The Best Ground Beef To Buy For Easy, Flavorful One-Pan Dinners

A one-pan dinner is the height of culinary convenience. Simply toss everything together in a single skillet to make a speedy meal with minimal cleanup. Ground beef is a fantastic ingredient for one-pan meals because it cooks very quickly and can be loaded with root vegetables, greens, and even pasta noodles with ease. What is the best ground beef to buy for flavorful one-pan dinners? In our opinion, it's ground beef with an 85% meat-to-15 % fat ratio. While a 90/10 ratio might be your preferred choice for preparing leaner one-pan ground beef meals, you'll be sacrificing on the savory quality and texture of your final dish, which might leave you unsatisfied. 

Fat is full of flavor compounds and gives off a rich aroma as it renders down, but it also affects the mouthfeel of foods and encourages caramelization. Selecting an 85/15 ratio means you can still create quick dishes that are packed with flavor and personality. It also sits in the middle between a fattier 70/30 ratio that can overwhelm a meal with grease and spatter as it cooks.

Better yet, if you place your ground beef in a preheated skillet, you can get by without adding any extra oil or butter, which you'd likely need for a leaner option. As the meat cooks, the natural fat will render down, creating plenty of lubrication for all your add-ins, such as diced onions, cubed potatoes, or canned beans to sauté in. These fatty drippings will coat each ingredient and season them up.

As the fat in caramelized ground beef has heaps of flavor, a sprinkling of salt and pepper will often suffice for seasoning (just check the meat-to-fat ratio on your grocery store's ground beef label to make sure you've picked up the correct option). Some of the milder old-school ground beef dishes that need to return to the dinner table are Salisbury steak and tater tot casserole. That said, feel free to go bananas with seasonings like chili powder, garlic powder, and dried herbs if you're after a punchier dish, such as a Tex-Mex skillet or a Cuban picadillo. No matter which recipe you select, the fat in the beef will keep your dish moist and flavorful, which also makes it perfect for reheating later as it won't become dry.

One of the golden rules of a balanced diet is to combine your macros to produce a meal that's satiating from the start. As fat is naturally filling when combined with protein and carbs, selecting ground beef with slightly more fat could be beneficial overall because it will stop you snacking in between meals. For instance, Bear's chili is one of the most incredible ground beef dinner ideas that will keep you full because it combines beans, beef, and cheese.