Fully Loaded Taco Meat from Real Food Slow Cooker Recipes - Carrots 'N' Cake (2024)

FAQs

Can you put uncooked ground beef in the crockpot? ›

Absolutely, which is why you should always adjust times and amounts as needed. Smaller amounts of slow cooker hamburger only need a few hours before they are done.

Either on low for four hours, or high for three. IF you'll be close by, every hour or so, stir the meat and then drain off any liquid that accumulated into a heat-proof container. Let the liquid cool before tossing it in the trash. If you won't be home while the meat cooks, it's OK to skip this step.

A typical 12-serving taco seasoning mix recipe uses about 1 ½ tablespoons of cornstarch. If you want to skip the cornstarch in your homemade seasoning to use it for other purposes, just sprinkle ⅓ to ½ teaspoon of cornstarch per pound of browned, spiced meat before adding ¾ cup of water and heat until thickened.

Each taco shell or small soft taco-size tortilla fits about 2 ounces or 1/4 cup of meat. If you add diced onions, you could stretch a pound of ground beef to make about a dozen tacos. With just the meat and spices, you can make about 8 tacos from a pound of meat.

1. Browning Is Better. Slow cooker recipes don't always instruct you to brown meat before adding it to the pot, but there are some advantages to doing so. If you sear meat to a crusty brown with a little oil in a hot skillet, the meat develops more complex flavors and improves the dish.

Generally, ground beef will need to be cooked for 2-6 hours in the crock pot. The amount of time it needs depends on the amount you are cooking and the setting you are using. If you are cooking it on the High setting, it will be 2-3 hours. If you use the Low setting, it will be 4-6 hours.

Taco meat can dry out if you don't add extra water to the slow cooker. I suggest adding water before turning on the heat. This will keep the meat nice and moist, and serves the double purpose of helping the seasoning melt into the meat!

For 20 people figure at least 70 to 80 tacos. That's about 10 pounds of meat roughly. People tend to fill tacos with solid meats like not ground beef or chicken with less meat fillings than ground meats.

The general rule of thumb is that 2-4 hours is the maximum length of time you can leave food in a slow cooker on warm. After this, it needs to be cooled and transferred into the refrigerator.

Boiling ground beef is the best way to cook it so that it comes out in small, fine crumbles. Trust me, this is the secret to all those amazing tacos and pasta sauces at your favorite restaurant! It's also a healthier option, because the boiling process helps separate the fat from the meat, and it comes out quite lean.

How do Mexican restaurants get their taco meat so fine? ›

Making Restaurant Style Mexican Ground Beef:

The secret is to many of those simple ground beef dishes is to slowly cook the ground beef with a little water; the fat renders out and the beef, when finished, will be just right. And that works with this taco/burrito beef, too.

Combined with egg, cornstarch is an important ingredient in meat and fish marinades. When passed through the oil, cornstarch helps to seal in the juices of the protein and make it crispier.

It is based on a formula that uses the average serving of protein on the typical taco is an 1/8th of a pound of meat, which is about 2 ounces of beef before it is cooked. So, a pound of ground beef should nicely fill 8 tacos.

How many people can 1 lb of taco meat feed? You can feed between 2.5 to 3 people with one pound of meat.

As a general rule, you should plan for about 1/4 to 1/2 pound of meat per person when making tacos. So for a family of four, you'll need around 1 to 2 pounds of ground beef. Of course, this can vary depending on your personal preferences and appetite, so adjust accordingly.

Kornblum tells SELF that while, yes, you technically can slow-cook with raw meat, you won't get your best results this way. You'll have better luck in the flavor department if you sear it first— browning adds a nice, caramelized depth to the dish.

Ground beef can be pink inside after it is safely cooked. The pink color can be due to a reaction between the oven heat and myoglobin, which causes a red or pink color. It can also occur when vegetables containing nitrites are cooked along with the meat.

For those with this question in the future, the answer summed up: browning adds more flavor. Not browning the beef beforehand results in greasy chili and boiled mushy yucky beef.