Spaghetti with Quick Meat Sauce
Instead of opening a jar of sauce, try this easy spaghetti with meat sauce on a weeknight. Serve with steamed broccoli and garlic bread. The recipe makes enough for 8 servings. If you're serving only four for dinner, cook 8 ounces of spaghetti and freeze the leftover sauce.
Meat Loaf with Sour Cream-Mushroom Sauce
This made-over classic boasts whole-grains and plenty of veggies for a really satisfying comfort-food dinner.
Beef & Bean Sloppy Joes
This healthy copycat recipe of the comfort food classic trades beans for some of the meat to bump up fiber by 7 grams. We also cut back on the sugar and ketchup in this Sloppy Joe recipe makeover to save you 12 grams of added sugar.
Baked Beans with Ground Beef
Upgrade baked beans from classic side dish to a meaty main meal by adding lean ground beef. The final result, a superfast hearty casserole, is an easy and fast dinner option. Ground turkey or even sausage would work nicely in this dish. Just watch the sodium.
Pasta Puttanesca with Beef
This easy slow cooker ground beef and pasta recipe makes a great meal any night of the week.
Slow-Cooker Picadillo
Picadillo, a Latin American-style hash, is usually made with ground beef. This one uses bison or lean beef and plenty of spices including chili powder, cumin, oregano and cinnamon.
Classic Diner Meat Loaf
Here's a traditional recipe for a family favorite. Buy the leanest ground beef you can find for this home-style meat loaf.
Ragù alla Bolognese (Classic Bolognese Meat Sauce)
This is a version of the famous meat sauce of Emilia Romagna, of which Bologna is the capital. Giuliano Hazan's family is from Emilia Romagna, and he learned to make Bolognese sauce from his mother, Marcella, who learned it from her grandmother, Mary. Its classic pairing is with homemade tagliatelle or pappardelle but it's also very good with rigatoni, shells or any substantial pasta shape, preferably one with ridges, that has nooks and cavities to trap the sauce. Adapted from How to Cook Italian by Giuliano Hazan; Scribner, 2005.
Zesty Sloppy Joes
This version of the favorite ground beef sandwich is livened up with jalapeƱo peppers and chili powder.
Hamburger Buddy
Very finely chopping onion, mushrooms and carrots in the food processor is not only fast--it makes the vegetables hard to detect for picky eaters. They also form the base for the sauce of this ground beef skillet supper. Make it a meal: Serve with a green salad.
Old-Fashioned Meatloaf
Mushrooms, garlic and oats sneak some extra nutrients into this hearty and easy meatloaf. Serve with sweet potatoes and your favorite green vegetables for a super-satisfying comfort food dinner.
Kickin' Hot Chili
If you like your chili seriously hot, this recipe is for you. For an even bigger kick, use the whole teaspoon of cayenne pepper.