I think I have found the very best way to brown meat in bulk. I just browned 20 lbs of hamburger in about an hour with very little effort and no grease splatter. The following recipe does 5 pounds in one tray but I can fit 2 or 3 trays in my home oven at a time.
INGREDIENTS:
- 5 lbs of ground meat (hamburger, sausage, pork, etc).
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Place the meat in a full size steamer pan.
- Add seasonings. I used 5 teaspoons of salt and 1 Tablespoon of black pepper for hamburger.
- Do your best to break up the meat and to distribute the salt and pepper. Don’t worry if you cannot get the spices perfectly mixed.
- Bake the meat for 20 minutes. This is enough time to render out most of the grease so you can pour it off.
- Remove the pans from the oven and pour off the excess water and grease. I save my hamburger grease to use in beef stock.
- Use a spatula to break up the meat and stir it before returning it to the oven.
- Bake for 5 minutes followed by another break and stir.
- Bake for a second 5 minutes.
- Remove the meat from the oven.
- Pull the meat to one end of the pan and prop it up so it can drain any remaining grease to the other end of the pan.
- After the meat cools, you may want to use your food processor to break up any large chunks. I put about 2.5 pounds of the meat in the food processor at a time and pulse it 4 or 5 times to break it up.
