One Main Recipe: Sous-Vide Ground Meat with Cheese

Ground meat is my staple food.  And this is how I cook it so I don’t grow to loathe it.

I’m going to cut to the chase with the basic steps cuz I hate scrolling when I look at recipes:

Ingredients:

1 lbs ground meat 80% or less lean (i.e. 70% would be even better)
Salt/pepper/any other spices you desire
Slices of cheese (less processed the better)

Instructions:

Preheat Sous-Vide to your preferred doneness:

Lowest recommended temp:  131 F
(The higher the temp, the less moisture in the end)

1) Invert the top of the ziploc bag to prep it for inserting meat without touching the lock mechanism
2) If your ground meat is not already shaped to easily go into the ziploc bag, shape it now
3) Sprinkle salt/pepper/spices as desired
4) Insert the ground meat into the ziploc bag
5) Optional:  Seal the bag and freeze for later
6) Use the water displacement method to submerge the bag and squeeze the air out.
7) Seal the bag and clip to the side, ensuring the meat is completely submerged.  Tip:  Hang a weight off the clip to keep the bag under the water if it floats
8)  Cook for 2 hours minimum if thawed.  If frozen, cook for 4 hours minimum.  Note:  If you are pressed for time, you can take it out a little bit early, cut it in half and sear the in and outsides of both halves.
9) Remove from the sous vide and bag.  Use paper towels to dry off the meat as much as possible.
10) Heat a cast iron pan as hot as it will go, then sear the meat on one side (15-30 seconds).
11) Optionally sear the smaller sides of the meat (tongs are helpful)
12) Place the remaining large side down to sear, place one or two slices of cheese on top and cover with a lid.  Sear for another 15-30 seconds or until the cheese has melted on top
13) Remove from the pan and enjoy!

I can’t remember how I found it, but on Amazon there’s a self-published book called the Frugal Carnivore by K. Suzanne.  I was beginning to wonder if it was possible to continue to eat Carnivore without breaking the bank.  Of course I was having tons of fun buying various cuts of meat and experimenting with Sous-Vide and other methods of cooking.  But at some point, you have to settle down and live by a budget!  Luckily this book showed be the way:  Ground Beef.

Using ground beef in other recipes is fine, I’ve done it my entire life.  But I don’t really love fried up ground beef just by itself. She suggested an approach which involved smashing two half pound paddies in a pan for a good sear, then baking them the rest of the way, throwing cheese on if you’re a dirty, dirty Carnivore (like me!).  This sounded pretty good to me, but I have to confess I haven’t actually tried it yet.  Instead, I googled how to Sous-Vide ground meat, and came across several articles talking about sous-viding hamburger paddies.  None of them seemed very interested in larger hunks (for obvious reasons), but suddenly it clicked for me!  My local grocery store sells 80% lean ground meat in 1 lbs blocks.  According to the Frugal Carnivore lady, I should eat one pound in the morning and one pound in the evening.  I was pretty sure I could sous-vide that pound, then sear it, and throw some cheese on top for flavor.  That would be pretty easy!  And cheap and easy is the name of this game.

So bought some of these 1 lbs blocks and started experimenting.  First I tried vacuum sealing them, despite the warnings online that over-pressed ground meat wasn’t that great texture-wise.  Sure enough, not the best experience.  Then I tried the ziploc quart bag approach.  Cooked at 135 F (I was still a bit nervous to go as low as I could theoretically go and still be safe:  131 F), for 2 hours to be safe.  Took it out, seared it, popped cheese on top with a lid for the last little bit to melt it.  And wow...mind blown!  It’s definitely way redder than you would ever normally eat ground beef, but it’s been cooked at a safe temp for long enough to make it safe to eat.  It’s the rarest ground beef you’ve probably ever tried and the texture has to be tried to be believed.  Additionally, because the temp is so low, the fat doesn’t render out into grease for the majority of the mixture, meaning you get all that great fat mixed in, but you don’t really even notice it.  Even my wife (who can’t stand fat by itself) has zero issues with sous-vide ground meat.  She’s even more enthusiastic about than I am sometimes!  I do wish I could get 70% lean meat, but I have not been able to find any source where I live.

We’ve experimented with various spices and flavorings, and honestly we’ve ended up just coming back to salt and pepper as our favorite.  I did try going without the cheese for a while and I just gotta have it.  We use Tillamook medium cheddar.  The amazing thing is that we really don’t get tired of it!  Sure every now and then we want something different, but usually we are looking forward to returning to our usual ground beef immediately after.  I have various other meats stocked in the freezer for when we need a break, but every week we are still on the ground meat.

One thing that concerns us is that our ground meat source is the commissary on Yokosuka Naval Base.  It’s about $2 a pound, and these days we’re eating around 3 lbs per day between us, so about $90 a month.  We can put special orders in to have them make larger quantities packaged more conveniently (4 pounds to the package).  All of this is terribly convenient...but non-existent elsewhere in Japan.  The closest we have found is Costco, where we can pick up larger quantities of ground meat.  Unfortunately, it’s a huge hunk of meat, which I’d have to separate into smaller amounts before bagging it.  They do have pre-formed “paddies” (more like pucks) but these are all 90% lean.  Perhaps there are more options in the freezer section.  We’ve been going to all the local Japanese grocery chains and local butchers to see if there’s any way to get ground meat like we are used to at anywhere near the price, and the answer is no...even Costco is going to be more expensive.  So...while we have access to it, we are using the commissary, but someday we may have to find another source.

So there it is, our main staple meal as Carnivores.