Tricia from Blogging Away Debt alerted me to this article on how to save money buying ground beef. It’s very well written and greatly illustrated.
The basic idea is that you can buy cheaper, more fatty, ground beef and by draining the fat. It’s a great idea and I’ve been doing it for some time. Instead of simply draining the beef though, I put in a little water and boil it at the end for just a couple of minutes. Draining that water out seems to get all the last fat out.
I still buy the leanest beef to start with just to ensure that I’m getting the lowest fat I can. Often times, I’ll get ground turkey instead, as it’s a very lean and cheap alternative. Both work well together in many economical meals.
If you’re buying fattier meat and then draining the fat, do you really end up saving money? Since you purchase the meat by weight, you’ll end up with less meat when you purchase fattier meat. So even though it costs less, you get less. Does it end up working out in your favor, and is it worth the effort?
The better question is what are you sacrificing in taste by draining all of that fat? The fat is where the flavor is!!! :-)
Llama, I think with the fattier meat you still end up getting close to the same amount of meat. This is just my intuition, though, I have no evidence.
Travelin’ Man, I often will use the beef in something with sauce or for tacos. That has plenty of flavor for me.
Yup – this trick works well with sauces, but not with things “featuring” the beef like homemade grilled burgers. My wife has the “cost vs taste optimization” thing down fairly well…