17 Ways To Repurpose Leftover Ground Beef

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Ground beef is a must-have item on many shoppers' weekly grocery lists. It's easy to prepare, tastes great, and you can use it in many different recipes. You'll have no shortage of ideas here, from burgers and Sloppy Joes to Bolognese; however, you may have less creativity when it comes to what to do with leftover ground beef that is already cooked. It may not be enough to make a whole, dinner-sized recipe, and considering the cost of beef these days, let alone the ethical implications of throwing away perfectly good food, you may think twice about chucking it in the trash or relegating it to the back of your fridge, where it becomes a science project. 

That's exactly why we wanted to come up with a list of our favorite ways to use cooked ground beef, perfect if you have a single burger patty left after a barbecue or just made a little too much for your original recipe. We stuck to applications that either require small amounts of cooked ground beef (meaning even a ¼-pound serving will work), can be prepared as a single lunch or dinner portion, and can be combined with other piecemeal leftovers from your fridge, like cooked veggies and bottled sauces. You can also supplement these ground beef dishes with other ground proteins, including pork, chicken, turkey, or textured vegetable protein as desired. 

Nachos are like the quintessential comfort-turned-struggle food. Even if all you have in your pantry is tortilla chips and a bag of shredded cheese or a jar of store-bought queso (which one of our tasters tried and ranked), you too can have a simple and satisfying snack. However, not adding that leftover ground beef to your nachos would be a disservice. It's already cooked, so all you need to do is sprinkle it on top underneath the layer of cheese — so everything turns out nice and molten — and enjoy. If your meat is unseasoned, consider adding a sprinkle of taco seasoning to it to zest it up.

Not only is this recipe easily scalable — meaning you can feed a crowd or just your hungry self — but you can also toss it with your favorite nacho toppings like black olives, sour cream, guacamole, and salsa. It would be excellent for feeding hungry kids after school, since the beef adds protein.

Breakfast burritos are another recipe where truly anything goes. Eggs, cheese, and breakfast meat are the standard, but you'll find plenty of funky renditions, like our ultimate breakfast burrito recipe, which calls for avocado. Since this wrap is so versatile, it's a perfect place to toss in some cooked ground beef. 

Technically, you don't need to season the beef, and the fact that it's already cooked means you can haphazardly tuck it into your wrap and be on your merry, protein-fueled way. However, a dash of cumin, dried chipotle powder, paprika, oregano — or heck, even just salt and pepper — can help your beef better jive with the other wrap components. 

Lettuce wraps are often thought of as a sad, low-carb substitute for gluten-heavy dishes. However, only relegating lettuce wraps to this use would be do them a disservice. Rather, we recommend using them as the flavorful, crunchy vessels for seasoned, pre-cooked ground meat for a twist on larb gai. 

The ground beef will add a greater umami and depth of flavor than turkey, chicken, or pork and you can season it with similar ingredients as you would use for larb, like sauteed garlic, ginger, and lemongrass. That said, you can also take this simple lunch in a more American-inspired direction and pile on melted cheese, burger sauce, and classic burger toppings for a deconstructed burger wrap.

Quesadillas are also a beloved comfort food for many. Like nachos, they quickly become a catch-all for leftovers, including pickled jalapeños, sliced veggies, shredded chicken, and, of course, ground beef. Since quesadillas cook relatively quickly, we recommend nuking your ground beef in the microwave before tucking it between your tortillas with the cheese to ensure that it's warmed all the way through.

Like many of the uses for leftover ground beef on this list, you can choose to season or not to season the beef depending on the other wrap components — and depending on how much effort you want to put into this dish. We love adding a sprinkle of cumin or taco seasoning, and will usually let our favorite store-bought chipotle sauce do the rest of the work. Serve it alongside sour cream, homemade guacamole, and salsa for dipping.

Sloppy Joes are a childhood cafeteria classic. They fuse savory with sweet effortlessly, creating a hearty bite that you will want seconds of. While a measly ¼-pound container of leftover ground beef won't feed a whole family, you may have just enough ground meat on hand for a single sandwich. And since you can find containers of store-bought Sloppy Joe sauce at almost any retailer (including the classic Manwich brand), you won't have any problem getting lunch on the table quickly.

Normally, to make Sloppy Joes, you'd mix the beef with the sauce and let it cook. However, if you're making just one sandwich with pre-made meat, you can just nuke the ground beef, add as much or as little sauce as you prefer, and transfer it to your awaiting roll. It's super simple — as the canned sauce does almost all of the seasoning work for you — but nonetheless satisfying.

