Money Saving Tip; Ground Beef

Alternate title, "Time Saving Tip; Ground Beef"

When shopping for meat on a tight budget it's always your best bet to wait until there is a sale. If you live near several grocery stores, sales should be frequent enough to supply your needs. If you receive a newspaper you probably get adds for the local grocery stores. Otherwise you can sign up online to receive email notices from the stores in your area.

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My goal is to always purchase meat with no bone it (such as ground beef, chicken breasts, polish sausage, bulk pork sausage, etc.) for $2.00 to $2.50 a pound. Unless you want/need to buy organic, with sales this is very doable. Also, though the fat in ground beef is not bad for you (so happy to learn this from Nourishing Traditions!), with ground beef most of the fat will need to be drained off after cooking. Look for leaner meat if you can, which leaves more edible meat behind, so you end up with more per pound.

I am able to get meat with bone often for as low as $0.99 a pound. I can usually find chicken at this price on sale, and sometimes other meats as well. 

We have a deep freeze which enables me to stock up when there is a sale, but even with a normal size freezer you still could freeze enough meat for a few extra meals.

So when there is a sale, I buy up to five pounds of ground beef. Before freezing it I separate it into various meals. Sometimes I just divide it by the pound and freeze it raw, other times I have enough time to start the first steps of several meals. I fry some up with onion and salt which can then be used for a number of things, including taco meat and spaghetti sauce. I make and bake meatballs. And I mix together the ingredients (but don't cook) for Kafta, my personal favorite. (Kafta is middle eastern beef kabobs which I fry or bake when we don't have access to a grill. Stay tuned for recipes for all these great meals!) Preparing the meat in advance and freezing it not only ensures that it won't spoil in the fridge while you come up with meal ideas, but it's a great time saver for making good meals on a regular basis. I love remembering I have one of these packs of pre-prepared meat in the freezer when 4:00 pm rolls around and I had not yet come up with what to make for supper.