Do you enjoy eating ground beef but simply despise all of the saturated fat in it? Or are you looking to save a few dollars by purchasing ground beef since ground turkey and chicken are more expensive? Whatever the case may be there is a way to eliminate virtually all of the saturated fat from ground beef. This method works so well that purchasing extra-lean ground beef is essentially a waste of money! Obviously, you can also use this method to reduce the fat from any ground meat.

Why get rid of the fat? Fat has more than double the Calories per gram than protein and carbohydrates. These extra Calories can easily add up and cause you to gain unwanted body fat easily. In addition, while we do require fat in our diets the focus should generally be on fats that come from plant-based sources such as oils, nuts, seeds, avocados and so forth as they tend to be better for us.

While our family doesn’t eat ground beef very often, I always follow this method when we do. Believe it or not this is how my mother prepared the ground beef for us when I lived at home. Thanks mom!

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Put the beef into a large pan that has a lid. Using a pan with a lid is critical when it comes to draining the fat. Depending upon how much beef you are cooking you may want to use two pans as it will make life easier if cooking a large amount.

Step 2: Cook the beef until cooked all the way through (meaning it should not be red anywhere). Make sure to chop it up into small pieces as you cook it so that it not only cooks faster but so that all of the fat can easily escape from the meat. Once the meat is cooked, drain all of the liquid into a container. Note: Don’t pour the fat down the drain as this can cause your pipes to clog up! To drain the fat simply make a small gap between the lid and pan and then tip the pan over while holding onto the lid and pan firmly with both hands (use oven mitts) so that the liquid pours out of the gap into the container.

Step 3: Pour the drained beef into a large colander and rinse with hot water as you stir it around. Be very thorough here!

Rinsing ground beef with hot water in a colander.

Step 4: Wipe the pans and lids clean with a paper towel. This may seem unnecessary but stay with me here! This is done for two reasons: 1) so that when you wash the pans you aren't making your dishwater all fatty and 2) if you decide to take things a step further and cook your beef with additional ingredients such as spices and vegetables you won't be re-introducing the fat you just took the time to eliminate!

Step 5: Enjoy your hard work!

You now have some lean protein available to add to any recipe you desire. For example: add it to pasta, a salad, or make a stir fry with it!

Pro Tip: When saturated fat is cold it is white in colour. In order to know if you did a thorough enough job simply look at the ground beef after it has been in the fridge for a little while. If you don’t see any white specs then you eliminated most of the fat. If you see a lot of white specs it simply means that you may have to drain and rinse the beef a bit more next time.

Conclusion

There you have it! Now you can enjoy ground beef (or any ground meat) without worrying about all of the extra Calories. Additionally, your cardiovascular system will thank you for putting in the extra work.

As always, please share this post with someone that would benefit and please comment below if you try this or have any questions!