Baking Soda Is the Key to Perfectly Browned Ground Beef.
As a teenager, I was confused when I read the box with directions for making tacos. I remember there was something like “drain” after cooking the ground beef. What kind of water? It only took one time and then I realized what kind of water they were talking about. Cooking ground beef often produces gray rubbery lumps, and browning is made even more difficult by the pool of liquid. Luckily, there’s a simple solution to this problem: cook ground beef faster and more tender by adding baking soda.
The best way to cook ground beef
I have no problem saying this is the best way to cook ground beef. Full stop. Baking soda is a household chemical that most people can easily find in their kitchen (and if you don’t have it, you can buy it at the grocery store for about $1.50). This method requires a minimal amount to be effective (more on that in a moment), and the result is that not only does it beautifully brown, crisp the edges of the ground beef, but those pieces become soft, juicy, and more flavorful than when they’re steamed in their liquid mass.
I first learned about the benefits of baking soda for cooking on America’s Test Kitchen, as it can speed up the cooking of tough vegetables . There’s so much more you can do with meat, including chopped or ground beef, chicken and pork. I do this by placing the minced meat in a large frying pan. (Thickening any ingredient, be it vegetables or meat, is a sure way to create steam, which delays browning, so give the food plenty of room.) Break up the meat, turn off the heat, and then sprinkle in a little baking soda. America’s Test Kitchen recommends about a quarter teaspoon for every 12 ounces of meat, so for 16 ounces of beef I saw enough of a quarter heaped teaspoon.
Sprinkle the bicarb as widely as possible to cover most of the surface of the meat. It’s impossible to cover all the points, and that’s okay, it will still work wonders. Stir, turn and stir the meat to combine with the baking soda and let sit for 15 minutes. When the timer is up, turn the heat back up and cook as usual.
Who cares?
I cooked two portions of meat to show the difference, one with baking soda and one without. As for the baking soda, I sprinkled it on and waited 15 minutes. I then turned the heat to about medium heat and began stirring and chopping the meat as it began to cook. Not only did the meat cook quickly, but within the first two minutes I started to notice browning; a lot of the meat was still raw in places.
The entire pan of meat was cooked in five minutes, and I seared it for another two minutes. There was only one moment when I saw some kind of liquid appear, but it was not something that could be equated to a puddle.
For regular mince, I just started cooking it over medium heat, breaking it up and stirring. In the first minute everything looked the same, only without darkening. Then, just before the last parts turned gray, a huge puddle of liquid formed. By the way, this liquid should be inside your meat. Instead, it fills the pan before the meat begins to brown and delays that browning even further. The pan took another five minutes to cook, and the pieces of meat became noticeably tough.
Why does adding baking soda brown ground beef better?
Baking soda does double duty when working with meat: it acts as a tenderizer and creates conditions for better browning. Regarding tenderization, whenever the meat hits a hot pan, you can see it shrink noticeably. Whether it’s a hamburger or a steak, you’ve probably witnessed what appears to be shrinkage. When meat is cooked, the muscle fibers contract and, as a result, squeeze out liquid. The longer you cook it, the more liquid is squeezed out. This is why overcooked meat tastes dry. This is exactly what you see when you see a puddle of liquid in a pot of ground beef. There are hard, overcooked pieces of meat left in the pan.
Baking soda corrects this by preventing the fibers from squeezing out too much juice. The same article explains that bicarbonate of soda changes the pH of meat, causing muscle fibers (tiny filaments that exist in muscle cells) to repel each other even when they are exposed to heat. So instead of getting closer, they stay away. The liquids inside don’t have to leave the ship, resulting in juicier meat.
Less liquid in the pan also means faster browning because browning can only happen if there isn’t a ton of water or steam in it. Additionally, raising the pH with baking soda creates a simpler environment for the meat, which is when the Maillard reaction really begins. The Maillard reaction is what we have to thank for perfectly browned baked goods, meats and vegetables, and those browned areas actually create new, more complex flavors. More browning actually means your food gets more flavor. While Maillard reactions can occur without baking soda, they are enhanced at higher pH.
Isn’t it nice to know that the smallest, cheapest and simplest addition to ground beef can have such a significant impact on your dinner? I find this very satisfying. Try it, and I think you will too.