How To Grind Beef Without Any Special Equipment

You are staring at a chunk of beef that you were about to turn into a pot roast but have an unshakable hankering for enchiladas instead. However, you don't have any ground beef on hand, and you'd rather not let your chuck go to waste. The good news is that you can grind that cut of beef yourself without using any special equipment to make a batch of craveable stuffed tortillas at speed. All you need is a cutting board, a sharp knife, and a clever slicing technique that takes only minutes to master.

Begin by placing your beef on your cutting board and making diagonal, 45-degree angle slices across the surface that are less than a centimeter apart. However, you're only going to cut ¾ of the way through the meat — similar to how one might Hasselback a potato — so its overall structure remains intact. Then, flip the beef over and repeat the process again. On the next flip, instead of making diagonal slices, cut the meat straight up at a 90-degree angle, again, ensuring the slices don't go all the way through. Turn the meat over and repeat these perpendicular-style cuts one last time. Finally, bundle the chopped meat together and cut all the way through from one side to the other, going back and forth as often as needed, to create ground pieces of beef.

While any chef's knife can be used to grind cuts of beef, a Chinese cleaver knife, with a wide surface area and razor-sharp edge, is an excellent choice if you have one on hand. The depth of the cleaver knife makes it easier to slice seamlessly through thicker cuts in one motion. It's easy to flip over, slide under the meat, and use to scoop up the slices from the cutting board. This allows you to turn the entire cut over in one go, speeding up the mincing process. This technique also works for pork shoulder, boneless chicken thighs, and any other animal-based proteins. The minced meat can be used in stir-fries, as the filling for empanadas, or in puff pastry samosas. In fact, you can even use a cleaver to grind shrimp to make textured shrimp toast.

Grinding your own beef, chicken, and seafood gives you full control over the final texture of the meat rather than uniform, store-bought pieces. It's characterful with a varied consistency, resulting in ragus and wonton fillings with textural complexity. Moreover, you can be 100% confident in the provenance of your protein, knowing that no unwanted scraps of fat have been included in the mix.