Make Ground Beef Meals More Substantial With This Canned Ingredient

It's never a bad idea to learn how to stretch your more expensive ingredients so you can get more bang for your buck. This goes for ground beef too, but what's the best way to beef up your beef? The answer is simple: canned beans. You should always have canned beans in your pantry, whether they're kidney, black, pinto, cannellini, or one of the many other tasty and nutritious varieties out there. These legumes add bulk to your ground beef, letting you cut back on the overall amount of meat you use while still getting a filling plate of food on the table.

The mild flavor of the beans takes on that savory meatiness, and the creaminess adds a welcome variation of texture. On top of that, beans aren't just a nutrition-less filler food. Beans give you protein, antioxidants, fiber, and other vitamins and minerals. Beans also contain almost no saturated fat, and they're cholesterol-free. Basically, slashing your ground beef in half and supplementing it with canned beans is a win-win situation for your body, your wallet, and your taste buds.

Now that you know you're making a good choice with your bean replacement, it's all about figuring out how you want to personalize the dish you put them in. First, learn how to break up ground beef easily so it evenly mixes with your beans. We suggest starting with something super simple, like a ground beef and bean chili with tomatoes, aromatics, herbs, and spices. You can also make bean and ground beef meat sauce with Italian seasonings — lentils, garbanzos, or white beans work well here — and serve it over pasta for a satisfying dinner. Or, use a pack of taco seasoning, ground beef, and some black or pinto beans to make chip dip or protein-rich taco filling that you can serve with some freshly cut tomatoes, shredded cabbage, sour cream, and fiery salsa. 

You can also take any one of these old-school ground beef dishes almost everyone has forgotten about and replace half of the ground beef in each recipe with beans of your choice. We're talking hamburger casserole with black beans, lentils in shepherd's pie, kidney beans with homemade beefaroni, or an old-fashioned sloppy joe sandwich with a tri-bean mix. If you think a combination sounds good, don't be afraid to try it out. After all, beans are super affordable, and you might just find yourself a new winning dinner.