Stretching ground meat with inexpensive fillers
Stretch a little bit of ground meat into a large meal
Intro
If you’re trying to stretch a little bit of meat into a large meal, meat extenders are a great option. These are inexpensive ingredients that can be added to ground meat. They absorb the flavour of the meat as it cooks, increasing the volume and nutrition of meat in your dish without significantly raising the price. Pulses, grains, and veggies all work well as extenders. You may have tried them before- many families have gotten through tough times by cooking meatloaf bulked up with leftover mashed potatoes or sloppy joes with extra beans!
Suggestions and recipes for using meat extenders are below. There are plenty of options and techniques out there, so don’t be afraid to experiment until you find something you like.
General tips for cooking with meat extenders
- Choose which meat extender to use based on cost, availability, health considerations, or personal preference. You can use just one extender in a dish or try a combination. If you’re using a combination of extenders, it’s a good idea to puree them in a blender to get a uniform texture before adding them to the meat. One vegetable, one starch, and one egg are recommended to mimic the texture of ground meat.
- If you would like the extender to be less noticeable, you can match the colour to the meat; light coloured oats, chickpeas, or button mushrooms with ground chicken, and darker-coloured brown lentils, black beans, or buckwheat with ground beef, for example.
- Meat extenders that need to be cooked, like rice, quinoa, dried lentils or dried beans, are prepared at different temperatures and times than ground meat. The best thing is to cook these ingredients in advance, let them cool, and then stir them into the raw meat. The meat can then be cooked as usual, without changing the recipe’s cook time or temperature. The extender will absorb the flavour of the meat and break down a little, becoming tastier and more invisible in the final dish. This is a great use for leftover rice or potatoes!
- The basic rule of thumb is to add one cup of meat extender to every pound of ground meat. This can vary a little depending on what you’re cooking:
-For dishes like hamburger patties or meatballs, where the meat has to hold a shape, you usually don’t want to add more than one cup of extender for every three cups of meat. Too much more than that, and your meat is likely to fall apart.
-For dishes like tacos or casseroles, where the meat is served in crumbles, you can add up to one cup of extender for every cup of ground meat used. - It’s tempting to thoroughly stir the extender into the ground meat to make sure that it’s all the way mixed. This is a bad idea because overmixing will compress the meat, making the finished product tough and dense. Lightly stirring the meat and extender together until they’re only just combined will give you the best texture. The same idea applies to shaping patties and meatballs; be gentle and try to avoid squishing the meat by packing it too tightly.
Suggested meat extenders
Pulses
Pulses are the edible seeds of legume plants; think lentils, chickpeas, and beans.
- The cheapest way to buy pulses is dried. Dried chickpeas and beans need to be rehydrated, usually by soaking them in water overnight, and then they’re boiled until cooked. Dried lentils don’t need to be rehydrated, and can go straight from the bag into a pot of boiling water. Canned pulses cost a little more, but are a time saver because they come pre-cooked. To use, simply open the can and rinse the pulses before adding them to your dish.
- Brown lentils have a colour and texture very similar to ground meat and blend especially well into beef recipes. Red lentils have a very mild flavour, cook quickly, and fall apart in a finished dish. Instead of adding them to your meat, try adding them to a tomato sauce. They will melt into the sauce, contributing extra protein and heft to your spaghetti or sloppy joes.
- Chickpeas and beans are a more noticeable meat extender than lentils, just because they’re larger. If you like their flavour and texture, then leave them as is, or you can mash them up to hide them better. Pinto and black beans mix well into ground beef, while chickpeas and great northern beans go great in ground poultry.
Recipes:
Grains
Grains are the edible dried seeds of cereal plants: think oats, rice, wheat, cornmeal and barley.
- Most Canadians are familiar with rice and oats, but many of us aren’t used to cooking with other kinds of grains. Barley, quinoa, cornmeal, bulgur and millet all cook up easily. Just pour them into a pot of boiling water and wait. They work great as meat extenders.
- Less common grains can be very expensive at health food stores or in the wellness aisle of the supermarket. They are usually very inexpensive at ethnic grocery stores or in the cooking and baking aisles of the supermarket, so try buying them there instead.
- Grains need to be cooked before being added to ground meat (except oats, which should be added raw).
Recipes:
Vegetables
Many kinds of vegetables can be used as meat extenders! The trick is to pay attention to the texture and prepare your veggies so that they blend into the meat.
- Crunchy veggies, like carrots and zucchini, should be grated or finely chopped.
- Potatoes can be shredded and added raw, or baked in advance, mashed, and then added to the ground meat. Dehydrated potato flakes can be used in recipes in place of breadcrumbs too.
- Mushrooms are another commonly used vegetable extender because they absorb flavour easily and have a similar juicy texture to meat. They can be purchased fresh or canned and chopped into small pieces to stir into meat.
Recipes: