Take Ground Beef From Basic To Irresistible With This Dairy Upgrade

Ground beef alone can hold an entire weeknight dinner rotation together. Burgers, meatballs, stir-fries, tacos, and more — anything is possible with this affordable and versatile ingredient in the fridge. It fills up the belly, it enriches the dish, and after a while, like it or not, it inevitably starts to get a little too familiar. That's when you pair it with cottage cheese and feel the change as it melts right onto your taste buds. Dairy and meat, now that's not a combination you'd find on the dining table on a typical Tuesday night, but it's about time this changes.

By now, you have probably already heard of cottage cheese and its high-protein content, as ubiquitously mentioned in many protein-packed, delicious cottage cheese recipes. However, that's not all it has to offer. Against the beef's savory backdrop and occasionally, the spice's sharp edges, its creamy softness brings a much-appreciated balance. The curds melt slightly as they cook, pockets of mild tanginess scatter all over the meat. They don't weigh down the palate the way heavy cream sometimes does or completely take over the beef morsels like regular cheese, but rather seeps into every tiny crevice. Dried-out, flat ground beef? That's only a distant memory now that it's interwoven with velvety soft cottage cheese.

Both ground beef and cottage cheese are so versatile that you can make just about anything with this combination. A food bowl, in which the ground beef and vegetables are browned and served under a pile of cottage cheese, avocado slices, and a sauce, is a no-brainer. Optionally, you can also add grains such as rice or quinoa to fill the dish out even further. The very same ingredients can also make for a loaded ground beef taco bowl — just switch up the ground beef's seasonings and add staples such as red onion, tomatoes, corn, tortilla chips, and lime juice. In another interpretation, particularly one with a blender, you can have quite a killer queso dip, rich with savory ground beef and luscious beyond imagination.

Without a doubt, cottage cheese also fits into typical ground beef dishes. You can mix it into patties or just spread it on them as you're assembling the burgers, or just skip the buns and cook up a hearty pot of Hamburger Helper. Also belonging in the comfort food category is pasta bake (and pretty much every other cheesy baked dish). Once the oven heat has woven all the ingredients together, what you get in the end is a cozy blanket of hearty flavors, wrapped around your taste buds like a warm hug on a cold day. And how can we forget the dearly beloved stuffed peppers? If you thought they were good before, brace yourself for pure magic when cottage cheese joins in.