These easy ground beef and green bean bowls make a super easy and quick weeknight bite. The ground beef is flavored and played up with a few simple spices and topped off with a bright fresh bundle of green beans. Use this simple recipe to scoop and serve over steamed rice or stuff lettuce wraps! It’s healthy, delicious, and ready in a flash…
These easy ground beef and green bean bowls are a perfect example of something I can throw together on a weeknight because I’m usually looking for something easy with everything I need: meat, a starch, and a healthy veggie.
How To Make Ground Beef & Green Beans
Instead of serving everything separately on a dinner plate I just combined it all into rice bowls. It’s the perfect, easy and casual no-brainer weeknight bite! Let’s start by grabbing some quick ingredients to add to the ground beef. This will dress it up and bring in some flavor.
Dice an Onion & Sweat It In The Pan
Start off by mincing some garlic and dicing an onion. Drizzle a little olive oil and let it heat through. Now add the onion to the pan and stir it through until softened and fragrant. About 5 minutes.
Once the onions have softened a bit, toss in the minced garlic and give it another stir. You can either use two small onions or one larger onion. I used two small yellow onions.
Add Ground Beef
Add your ground beef to the pan and brown it by breaking it up with a wooden spoon. As it browns all the way through, it will pick up all the flavors in the pan from the onion and garlic.
Toss in some spices:
Now add in salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, cumin, and chipotle powder/chipotle seasoning. These will make it pop with flavor and give it great taste. It will make a perfect pair with the green beans!
Splash In Some Stock
I used a 10% fat, leaner type ground beef so in order to give it a little help and make it tastier and juicier, I’ll splash in some unsalted beef stock. I’ll use the unsalted so that it doesn’t get too salty with what we’ve already added earlier. I can always adjust the seasoning later on. Give everything one more good stir and bring it to a simmer.
Simmer Ground Beef A Few Minutes
Now cover it and turn the heat down to low. Set a timer for 25 to 35 minutes and let simmer to bring out the flavor. This quick extra step will give this simple dish a slow-cooked taste. (If you use salted stock then go easy on the salt because they will both add sodium to the food.)
Cook The Green Beans
Add your green beans to a pot of boiling water and cook to desired texture. I used haricots verts which are basically thinner younger French-style green beans.
These green beans cook in under five minutes and have a delicious and vibrant taste. They are so simple to make and they just look stunning on the plate. This is a quick and easy way to get something green and healthy on the plate to complement the rest of the meal.
Related: Easy Ground Turkey w/ Broccoli & Rice
Once your green beans are cooked, remove them from the boiling water and shock them in an ice water bath. This quick step of shocking the green beans will seal in their bright green color and stop the cooking process. They will have good texture and gorgeous color when added to the plate.
Serve Green Beans w/ Ground Beef: Different Ways
Tower it up in a rice bowl:
You can serve this mix with a nice scoop of hot steamed rice. Just scoop the ground beef over the rice and place a nice bundle of green beans over the top and done! Drizzle with a dash of soy or sriracha for a touch of something extra. It would even be tasty sprinkled with sesame seeds over the top.
Skip the starch. Make lettuce wraps:
If you have a nice hearty lettuce you can turn the leaves into boats. Stuff the lettuce leaves with the ground beef and top off with the green beans. You’ll have nice little lettuce wraps you can plate and garnish. You can use nice wide bibb lettuce leaves. I actually just used nice long a sleek crunchy romaine hearts. I took the leaves apart, trimmed them, and added the beef inside. They are easy to hold and have a great crunch!
Mix the green beans and beef together, then serve:
The third way to serve this would be cut your green beans into shorter bite size pieces and then toss them in the pan with the ground beef. You’ll have a nice ground beef mix dotted with bright beans that you just scoop over rice or small pasta like orzo or ditalini.
As you can see, we have here a simple way of preparing a healthy ground beef dinner with three fun ways to plate and devour! Which one will you choose to do?
Use what you have available and think outside the box to give this your own signature style! Maybe you have broccoli and not green beans! Maybe you steamed asparagus instead! Use the fresh ingredients you have on hand and give it your own flare!
Easy Ground Beef With Green Beans & Rice
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb Ground Beef - I used 10% fat / 90% lean
- 1/2 lb Greens Beans or Haricots Verts - I used the thin french-style Haricots Verts
- 2 cups Rice - steamed/cooked will then serve about 4 to 6
- 1 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 large Yellow Onion - or two small ones
- 3 cloves Fresh Garlic
- 1 tsp Coarse Sea Salt + Ground Pepper
- 1 tsp Smoked Paprika
- 1/2 tsp Ground Cumin
- 1/2 tsp Smoky Chipotle Seasoning / Chipotle Powder
- 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 tsp Onion Powder
- 1/2 cup Unsalted Beef broth/stock - if not available splash in water and adjust seasonings later if needed
Instructions
- While your wide skillet/pan heats over medium/high heat, dice onion and mince fresh garlic. Drizzle olive oil into the pan and let it heat. Toss in onion and stir long enough to sweat and soften through. About 5 minutes or so. Add in minced garlic and give it another stir until fragrant.
- Add ground beef to the pan with onion and garlic. Brown the ground beef breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Once thoroughly browned, add in seasonings.
- Sprinkle in salt, fresh ground pepper, paprika, cumin, chipotle powder/seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder. Stir everything in to combine. Splash in the unsalted beef stock or (if not available splash in a little water). Bring everything to a simmer.
- Once simmering, cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer ground beef and seasonings on low for 30 to 35 minutes to cook through and develop flavor.
- While ground beef cooks, drop your fresh, washed, and trimmed green beans into a pot of boiling water. Cook to desired texture and then drop into an ice bath to shock them. Strain the green beans and set aside.
- If you don't already have cooked rice available, steam 2 cups of raw uncooked rice. Check ground beef for seasonings when cook time is up and adjust as needed.
- When cook time for the beef is up, you can either: 1) cut the green beans in half and stir them into the hot beef mixture and scoop that over fresh steamed rice or 2) you can scoop the beef over your rice and lay the fresh steamed green beans over the top (as I have done here). Drizzle with a little soy sauce/ toasted sesame seeds or sriracha for a tasty finishing touch. 3) Serve in a lettuce wrap.
Notes
- If you add water instead of chicken stock, make sure to taste later on adjust for seasonings.
- If available, use beef stock/broth as it will add tons more flavor.
- If you don’t want that extra smoky flavor, leave the chipotle seasoning out. Â
- If you would like to make this spicy: add chili powder, Â cayenne powder or red pepper flakes instead of chipotle powder. Or, serve with a dash of sriracha.
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- Haricots Verts cook much quicker than regular green beans (in about less than five minutes so stay close to the stove if you decide to use these!
