Stop Skipping This Important Step When Adding Aromatics To Ground Beef

Aromatics and ground beef are constant companions. Most of us add onions, garlic, celery, carrots, and garden herbs to our beef dishes to boost depth and flavor. Aromatics take food from fine to five-star dining, and the easiest way to get the most out of your meal is to toss them in the pan while your beef is browning. While that method is the easiest, it's not the best way to get the most flavor out of herbs, spices, and other aromatics. 

Chuck Hayworth, a private chef and the COO at The Resort Chef in North Carolina, recommends sautéing aromatics in rendered ground beef fat before adding them back to the rest of your dish. This one extra step will release all the aroma from your flavorings, whether you're making bolognese or a personal shepherd's pie in under 30 minutes. The same technique works for dry herbs, helping to unlock their flavor. "In the case of creating a good bolognese sauce during the winter when fresh herbs from the garden are not prevalent, dry herbs toasted in the renders assist in distributing the rosmarinic acid throughout the dish found in dry and fresh green herbs like thyme and oregano," Hayworth said.

Beef renderings are the melted fat that forms as ground beef cooks. As the beef turns from pink to brown, you'll see the renderings pool at the bottom of the pan. Once the beef is cooked, separate the rendered fat from the meat and use it to sauté your aromatics. As those aromatics sizzle in the rendered beef fat, flavor compounds are released, and the rosmarinic acid in herbs like rosemary intensifies and distributes throughout the fat. Onion, celery, and other aromatics release extra flavor thanks to the Maillard process – a series of chemical reactions that happen when heat hits proteins and sugars.

While you're taking the time to sauté aromatics in beef renderings, add one more step to your ground beef prep for even more flavor. Hayworth recommends toasting your garlic in tallow (here's the biggest mistake to avoid when cooking with beef tallow) before adding it to your ground meat. "As my mentor once said to me, (toasted garlic) adds the perfect amount of garlic flavor when cooking lean 90/10 (ground beef) and using a slight bit of tallow," Hayworth said. "He would then remove the garlic after browning."