i know what you mean about boiling it, ruthie ...i'm afraid it will be all gray and rubbery! LOL! i do like you and buy quality ground beef and brown it and drain any fat there is. actually, after i've browned the meat, sometimes i've put it in a collander and rinsed it with very hot tap water. seems like a good compromise, don't you thinK?

yep Kim, I do the same thing and I don't think it hurts the taste at all. I think I will get brave enough one of these tdays and try the boiling. I mean I do boil stew and soup etc so what is the difference?

I will never fry hamburger again. I am a boiling convert!

I add chopped onion, salt and pepper when I cook it. Then, once it's drained and cooled, I put it in gallon size zip lock bags to freeze.

It's perfect to use for spaghetti, beef and rice (a concoction my family likes), lasagna, tacos, etc.

I can't tell any difference what so ever once it is in the sauce.

Kristi I promise you I am going to try it. Makes sense to me that it wouldn't make any difference.

Boil the meat and remove the fat all together? WHAT? Are you all nuts here? The good taste in any kind of meat is in the fat. Yeah, I know, we will all die. Well, guess what? We are all gonna die sometime, and why not enjoy the animal and butter fat and the full taste of a meal while you are alive? I absolutely never use margarine - why would anybody do that when butter just tastes sooooooo good and makes such a difference in anything that it goes into? Yep, life is entirely too short to limited myself to tasteless food.

I never heard of boiling hamburger meat before. This is a new one on me.

How much water do you use? and what kinds of seasonings?

....how long does it take to cook?.....and does it fall into small pieces or do you have to break it into small pieces when you add it to the water?

...I'm not sure about pouring the water down the drain ....aren't you afraid of plugging the sink?...... At least when I brown it on top of the stove, I can scoop fat into a can and throw it away.

Okay, Ruthie, I'm with MJ. How do you go about boiling ground beef?

OK here is what I did and I was just playing it by ear from the postings here and at the KT...I just took my stock pot and filled it about half full of water, put in some onion powder, garlic powder salt and pepper, brought it up to almost boiling and dropped the burger in it. It immediately started braking up. I suspect I had more water than I needed but I can't imagine that it would make any difference. I didn't want to drain it in my sink either so I took my collander and put it over another big pot and just drained the water in the pot. I cooled and bagged the meat and when the pot with the broth had cooled I set it out on the porch (it's still cold here) and let the fat congeal and then I picked the fat off and poured the rest down the drain. It has been recommended that you save the broth for soup or stew but since mine was sitting on the porch outside uncovered overnight (I forgot it) and I was sure that it was under the dripline, I didn't save it.

The ground beef cpmes out very crumbley, I like it a lot and it is easier than frying.

Woo-Hoo another convert!!
I will never fry it again! Gail

Here is one really important thing that I did not mention. Because my husband and I both are heavier than we should be and because I have a cholesterol problem, when using ground beef, I buy the highest quality beef that I can find. Well even with that supposedly low fat meat, I was simply bowled over by the amount of fat in the broth. I know I couldn't have gotten that out by pan browning and rinsing. It was pretty gross seeing all that fat.

I have been cooking for many years, have never tried this method but am planning to give it a try this week.

It does make a lot of sense, gets out a lot of the fat, and Ruthie is right, even the espensive ground meat has lots of fat. Will reserve the broth and cook it down into a good stock.

I boiled 6 pounds of burger yesterday and it wasGREAT. It was done in about 5 minutes. I made chile with some and tacos and they tasted just fine. i froze the rest. I will never fry hamburg again either.

Thank you Ruthie...and anyone else who gave this a thumb's up.

I will try this, but it will be before the crowd congregates in the kitchen...saying..."whatcha making?"

My family might think me weirder than usual. I can just hear my DH now...why didn't you throw the spagetti in at the same time?!?! LOL LOL

Ruthie what are you talking about! I have seen your photo-you are a babe! : )
Oh yes I know what you mean about the X fat b/c I buy X lean and I was shocked to still see all that fat! YICK!! I will feel much better about eating it now.
Gail

Oops, Gail you have seen only the pictures I allow to be seen...LOL On my web page I have a picture that is about 5 years old and I wore a size 6....since coming to MA I have been sitting on my buns, no yard work, no gardening, no hot roding on the tractor so I have finally been caught by the middle age ...Make that old age spread. I can barely squeeze my fat buns into a size 14 so the babe description doesn't fit well...if it ever did but I thank you for the comment from the bottom of my heart.

One thing that I did notice and was wondering if anyone else found this to be true. The meat particles break up much finer than when frying? I liked it that way as I usually smush my taco and chili, sloppy joe type meats.

Was this your experience.

Yup my experience too and I like it! Reminds me of Taco Time ground beef.
OMGosh Ruthie you should see my butt these days. I am what they call a woddler with a toddler...he-he-he....evey pr. of panties(even those big ol' granny panties) I put on ends up looking like a thong an me!
In our family we call that GUBS (gotch up butt syndrome)
: )
Gail

Hello all,

I'm a newbie to this forum. Jumped over from the chainsaw freaks on the tool forum. Yes, I am one of THEM, but when I'm not destroying Mother Nature (kidding) I love to cook. WOW!, my two favorite things on the same web site!

Anywho, one of my favorite recipes is for Cincinnati Chili, which is more of a meat sauce then a chili. The first step is to crumble raw, lean ground beef into cold water. You add some spices and in about three hours it turns into a very fine grained meat sauce.

