Easy Recipes With Ground Beef
In my quest to find more freezer cooking friendly meals I decided to try some easy recipes with ground beef. My husband loves beef, so finding a casserole that I could easily freeze and cook on busy nights was a priority. After cooking a big batch of ground beef in the crockpot, I jumped into this super easy recipe I found online from here.
Here’s the ingredients you will need. (I tripled this to make four half size pans to freeze.)
1 lb ground beef
26 oz spaghetti sauce
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
8 oz ricotta (you can also use cottage cheese)
1/2 cup butter
16 oz penne pasta
8 oz sharp cheddar shredded cheese
You will also need aluminum pans if you plan to freeze this recipe. You can find the best deal on pans here.
UPDATE: Some of you noticed that I used cottage cheese but listed Ricotta. I tried both, the pictures just came from the cottage cheese trial. I definitely think the ricotta did better in the freezer and had a creamier taste which is why I chose to list the ricotta on the recipe. I definitely use the recipes I share here and try them out first. That means freezing them for at least a few weeks and then serving them to my family. 🙂
1. Cook the ground beef. When I know I’m going to do do some freezer cooking in a big batch, I cook the ground beef in the crockpot easily the night before. Once it’s completely cooked, drained and cooled, I place it in the a container in the refrigerator. The next day, it’s really easy to pull together a recipe like this one.
But anyways, once the ground beef is cooked. Set it aside.
2. Boil the penne pasta and drain once fully cooked.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese, sour cream and cottage cheese. It’s much easier to mix them together if you let the cream cheese soften first.
4. Add half of the pasta to the containers you’re using. In this case, since I had tripled the recipe, I used four half containers. If you’re making only one batch, I would use a 9×13 pan.
5. Top the pasta with the cream cheese mixture. Spread it evenly around the pan.
6. Top the cream mixture with the rest of the noodles.
7. Cut the butter into slices and top the noodles.
8. Top the butter with the ground beef.
9. Top the ground beef with the spaghetti sauce. Straight out of the can, man.
10. Add cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees Faranheit for 45 minutes.
If you’re freezer cooking, you can top it with foil and add it to the freezer. Once thawed in the future, you can bake it for the same time. Personally, I think when you freezer cook with pasta, it sometimes soaks up the sauce. I like to add some sauce to the casserole before cooking it.
Let me know what you think!
If you plan to do a lot of freezer cooking, make sure to grab these pans! You won’t find a better deal!
Handi-Foil 120-Ounce Half Size Steam Table Pan (Case of 100)
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Million Dollar Casserole
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 45 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 mins
- Yield: 8 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeIngredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 26 oz spaghetti sauce
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 8 oz ricotta
- 1/2 cup butter
- 16 oz penne pasta
- 8 oz sharp cheddar shredded cheese
Instructions
- Cook the ground beef.
- Boil the penne pasta and drain once fully cooked.
- In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese, sour cream and cottage cheese. It much easier to mix them together if you let the cream cheese soften first.
- Spray a 9×13 pan with cooking spray. Add half of the pasta to the containers you’re using.
- Top the pasta with the cream cheese mixture.
- Top the cream mixture with the rest of the noodles.
- Cut the butter into slices and top the noodles.
- Top the butter with the ground beef.
- Top the ground beef with the spaghetti sauce. Straight out of the can, man.
- Add cheese.
- Bake at 350 degrees Faranheit for 45 minutes.
- If you’re freezer cooking, you can top it with foil and add it to the freezer. Once thawed in the future, you can bake it for the same time. Personally, I think when you freezer cook with pasta, it sometimes soaks up the sauce. I like to add some sauce to the casserole before cooking it.
- Let me know what you think!
- Category: Main
Looking for another casserole to try? You will love this recipe for Chicken Enchilada Casserole or this Spinach Rice Casserole recipe or even this Green Bean Casserole recipe!
What are some of your favorite easy recipes with ground beef?
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How do you cook ground beef in a crock pot?
This might be a silly question, but is this 16oz or pasta (a whole box) or 16oz cooked pasta? If I am tripling the recipe, will I need 3 whole boxes of penne?
No silly questions! It’s 16 oz of pasta before it’s cooked. So yes, typically that’s an entire box.
This is one of my new favorites and the recipe was easy to follow.
This is an absolute keeper!! 🙂
★★★★★
Hi Dana, I’m so glad you all loved it!
I make a similar recipie, no butter, cottage cheese or ricotta and add green onions sliced with egg noodles in layers. Yum. Im going to try this with penne as I can find it gluten free and not egg noodles, thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it, Pam!
So after you freeze it, how do you thaw it before cooking? Pull it out on the counter the night before, or in the fridge? Or just put it in the oven frozen? I’m new to freezer meals. Thank you!
Put in your fridge the night before – if you have to bake from frozen it will take a lot longer & may require some more liquid added cuz it could dry out. I’d also spray the foil when you cover it as cheese may stick to foil on top. I’d also bake on a cookie sheet as pan can get wobbly.
