end up a greasy pot of ick.

 

OK, so obviously I have a problem with grease.  Once, I tried cooking my ground beef in bulk in my slow cooker.  You know, so I wouldn’t have to slave over the stove, stirring the meat.  I found that it did not do well.  It had a weird greasy aftertaste, and some of the meat was still red even though it was fully cooked.  After that, I’ve always precooked it.

 

These are the tools I use to get several pounds of ground beef cooked in one session.

My Large Cast Iron Skillet – I seriously love this thing!  It is perfect for cooking 3-4 pounds of ground beef in it at a time.

cast iron skillet

 

I use my Stainless Steel Spatula to regularly stir the meat and break it apart, so that there aren’t very many large clumps.

stainless steel spatula

Then, I will use my Easy Greasy™ Colander to drain and catch the grease, and then follow that up by rinsing the grease with water.  This makes my meal lower in bad fats and much healthier for my family!

 

 

 

20 Hamburger Recipes for your Slow Cooker

OK, so now, let’s talk about the recipes!

From experience, these hamburger recipes are perfect for a bulk cooking day (especially when ground beef is on sale). You can either go to each recipe and print them out OR you can sign up to receive the printable recipes in an ebook all for free!

If you get the free ebook, you will always have the recipes on hand instead of trying to find my site, remember the recipe, remember the ingredients, etc. (Because we all know when you have time to cook, you don’t have another 30 minutes to find the recipe on the website.)

To start out, I wanted to share one recipe, that’s not in the ebook, because it’s awesome!  After that, the next 20 recipes are in the ebook, or you can access them here.

 

Mexican Lasagna – it’s delicious!  

  1. Mexican Casserole
  2. Beef Stroganoff
  3. Slow Cooker Pizza
  4. Taco Soup
  5. Tater Tot Casserole
  6. Pasta Fagiola
  7. Meat Loaf
  8. Montereys
  9. Easy Slow Cooker Chili
  10. Sweet & Sour Meatballs
  11. Sloppy Joes
  12. Shepherd’s Pie
  13. Crockpot Lasagna
  14. Slow Cooker Vegetable Beef Soup (ground beef version)
  15. Easy Crockpot Meatballs (Spaghetti & Meatballs)
  16. Hearty Western Casserole
  17. Stuffed Pepper Soup
  18. Pizza Burgers
  19. Cheeseburger Soup
  20. Hobo Packets

 

 

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20 Ground Beef Recipes for the Slow Cooker - SidetrackedSarah.com

 

*Some links in this post are affiliate links.

 

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20 Ground Beef Recipes for the Slow Cooker

These ground beef slow cooker recipes are so helpful when you need to save money on dinner, or just save time.  They are a huge hit in our house and I bet you'll love them as well.
Course Beef
Cuisine All
Keyword 20 Ground Beef Recipes for the Slow Cooker
Prep Time 3 hours hours 51 minutes minutes
Cook Time 3 hours hours 51 minutes minutes
0 minutes minutes
Servings 6
Calories 384kcal
Author Sarah Robinson

Ingredients

  • Ground beef

Instructions

  • In most of the ground beef recipes for the slow cooker, you'll want to brown the meat ahead of time, so that your food is not cooking in grease the whole day.  Of course, things like meat loaf and patties that can't be browned ahead of time, as easily, it's OK to do in the slow cooker, just select a leaner style beef, or put a rack or foil balls underneath so that the meat isn't frying in it's own grease all day.

Nutrition

Calories: 384kcal | Protein: 26g | Fat: 30g | Saturated Fat: 12g | Cholesterol: 107mg | Sodium: 101mg | Potassium: 408mg | Calcium: 27mg | Iron: 3mg

 

Ground Beef Slow Cooker Recipes

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Comments

  1. Lisa says

    April 15, 2021 at 1:26 am

    In the paragraph talking your Easy Greasy colandar, you mention you “rinse your grease”. I’m guessing you meant to say you rinse the cooked meat. However, when I read it, I cackled at rinsing the grease! I just wanted to share that.

    Reply
    • Sarah says

      April 21, 2021 at 10:04 pm

      Yeah, that’s totally what I meant, lol. You never know about me. 🙂

      Reply
  2. Cheryl says

    October 3, 2019 at 1:18 am

    Where do I get to the recipes? I only got as far as cooking the ground beef ahead so it’s not so greasy.

    Reply
    • Sarah says

      October 3, 2019 at 11:49 pm

      They are linked here on this page. Just click on any of them above and it will take you to them, or subscribe and I will send you a free ebook for them. Check spam and/or email me if you didn’t get it.

      Reply
  3. Sarah A says

    January 17, 2018 at 3:59 pm

    This was fate…I was searching for new hamburger recipes and found your article. I am also a Sarah with six kids and the name of your blog fits me to the “T”! Lol Looking forward to giving your recipes a try. 🙂

    Reply
  4. Stacy Tompkins says

    October 24, 2015 at 8:41 pm

    My husband prefer eating beef so much.This dish looks very delicious, I will make them as your recipe for him, I hope he will happy when eating them

    Reply
  5. Dina@Kitchen Dreaming says

    July 24, 2014 at 10:41 pm

    Thanks for coming and linking up at #The Weekend Social. Please be sure to come back next week starting Thursdays at 9PM EST on Kitchen Dreaming.com ! I hope to see you there! Pinned
    Dina@KitchenDreaming

    Reply
  6. Amanda @ The Kolb Corner says

    July 23, 2014 at 7:59 pm

    Great list! For some reason I lack creativity in my meals when it comes to using ground beef. Pinning for later!
    Found you on the Wonderful Wednesday linkup

    Reply
  7. Karen says

    July 21, 2014 at 8:03 am

    What a great sounding list of idea! I love to use my crockpot and am always happy to snag a few new recipes. Thanks so much for sharing! Pinning.

    Reply
  8. Heather says

    July 20, 2014 at 12:15 pm

    Thanks for this!! Always in need of good slow cooker recipes 🙂 Pinned!

    Reply

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    This makes my life so much easier. I'm a busy work at home/stay at home mom, wife, business woman and I feel like dinner is always the thing I just never get time to do. We have done like 15 of the crockpot recipes from Sarah and they are all very yummy. They get a thumbs up from my husband and kids every time. And there is always enough for my husband to take the left overs at least 2x per recipe. I have a family of 5, 2 adults, 21, 13, 16. So it makes plenty. Thank you Sarah.

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