If you are looking for a great low-carb dinner, and an even easier way to use up that leftover ground beef, you may have just found it here. Roasted zucchini, peppers, and tomatoes are all grossly underappreciated. You can blanch (or otherwise soften) your vegetable of choice, scoop out the filling, and tuck whatever you want into it before baking it away just enough for the flavors to meld. The ground beef is already cooked, so you don't want to cook the assembled vegetables for too long.

When we make these, we love adding black beans, Mexican cheese, cooked rice, and leftover fajita veggies (preferably already cooked, as they are softer than raw ones) with a sprinkle of ground beef. They're especially tasty with sliced avocado and sour cream. This is far from the only flavor pairing that works here, though. If you prefer Italian flavors, for example, try pairing the ground beef with tomato sauce, mozzarella, and sliced pepperoni for a filling lunch or dinner. 

You shouldn't be surprised to see yet another "catch-all" dish on this list. Fried rice is welcoming to virtually all veggies, meats, seafood, eggs, and seasonings — so don't forget to send your leftover ground beef an invite to this party.

Ground beef adds heartiness to fried rice without necessarily upping the grease factor in the same way that ground pork does. One of our top tips? Make sure to think about how "hard" the ingredients in the fried rice are, or how long of a cook time they need, so you don't end up overcooking your ground beef while your vegetables are still firm. The ground beef just needs to be warmed with the rice, eggs, and other components, and a good dash of soy or oyster sauce would do you well. You can serve this dish as a side or a main — just don't blame us if you like it better than takeout.

Hand pies (and foods under that umbrella, like empanadas) are a great way to use a trace amount of leftover ground beef. While they may put your patience to the test, especially if you are a beginner, the result will be well worth it. And, like many other recipes on this list, they're incredibly customizable. 

This is a great use for leftover pie dough as well as leftover ground beef. And, since the beef is already cooked, you're already a step ahead of the game. Simply sandwich your ground beef and any other fillings into the hand pie, and neatly tuck and secure the dough with a fork. A basic mirepoix (celery, onions, and carrots) is an excellent pairing, as it adds moisture and flavor, though you could also load it up with your favorite gravy, chopped sauteed mushrooms, or even Tex-Mex-inspired filling like refried beans and jalapeños.

Canned chili has a lot going for it. It's hearty, easy to prepare, and best of all, dirt cheap. It isn't all that uncommon to buy a can that says "with beef" on its label, only to realize that there is one or two pieces of meat in the entire can. Luckily, you can enhance your kind-of-beefy-but-not-really chili with a bit of leftover ground beef.

We recommend nuking your canned chili and beef variety separately, as you don't want to have cold ground beef going into a piping hot soup. You can add as much or as little as you see fit; it'll pair well with a host of common chili ingredients like jalapeños, onions, and garlic. Top it with shredded cheddar cheese or crumbled corn chips, and you'll have a budget-friendly, comforting meal.

Let's be honest: Plain pasta with tomato sauce isn't that filling. It hits the comforting and easy-to-prepare notes well, but it lacks the heartiness and protein to make it a truly filling meal. This is where a serving of leftover ground beef comes in handy. Sure, it's not going to replace a slow-cooked Bolognese made with love by your Italian nonna, but there are some times when duty calls, and you just have to make do with what you have on hand. 

You can stir in a sprinkle of the cooked, warmed beef before serving to give this dish a beefy upgrade. It's probably not a surprise, but beef pairs well with tomato sauce specifically because its umami notes play off the sweet, savory, and salty notes already in the sauce, creating a well-balanced dish. You could even sprinkle it in a store-bought or otherwise dull Bolognese for extra protein. 

It's worth noting here that ground beef doesn't go with every pasta sauce. For example, if you added it to an Alfredo, the flavor and richness of the beef and the creamy body of the sauce would likely be at odds with one another. So, pair with care.

Anyone who has made homemade dumplings (of any kind) knows that the amount that you add to the center of the dough is trivial, which makes this an excellent dish to prepare when you have a very small amount of ground beef left over. The ground beef carries a lot of weight in the filling, as it has a great baseline level of savoriness and plays well with others. We recommend trying a pierogi with leftover onions, shredded cheddar, and cooked ground beef. Nuke any of your cooked ingredients, tuck them into the pre-made dough, seal with a fork, and boil them in hot water until they float. You can also try a cottage pie-inspired rendition with peas, ground beef, and potatoes. 

Pierogi aren't the only type of dumpling worthy of a ground beef upgrade. You can also tuck leftover ground beef into wonton wrappers, alongside warmed onions and cabbage (take a piece of advice from us and use bagged slaw from the salad aisle of the grocery store), and serve your steamed or pan-fried dumplings with a soy- and sesame-based dipping sauce for a great appetizer or light dinner. 