Must try this!
Great supper! I didn’t have sour cream in the house. I didn’t substitute for it and the meal was very tasty. I also have trouble not adding veggies to a meal (my husband and kids only eat veggies if they don’t taste like veggies) so I added a cup of corn and 1 cup shredded zucchini that I keep in the freezer. I didn’t realize how big the meal was or I would have done 2 cups corn and zucchini. I am definitely making this as a freezer meal for the future!!
So glad you liked it!
We just got done eating this for dinner. VERY good. However, I left the butter out. I had added up (WW) points before adding the butter and just couldn’t bare to add any more points to this dish. It was really good without it, but I’m sure it would’ve been better with it. I mean, how could it not be? It’s butter.
So, I told my husband that next time I’ll make it when I’m not dieting and don’t care about added points 🙂
But, it was still really good. Thanks for sharing.
★★★★
Thanks for sharing Mari! It’s one of our favorites. 🙂
For those of you who don’t like ricotta or cottage cheese, if it’s a texture issue and not taste, you might want to go ahead and try this recipe. I have a little one with major food texture issues who hates cottage cheese and ricotta. I put the ricotta, cream cheese, and sour cream in the food processor briefly to smooth the texture out for her. She ate it, w/ seconds and thirds!
Thanks for the tip Suzanne!
I noticed there were not spices listed. I always salt and pepper my ground beef and add a little garlic too. I also added diced onion to the ground beef while browning. For color, I added chives and dried parsley to the cheeses. Added Red pepper flakes before adding the butter. (We like the heat when it comes to food). Turned out great. I will be cooking this one again
Hi! My family DESPISES ricotta & cottage cheese, any ideas on what I can use in its place? 🙂
Hi Gina, You could try mozzarella cheese. I think it would turn out great as well. You can always omit it all together as well to see if it’s more your family’s style. Let me know how it turns out! 🙂
Did you cook the pasta first? Or does it cook in the oven? Sounds delish !
Hi Mary, Yes, you cook the pasta first before putting it into the oven. Enjoy!
It’s a simply recipe and I did cook the ground beef in the crock pot. Just went into the oven.
Do you have to use ricotta/cottage cheese? I don’t like either.
Katherine, you can try it with another type of cheese. I’ve personally not tried it, so let me know how it goes!
I filled my daughter’s freezer while waiting for a 2-week-overdue baby. Of all the recipes I made, this was her favorite. thanks!
So if you’re going to freeze it — you freeze it before you bake it right? Or do you bake, freeze, and then bake again?
Hi Lisa,
Yes, I freeze it before I bake it.
I am looking forward to trying your recipe but I had a question regarding the butter. A half of a cup of butter seems like a lot considering there are other ingredients that offer fat and moisture. Have you ever made the recipe with less butter?
Thanks,
Johanna
Hi Johanna, I understand. I think the butter helps the noodles from sticking together. To be honest, I don’t think you would notice too much of a difference if you left the butter out. Let me know how it turns out. 🙂
Made this today, tripling the recipe so I had some to freeze. What size foil pans did you use? I used 8 inch square and could not fit all the noodles in. I just kind of mounded in to them and wrote a not on my foil cover to put the foil pans in another bigger pan to catch any run over. It sure looked tasty! I’m going to cook some that I did not freeze for Sunday dinner tomorrow!
Hi Luanne, I used a 8×8 inch pan but it was very deep. I now use these pans I bought on Amazon. They make it a bit easier with a big recipe like this one. http://amzn.to/1nykzQO
I made this for my Bunco group and it was a huge hit. I doubled the recipe and used 2 9X13 dishes to bake. I also used 2 32 oz jars of sauce instead of 2 26oz jars. So yummy and the leftovers are just as good. Everyone wanted the recipe. Thank you for sharing this with us.
★★★★★
Hi Geri. I’m so glad you all enjoyed! It is definitely a keeper! 🙂
This looks like a delicious recipe my family will love. I’ll need to make it dairy free, but I’m sure my family will see like it. Thanks for sharing your recipe.
YES!! You finally posted it! I was waiting for this! Thanks – can’t wait to try it with gluten free pasta!
Okay, I know that I pester with these questions but the recipe ingredients say Ricotta and you used Cottage Cheese to replace it? Is there a difference in the taste or a reason? I just got a deal on ricotta so just wanted to know 🙂
Love your questions. I actually made it both ways, and liked the Ricotta better. The pictures I took have the cottage cheese because that’s when I took the pictures. But to be honest, the Ricotta froze better, so I would recommend using the Ricotta if you’re going to freeze it which is why I listed that in the ingredients. The taste is different. The Ricotta is a smoother taste like lasagna, while the cottage cheese has a bit more of bite to it. It’s really a personal preference, but I’ll make it with the Ricotta from here on out because it does better in the freezer in my opinion. 🙂 Hope that helps!