What I Did With 30-Pounds of Hamburger

I just took advantage of a fantastic deal on meat! Here’s what I did with 30-pounds of hamburger…

Meat prices have been rising, so I’ve really been watching out for good deals on meat. I’ve cut way back on beef and have instead been buying more chicken or pork because their prices per pound have been much less. ($0.98/pound for chicken legs at Costco and Sam’s?? Yes, please.)

So when I found ground beef on sale for $2.49/pound, I bought 30 pounds!

Why Did I Buy 30-Pounds of Hamburger?

Well, $2.49/pound is pretty much incredible for ground beef!

Gone are the days when I limit myself to buying only top-notch grass-fed beef. I do know that the quality of other meat is not as good and I have chosen not to overthink or worry over this. It is still meat and meat is real food. We have a lot of precious mouths to feed at our house (currently 11) so I’m choosing to be thankful for ANY source of meat that offers us nourishment.

One of our local grocery stores was featuring 10-pound tubes of meat at a high discount, and the best bang for my buck was their 80-20 meat. I bought 30 pounds for a total of $74.70 and felt like I’d hit the jackpot! (I also scored a great price on strawberries and bought four pounds – a favorite snack at our house.)

What I Did With 30-Pounds of Hamburger

I’ve never bought a huge tube of meat like this before, much less three of them. ;) So when I got home I decided to see how far I could get with prepping the meat into meals so that I didn’t have to freeze such huge tubes and then thaw them again before doing something with them.

Our infant was napping, so I prepped a container of strawberries for our littlest girls (ages 1, 2, and 3) to munch on. We told Alexa to “play Jesus Loves Me” and I got to work while the girls ate and listened to music. :)

First, I got out two of my largest pots. I put an entire 10-pound tube into one and an additional 8-ish pounds into another. It browned while I worked on making hamburger patties.

I ended up with 42 hamburger patties of various sizes, which is perfect because our adults and elementary-aged kids can eat regular-sized burgers and our littles can have munchkin-sized burgers. :) Oh look, I was drinking a green smoothie while I worked, ha. I realized that I was getting hungry and thankfully, I had some ready-made nourishment in the fridge. So I grabbed it and drank it directly out of the jar.

I had three layers of patties on one cookie sheet and put it into the freezer like this. After the patties froze, I transferred them to freezer bags to thaw and cook as needed during the next few weeks.

From time to time, I continued to stir the meat that was cooking on the stove. I also took time to pour off the grease into another pot because this much meat cooking at once created a good amount that needed to be removed.

I took the remaining ground beef, put it into a large bowl, and turned it into meatloaf. I pressed this mixture into two large pans (but forgot to take a picture because by this time, Keith was home from preschool and the girls had long since finished their snack so I had to stop quite a bit to care for their needs).

We stopped and ate lunch somewhere in there. Then while the kids played again (and our three-year-old peed on the floor in the girls’ room), I scooped some of the meat into a freezer bag to use as needed. I saw the pee-floor situation so she and I took time to clean it up. (Don’t worry I washed my hands and) then I stirred Sloppy Joe ingredients into the remainder of pot #1.

I divided it into four meal-sized portions and they went to the freezer.

I then seasoned the big 10-pound meat pot with taco seasoning. Once it cooled, I transferred it to gallon-sized freezer bags to use for a graduation party late in April. Elias and Kelsey (Justus’ wife) are both graduating from York University this month and we plan to have a party with a Potato/Nacho Bar. Having this meat ready (and finding it for such a great price!) is a huge relief!

With any leftover taco meat, or with the meat that I left plain and froze, we can make:

• 20-Minute Taco Soup
• Beefy Enchilada Bake
• Calico Beans
• Calzones
• Cheeseburger Macaroni
• Cheeseburger Soup
• Cheeseburger Zucchini Boats
• Cheesy Beef and Rice
• Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas
• Chili
• Chili Mac
• Simple Crock Pot Taco Pasta
• Crustless Pizza
• Hamburger Cream Cheese Dip
• Hamburger Sauerkraut Dip
• Italian Pasta Bake
• Lasagna Casserole
• Meat and Cheese Burritos
• Pizza 
• Pizza Boats
• Pizza Casserole
• Pizza Pockets
• Pizza Soup
• Real Food “Velveeta” and Rotel Dip
• Simple Spanish Rice Bowls
• Skillet Taco Pasta
• Sloppy Cornbread Muffins
• Spanish Rice
• Taco Corn Fritters
• Taco Potatoes
• Taco Quesadillas
• Taco Rice Dinner
• Taco Salad

This makes me incredibly happy because I LOVE BEEF and I’ve been holding back because of the cost. And now I have to decide, should I go back before the sale ends to get more??? :)