Say Goodbye To Dry Ground Beef With Just 2 Ingredients - No Extra Fat Needed

No one wants to look down at their skillet and find unappetizing, defiantly dry ground beef, with its natural moisture long gone and the meat sticking together in clumps that are anything but juicy. In desperation, you may be tempted to throw more fat into the pan to correct this — resist that urge. Instead, say goodbye to dry ground beef with just two ingredients: beef broth and cornstarch.

There are innumerable liquids you can introduce to ground beef to keep it moist as it fries, but few that won't adulterate its taste. If your recipe is sauceless, for example, this rules out anything like tomato sauce, as this would produce an inadvertent ragù, and while we at Tasting Table are great fans of cooking with wine (and avoiding the 14 mistakes everyone makes while doing so), an excessive amount can overpower a dish. Some recommend just adding water, but this can lead to watery ground beef, in which the flavor has been diluted rather than deepened.

If you're cooking up something where the meat should be the star of the show, like a loose meat sandwich (a perfect choice for repurposing cooked ground beef), a combination of beef broth and a cornstarch slurry will simultaneously prevent your meat from turning dry, act as a thickener, and (literally) beef up the meat's taste. Once your beef is cooked, you can add ½ a cup of broth to the pan, before stirring ½ a teaspoon of cornstarch into water to make your slurry and pouring it in. Or, simply make the slurry by mixing the cornstarch into the broth itself. Once these ingredients are incorporated, let the liquid reduce until you are left with dark, glossy, eminently juicy ground beef.

When using this particular hack, there are a few things to bear in mind. First, you'll want a beef broth worthy of the delicious meal you aim to create, so make sure to check out our appraisal of eight beef broth brands, ranked worst to best. Unless you're using a low-sodium beef broth, ensure you adjust your seasoning accordingly to avoid overly salty results. If you'd prefer the profile of the beef to be less assertive, you could use a low-sodium chicken broth, which won't leave your dish tasting like chicken, but will add complexity while allowing the ground beef to shine.

While store-bought broth is a quick and convenient way of keeping ground beef moist, it's hard to deny things often taste better when you make them yourself, so if you have the time, try making your own stock instead, then combine it with cornstarch just as you would with the broth. This is a skill well worth picking up, whether you're tangling with dry beef or not, as homemade stock opens up myriad culinary possibilities. And, once your kitchen is suffused with the scent of slowly simmering bones, vegetables, and aromatics, you'll wonder why you didn't do this sooner. If you're a novice in this art, be sure to consult our step-by-step guide to making a deeply flavorful stock — you may never buy bouillon cubes again.