How to make your own ground beef

Making your own home-made ground beef is a much better alternative than purchasing commercially packaged ones, both in terms of freshness as well as taste. Packaged ground beef would have most likely used discarded portions of meat and more fat in addition to having more risks of contamination. You also tend to spend more in buying ground beef commercially than making your own. When you ground the beef at home, you have the liberty of choosing the best meat without having the fear of being given unhygienic meat in the stores. The taste will also be far better than using packaged ground beef.

Contrary to how some might feel, making ground beef at home is not too much of a bother and you are most likely to have all the ingredients and equipment you require, right inside your kitchen.

Read on to find out how to grind beef without much hassle, including instructions on storage. Once you are done, you can dish up some nice yummy burgers or simply make a few meat balls in a jiffy.



Preparation time: 30 minutes (to clean, cut and grind the meat)
Difficulty level: Easy

You will need a food processor (some are lucky to have old meat grinders which are not manufactured anymore), or a mixer with attached meat grinder,
1 pound beef cuts of your choice (choose more lean meat than fat).

• Wash the meat thoroughly and cut into cubes of about 1 or 1 ½ inches. Make sure that the meat is cut as uniformly as possible to get a more consistent texture when you are grinding.

• After the meat is cut, place it inside the food processor or meat grinder and use the manual option of grinding with short pulses, Make sure that you are not using pulses which last more than a couple of seconds. If you are using separate pieces of meat, you need to process both separately.

• Take a bowl and mix the processed meat together using your hands and your ground beef is ready

Storage: Ground beef is best if used immediately but if you want to store it than make balls of the meat and wrap in a parchment paper and refrigerate. Make sure to consume within three days.
Freezing will make the meat last for more time and you can freeze the meat inside freezing bags and keep it for about a month. Ensure to let out any air from inside the packages before sealing. Making small portions before freezing will help take up lesser place in your freezer and also easier to thaw.
Tips: The best portions to use for making ground beef is the chuck and sirloin. The trick is to keep the perfect fat and meat ratio, somewhere around 80:20, needless to point but 20 being the portion of fat. 
Store the meat inside the freezer before grinding to get better texture. 
Ensure that your hands as well as the food processor are thoroughly cleaned before using the meat, to prevent the risk of contamination.