Crockpot Ground Beef

This simple recipe for slow-cooked ground beef is great for stocking your freezer! Just pull out a bag of already cooked meat and you can have dinner on the table in no time!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mexican

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 8

Total Time 8 20

Servings servings

Calories 288kcal

Author Karly Campbell

Ingredients

6 pounds ground beef 90% lean preferred
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon cracked pepper

Instructions

Add the ground beef, salt, and pepper to a 6 quart or larger slow cooker.
Set heat to low, cover, and cook for 1 hour. Use a wooden spoon to begin crumbling the meat.
Continue cooking for around 8 hours, stirring every 2 hours to help crumble the meat, until the meat is cooked through. Every slow cooker cooks differently and you may need more or less time.
Drain the fat, if desired, before using or freezing.
Portion the meat out into freezer bags and freeze until ready to use.

Notes

It's important to store in portions if you plan on freezing. We tend to divide 6 pounds of beef between 7 freezer bags. This is the right amount of meat for our family of 4, but you may want more or less per bag depending on your needs.

This meat is seasoned very simple with just salt and pepper to keep the options open for using this in other recipes. The beef actually comes out very savory and flavorful because it cooks in it's own juices for so long.

It takes around 8 hours in our slow cooker, but they all cook differently. Just cook until the meat is fully browned and cooked through. The faster your stir the meat and get the lid closed, the faster the meat will cook. Heat escapes every time you open the slow cooker, so only stir every 2 hours or so.

Nutrition