Cheeseburger Skillet: Feeding a Large Family Real Food on a Budget

One thing you find out quick when building a homestead is that you don’t just snap your fingers and suddenly have an influx of homegrown food. It takes time… often, or at least in our case, a lot of time. And because some years there are garden bounty and some years not so much, we still head to the grocery store most weeks and buy a fair amount of food for our family.

I am really thankful that for the past couple of years we seem to have been able to check off most of our eggs and dairy from the grocery list. I can sometimes go a few months without buying much in the way of vegetables too. And our meat needs continue to go down as we produce a little bit more of our own every year.

P.S. This pan, given to me by my mom, is wonderful for cooking just about any meal for a larger family. 

I suspect we are not alone in trying to stretch the grocery budget every week as our family size and age grow. I roughly calculated that we feed the equivalent of 5-6 grown men three meals per day every day of the week. Our nearly ten- and twelve-year-old boys are a great help on the homestead and as such, they need a lot of nourishment… as in bigger portions than their Dad some days. Their little sisters and brother aren’t slouches either.

So we eat a lot of simple – perhaps very simple- food but we try to focus on nourishment as much as we can so that these young ones are being nourished and not just fed. Still, there are a lot of beans and rice cooked in broth or meat-stretching one pot meals such as this.

Eating cheeseburgers – or any larger meat meal – is a real treat for us since it would require nearly two pounds of grass-fed beef for a meal.  When we’ve butchered a cow, we eat those cheeseburgers with great gratitude and frequency, until all of the meat is canned up. But that doesn’t happen very often.

So I like to stretch that beef out while giving everyone the cheeseburger flavor and utilizing three of my most-used ingredients: rice, grass-fed ground beef, and cabbage. These are staples on the weekly grocery list and we eat at least one of them at least once per day. Ketchup and mustard give it the cheeseburger flavor but since I don’t usually buy ketchup (and don’t generally cook with the fermented kind in Traditionally Fermented Foods), I just throw tomato sauce, honey, apple cider vinegar, and a pinch of spice in for the ketchup flavor.

Top this hotdish (as we Minnesotans call them) with your favorite cheeseburger toppings – cheese, onions, pickles, etc. We live in Texas so pickled jalapenos are practically mandatory, at least if you like that sort of thing.

Cheeseburger Skillet

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons coconut oil or lard
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 2/3 – 1 lb ground beef
• 1/2 head of green cabbage, thinly sliced
• 1 3/4 cup white rice
• 3 cups homemade broth
• 1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
• 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• 3 Tablespoons prepared mustard
• salt and pepper to taste
• pinch each of cinnamon and red pepper flakes (or cayenne)
• diced onion, pickles, mustard, and other preferred burger toppings for serving

Directions

Heat a large skillet over high heat and add the coconut oil or lard. Allow to preheat for several minutes before adding the onion. Fry for 4-5 minutes or until onions are translucent, stirring periodically. Add the ground beef and fry until browned. Add the cabbage and fry for 4-5 more minutes or until it just begins to soften. Add the rice and fry for an additional minute, stirring frequently.

Pour in the broth, tomato sauce, apple cider vinegar, honey, and mustard. Season generously with salt and pepper (unless your broth is already salted) and add in a pinch each of cinnamon and red pepper flakes. Stir well to combine all ingredients.

Cover the skillet and lower the heat to low. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until just a bit of liquid remains on the surface, as in photo #4 above. Remove from the heat and stir gently from the bottom of the pan. Cover the pan again and let sit for ten minutes before serving.

To serve spoon onto plates or bowls and top with cheese, diced onion, pickles, additional mustard or whatever your favorite burger toppings are.