Little Life Hacks--Ground Beef

We all appreciate those life hacks that actually turn out to work, don't we? Small things that maybe you never thought of before, but they make your life SO much easier. Today, I want to share one of my favorite little life hacks with you--how I portion and store our ground beef to make it easy to use.

I mentioned a little while back in my post about 10 ways to save on groceries that one way I do this is by buying my hamburger meat in the largest package our store offers, which happens to be a 10 pound roll. Now, even a family of 10 doesn't go through a 10 pound roll of meat before it goes bad, unless I'm either making them sick of hamburger-based dishes or deliberately making meals that take a LOT of hamburger (like meatloaf--we use 4-5 pounds for that). So what do I do with this gargantuan roll of meat?

Simple. I bring it home, and I slice it into 10 equal portions. (A word of caution: It has been my experience that the markings provided on the side of the package are not to be trusted.) I do this by first cutting the roll in half. Then I eyeball about where the line would be that divides it into 2 pounds and 3 (with me?) and cut on that. I place the 2-pound chunk beside the 3-pound one to measure where the next cut in the 3-pound one belongs, then I divide the remaining 2-pound chunks in half. You may not get exact portions, but meh. Close enough.

I then remove the plastic from the meat, and place each 1-pound chunk in a quart-size freezer bag (I buy mine from Aldi for $1.99 a 40-pack, so even by adding the cost of the bags, I'm still saving loads by buying the large roll.) and use my rolling pin to press the meat flat, and fill as much of the space in the bag as possible with meat. When you're finished, you should have little to no air in the bag, and the bags should stack nicely for the freezer.

When you need hamburger for a meal, just take out however many pounds you need, toss in a bowl of hot water, and they'll be thawed and ready to use in no time flat! You guys, this has changed my life. I always forget to take meat out to thaw. With this trick, it doesn't matter! At least, as long as dinner is hamburger, lol.

*If you don't have a rolling pin, this is easily done with just your hands. I only recently discovered the rolling pin trick, and it does make it a bit easier, but I've done it for ages without mine.