You would think that with my success of this recipe, I would boil instead of fry. Nope, I'm a fry and drain under hot water man. Maybe someday......

Adam

I only wish I had been doing this all along. And I do like the "texture" better when it's boiled.

May the next generation of children be BOILERS! LOL

I did it, I did it! Yippeeeee, looooove that boilin'!!! :oD Another benefit - I can cook up so much more at once than I could ever fit in my big frying pan! I boiled ten pounds yesterday in my big stock pot, and could have fit far more than that. Today I even boiled four pounds of Owen's breakfast sausage (I use it, crumbled, in a couple of recipes) - seemed to work fine. Thanks for the tip!!

How long do I boil it. TAMMY

tammy, it does not take long at all, I did about 6 pounds in about 5 minutes, as sooon as you drop it in it starts to break up and turn brown, just stir it a few times and it is done when it is all brown, much , much faster than frying it, you will be surprised.

Just make sure that all the pink is gone and then I give it a little extra time for good measure...Last night be had pizza and it was wonderful to just pop out a bag and spread it across the top of the pizza.

I just can't do it. I just can't bring myself to boil!!! HELP!!!!

Oh Angel....you can do it! I know you can! I know, I admit I was once a non believer just like you are. But now I have seen the light and I am never going back to my old ways. I jumped in and did 4 1/2 lbs of xlean...your the skiddish type take baby steps if you have to...send the family out to the movie, pull the blinds & try boiling up a 1/2lb. It's OK no one will have to know. It will be our little secret. ; )
Come-on Angel your missing out...come on over to our side...
Gail

I have a question. Does the meat have to be thawed before you boil or can you take it right from the freezer and put it in the pot?

Vicki the meat does not have to be thawed first....Just throw it in the pot.

Angel all I can do is ditto what Gail said. I was exactly the same way, couldn't bring myself to do it but finally decided that so many couldn't be wrong. Just do it!

angel, you're not crazy. boiling is for eggs, not beef. *lol* for storing, it's ok, and once you put it in a sauce it's not horrible, so for keeping meat to put IN stuff it's much easier and i'd suggest trying it for that. meanwhile, i'll continue to fry whatever i actually want to taste. =P but then, i also like a splash of vinegar and lime in my water(dh makes faces EVERY SINGLE TIME... still), so if the rest of you can eat boiled hamburger, more power to ya! =)

Goooooood question, Vicki...and thank you Ruthie, I am SO happy to know I can just take it out of the freezer and boil it. Granted, I have yet to try this boiling thing...but I mentioned it to DH and he's game. So perhaps this weekend... **shrug**.

I LIVE IN SOUTHERN ILL AND WE HAVE BEEN BOILING OUR GROUND
BEEF ALL MY LIFE(AND I'AM NOT A SPRING CHICKEN LOL ) REMEMBER THE MAID RITE SANDWICH FROM THE FIFTIES THATS HOW YOU MAKE IT( REMEMBER ROSEANN'S LOOSE MEAT SANDWICH? WELL THATS A MAID RITE ) MADE BY BOILING THE MEAT AND ONIONS AND ADDING SEASONINGS NOTHING COULD BE EASIER OR TASTE BETTER,
THEY ARE LEGENDS IN ILL.

Sue, care to share the recipe for Maid Rite sandwiches? I'm up in Canada and have never heard of them, but they sound interesting and delicious. Please share!
Sue (nice name, eh?)

I don't think I could boil hamburger. My mother used to make "hamburger soup," that way, and it was AWFUL. It always tasted vaguely "fleshy," and I hated it.

I wouldn't eat ground beef in any form until I was in my 30's and had a meatloaf sandwich that was awesome. Now I am a meatloaf expert. LOL!!

HEY SUE, I JUST LOVE YOUR NAME LOL..THE RECIPE IS SO EASY
JUST PUT YOUR GROUND BEEF, (I USE GROUND ROUND) in water with lots of chopped onions,salt,pepper to taste,garlic powder and a little dry mustard and let boil slowly for at least an hour, some times i let mine cook 2to 3 hrs the longer the better...serve on bun with mustard
delicious!!!!

Thanks, Sue......sounds yummy....can't wait to try it!
Sue

I realize this is a rather old thread, but I tried this last night and OH MY GOD,I will never fry meat again. I could not believe my eyes when I saw all that fat at the top of the pot. I too seasoned the water and boiled for about 15 minutes. I was skeptical at first, but I tried the beef and you really cannot tell the difference. I am now a true believer and would recommend this cooking tip to all my family and friends. -Lisa

okay, I don't think anyone asked this yet, so here goes. Lots of you buy more expensive "lean" beef. You said you were amazed by the amount of fat that boiled off. What about less expensive non-lean ground beef? Do you think you get it leaned-up by boiling it? Or would the lean to start with beef still end up leaner after both are boiled.

next question- ground turkey? how about boiling it?

Why boil at all? I slap mine in the (big) crock pot with a little water and break it up as it cooks. Onions can be put in or peppers for flavor. Drain well when burger is done and add your spaghetti sauce or whatever you like. Kathy_PA

How are you disposing of the fat? The only thing that
makes sense is to put the pot into the refrigerator
and let the fat congeal so it can by put in the
garbage. I hate to think of all that fat going down
sinks. A plumbers dream.

I tried boiling a couple of weeks back. YUCK ... horrible ... I will never try that again. It took 2X as long to do as browning the meat and the meat had no flavor what so ever. It wasn't the meat because it was the last 1/4 of a large package I bought and frozen about 2 weeks before.