Mac and cheese is an excellent dish to prepare when you don't have a heck of a lot left in your pantry, but still need to get food on the table. Grab a box of your favorite mac and cheese (which one of our tasters tried and ranked), add the ingredients it calls for, and stir in your cooked, warmed ground beef. While you can let the ground beef warm in the pot with the pasta, when we make this at home, we prefer to nuke it ahead of time, which reduces the risk of biting into a cold and sad piece of meat surrounded by soft pasta and creamy cheese. 

It's kind of like a spin on Hamburger Helper, except since it's not pre-seasoned (aside from whatever is in the cheese sauce), so you can experiment with different flavors and ingredient additions. A little bit of garlic powder would do you well, as would smokier and heavier seasonings like chipotle, cayenne, or cumin. You could even add vegetables like green peas or broccoli to make your pasta extra hearty — you may just need to double up on the cheese sauce.

Breakfast hash is one of our favorite dishes to order at the local diner. It's so delicious and so simple, and you can add any breakfast-adjacent food to it. As long as you have potatoes and eggs, you can have a tasty, customizable hash.

A Big Mac-inspired breakfast hash would be particularly tasty. This fast food icon is composed of beef, cheese, onions, pickles, lettuce, and Mac sauce — which is easy enough to translate to a hash, provided you BYO potatoes and eggs. Cook up the potatoes, add your meat and any other veggie additions (you can leave the onions raw or cook them). Finish it off with an egg cooked to your liking (we prefer sunny-side up so that the yolk drips down), and your raw toppings, and you have a breakfast dish any burger lover — or leftover enthusiast — won't be able to say no to. 

Shepherd's pie (though technically it's cottage pie if it's made with ground beef) is an iconic dish. It's traditionally assembled in a casserole dish and baked together, consisting of layers of seasoned beef, vegetables, and that iconic mashed potato topping. While you won't be able to get the same baked-together experience as you would by, well, baking it all together in a dish, you can easily make a deconstructed cottage pie with your leftover ground beef. 

This is a great dish to meal prep, as you can assemble all of the components when you're ready to eat it. A packet of brown gravy mix would do you well, as would frozen peas, and heck, you can even use instant mashed potatoes (we found the best brand) to prepare it, which keeps costs down all around. Scoop all of the prepared ingredients into a bowl, douse it with the gravy, and enjoy this affordable and tasty way to make the most of your leftover ground beef. 

What can't go on pizza? That is a hard question to answer, seeing as there are plenty of underrated pizza toppings out there worth trying. Ground beef is a sensible one, seeing as it goes with many other popular toppings. And, since your ground beef is already cooked, all you need to do is sprinkle it on your pie and let it bake. You can't put raw ground beef on a pizza and expect it to be fully cooked by the time the crust is finished, making this one instance where the cooked meat is preferable to the raw stuff straight from the package.

Ground beef would add heartiness to cheese-, veggie-, or meat-based pies, and would be ideal when you open up a frozen pie and realize that the company thought "Meat-za" meant one measly piece of beef on the whole pie. You could also try fun variations on homemade pizza, like a Big Mac pie, topped with melty cheese, lettuce, onions, and burger sauce, or a taco pie with seasoned ground beef (taco seasoning will do, though a homemade blend with cumin, chipotle, cayenne, and the like is also an option), with salsa, shredded lettuce, and sour cream added post-bake.

If you visit New York City, you have to stop at a bodega for a chopped cheese sandwich. This is like the unfussy lovechild of a cheesesteak and hamburger. The ground meat is usually chopped up in a pan with softened onions, seasonings like adobo, garlic, and pepper. American cheese is chopped and melted in, too, which gives this burger the mouthfeel and texture of a Sloppy Joe. Pair it with an excellent, fresh hoagie roll, and you're golden.

If you're working with pre-cooked ground beef, you'll just want to add it to the onions after they've softened. While you won't get the same level of flavor as you would if you cooked the seasonings in with the beef and its fat, you should still season to your heart's content here. Serve the sandwich with lettuce and tomato, if you'd like, and enjoy this shortcut version of a NYC icon.

Have you ever made your own baked or stovetop bean recipe only to realize that it's lacking that flavorful punch and hearty depth you're craving? Ground beef is the secret to a more flavorful and umami bowl of beans. It also can balance out the sweetness of other ingredients in your recipe, like brown sugar or honey, to create a more balanced profile. 

If you don't have enough ground beef on hand for a full batch of beans, feel free to supplement with other meats. Our cozy stovetop Calico beans recipe, for example, calls for a mostly pork base — including smoky bacon and canned pork and beans. You can swap the raw beef for cooked beef, using as much or as little as you'd like to round out the recipe's flavor.