A Case For Grinding Your Own Meat

As is the case with any dish that requires ground meat in the Belly Full household, I purchase whole cuts and then grind it myself.  Not only do you not know what part of the animal your ground meat came from, but knows what other meat (or non-meat) was pushed through the grinder before my order was ground?  I like to control the variables as much as possible and the only way to make sure that the meat was ground with the minimum amount of cross-contamination danger possible is to do it myself.

We received a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer as a wedding gift about 2 years ago so I purchased a grinding attachment for it and works well enough for my purposes.  You can purchase stand-alone meat grinders (both electric and manual) if you don’t have a stand mixer.  It’s a bit more work to grind your own meat, but I think that being able to do custom mixes with different cuts of meat (i.e. short rib, chuck, sirloin, brisket, etc) is a great trade-off.  To ensure cleanliness and reduce cross-contamination, I make sure to wash the grinding attachment in very hot, soapy water with a bit of vinegar diluted in it after I’m done.

A good tip for grinding your own meat is to put the grinding attachment in the freezer for 2 hours prior to using it.  You also want to start with meat that is as cold as possible to prevent the heat generated by the friction from melting the fat on the meat (trust me, you don’t want that!).  Just cut your meat into small cubes (say one-inch cubes) and then refrigerate until your grinder is cold enough.  If you’re only grinding a small amount of meat, say less than 1 1/2 pounds, you don’t really have to chill everything before using it if you are pressed for time.

Another thing to keep in mind is to not turn the mixer on too high.  I normally turn it on to it’s lowest setting so that I don’t get meat juices (it’s not blood!) splattering on my counter.  After you’re done grinding the meat, it’s always good to put a half slice of bread through the grinder to ensure that all the meat is pushed through.

Here is my grinder set up:

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: None
Difficulty: Easy
Notes: None

Once you have done this once or twice, you will never purchase pre-ground meat again.  You can also grind plenty of meat in advance, form it into meatballs, burger patties, or just lump it together and freeze them for future use.

Buen Provecho!