Intro to Bulk Cooking: Ground Meat and an Efficient Eggplant Lasagna [Clean, LC]

Need a quick, but super delicious and hearty meal? Use this bulk cooking technique that will make dishes come together faster! It’s chock full of protein, veggies and topped with melty cheese. It’ll come together in less than 30 minutes!! 🙂 No tedious layering required!

Let’s continue the trend with bulk cooking so that your meals come together quicker! Last post we talked about bulk cooking grains, specifically bulgur and includes a new recipe that includes bulgur and some old recipes that use the grain too! This is that post: Intro to Bulk Cooking: Grains and a Mediterranean Chicken Bulgur Bowl [Clean].

This time, let’s try ground beef! (Or, honestly any ground meat of your choosing). In my opinion, first cooking the meat, draining it then doing all the other stuff can really be time consuming. Sometimes, I just don’t have that kind of time and I need something yummy in 30 min or less.

Just like with, grains, one of the ways to do that is to bulk cook your meat, separate it out and freeze it in 1 pound (cooked) increments, or just all together and take out as much as you need at a time.

STEP 1: Cook your meat

STEP 2: Drain your meat

STEP 3: Cool meat

STEP 4: Place cooked meat on cookie sheets all spread out into a single layer. (Use more than one pan if needed) . (Reserve any that you are using for a current recipe if you are planning on one)

STEP 5: Place cookie sheets in the freezer and freeze the meat

STEP 6: Scrap off frozen meat and divide meat into pounds and place into freezer bags.

STEP 7: Label each bag with what it is and how much (EX: 1 lb ground beef) and you can date it if you want.

STEP 8: Whenever a dish calls for ground meat, just pull out one of your bags and viola! It’s already cooked! Especially helpful when you are planning to throw a bunch of ingredients together and heat in the microwave or stovetop (or mix and heat in oven).

Now, why not use some of that newly cooked meat (or some from your freezer 😉 ) and make this super easy lasagna! As you know, I am all about effciency and layering out lasagna…not my style. It doesn’t have to look beautiful and layered and all that jazz for it to be quick and easy and DELICIOUS!!!

Here are a few other recipes that use ground beef for your convenience!

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Intro to Bulk Cooking: Ground Meat and an Efficient Eggplant Lasagna {Clean, Low Carb]

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Keyword 10 ingredients or less, clean, cottage cheese, easy, eggplant, ground beef, lasagna, low carb, main course, marinara, mozzarella cheese, onion, recipe

Cook Time 20 minutes

Servings 2 servings

Author AZ@…And A Dash of Cinnamon

Ingredients

• 1/2 eggplant diced
• 1/2 bell pepper diced
• 1/4 cup onion diced
• 3 T marinara sauce
• few dashes dried oregano
• few dashes dried basil
• 1/2 cup cottage cheese
• 1 1/2 T mozzarella cheese shredded

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

2. Either cook your ground beef (if you are cooking your beef right now and not bulk cooking it, feel free to add in the onions, eggplant and bellpeppers as well)

   Or take out from freezer (as above steps)

3. Dice your veggies if not already done so and cook your veggies in a microwave for about 2 minutes with a bit of water, or until soft. quickly squeeze out excess liquid.

4. Grease 8×8 pan (or larger if making for more than 2 servings)

5. In a separate bowl mix all ingredients except for the mozzarella cheese

6. Once mixed, transfer to baking dish and top with the cheese

7. Place in oven for 20 minutes to heat through or until warmed through

Recipe Notes

Different steps can be done differently depending on what you already have cooked on hand. 

A lot of it can be done in the microwave if needed. 

Feel free to add more veggies if you want! 

This recipe is also very easy to make for multiple servings. Just multiply the ratios accordingly.

Feel free to let me know if you have any specific questions!

 

 

I link up with Deborah and Sarah’s, and  the fit foodie mama’s Meatless Monday, What’s for Dinner

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