How many portions of bolognese or chilli do you get from 450g mince?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

Thinking of batch cooking a large pot and freezing some portions. It's only me that eats meat at home, so don't want any waste. Decent quality beef mince is about $7 a pound, how many portions would you get from this?

I have not cooked with mince for years and years!

@Thursday37

We are greedy buggers in this house, we’d get 4 adult and 2 toddler portions max but have been known to only get 2 adult and 2 toddler if really hungry.

Glad it's not just me!

6-8 on average, bulked out with lots of veg and/or beans if it’s chilli.

I would say 6 for normal people. But 3 portions for my teen DS!

8 portions bulked out with onion, tomato, peppers (kidney beans) etc

I’d start out following a recipe for 4, with a view to 4 portions for yourself. You can always vary your recipes as you start to remember how to cook with it, and adapt as you go by varying what types of sauces and whether or not you add veg.

Out of curiosity what price is mince in the UK now with the cost of food going up?

Food (all food, fruit and vegetables including tinned and dried) is SO expensive here in the United States.

Or, if it’s going to be without veg, just call it 2 portions if you want. It all depends on what you want from it! It sounded as if you wanted to make the money work for you which i think is why a lot of people are talking about stretching it further.

4 adult portions of bolognese.

Maybe 6 of chilli as I put loads of beans in

That would feed 3 for dinner (3 adults) and leftover portion for lunch the next day

That amount of mince with soffrito (so that is fried down celery, onion and carrot to me) ought to go with a couple of tins of tomatoes. I'd lob in finely chopped mushrooms or chicken livers and a bit of chopped pancetta or bacon to bulk it out. A can of lentils would also do the trick with extra seasoning. I would have thought that would be 8-10 servings? Especially with wholewheat pasta and a bit of cheese on top.

That would do 10 meals for us. We bulk it out with lentils.

We buy all our meat from our local farm shop. We don’t buy steak mince, so just good quality beef mince and usually 10-15% fat I think? I’ve just checked and it’s £11.17 for 1,020g.

Aldi : £2.89 for 500g, Sainsburys £3.00 for 500g. Both 5% fat.

@Nnique

Or, if it’s going to be without veg, just call it 2 portions if you want. It all depends on what you want from it! It sounded as if you wanted to make the money work for you which i think is why a lot of people are talking about stretching it further.

Yes to adding veg and of course beans for the chilli - just not lentils because as I say we use them a lot in our go to vegetarian meals.

750g feeds 5 of us. So 3?! Ish.

@Shopboughtmeatballs

Aldi : £2.89 for 500g, Sainsburys £3.00 for 500g. Both 5% fat.

I am envious!

I made chilli tonight. Mince, tin of toms, an onion, a pepper and a tin of beans. Six decent portions.

Out of curiosity what price is mince in the UK now with the cost of food going up?

Maybe 3.50 / kg for high fat stuff.
About 5.50 /kg for Lean 5% stuff.

Chilled supermarket that is.

I use 1kg of 5% mince in chili for about 6 portions, about 400g of dried beans too there. I think the portion size of mine must be somewhat larger...

5 or 6 adult portions - depends what else I put in it really, and people taking a leftover portion for lunch tend to take a slightly smaller one than they might eat for a full evening meal.

Oh yeah, forgot that's twice as much as I ever use. I'd have two tins of tomatoes with that (except that I don't bother with tinned tomatoes in a bolognese, only in a lasagne to make sure it covers the pasta layer twice).

I buy the 15% fat mince at £3.88 for 750g. Finest 5% Aberdeen Angus is £4.25 for 500g; organic 15% is £4.65 for 500g.

We like generous portions but don't want to go overboard on red meat for health reasons. At 70g of meat per serving as a max per adult, your 450g packet of mince should make 6.5ish servings as a minimum, and quite a few more when you bulk out with vegetables. Aubergines are great for bulking out bolognese sauce. I'd probably use one aubergine to 450g of mince, a load of mushrooms, two big onions and possibly some courgette, mince them in a food processor and fry them up with the minced beef. It'll make it stretch quite far.
And yes, when minced, mushrooms freeze fine.

I usually get two dinners for a family of four (2 adults and 2 kids); one lasagne and one as sauce on pasta. Neither I nor one of the kids are big eaters, though, so this may not be typical.

This thread has reminded me just how much I tend to stretch mince. I think it was probably a 500g pack of mince I cooked the other day (fried then simmered with water and a bay leaf). About half of it went into a pasta sauce with onion/carrot/tomatos etc. 3 good servings (two adults + teenage boy!). Tonight we had the leftovers, I added another couple of spoons of meat and some tomato passata. There's at least a third of the mince left in the fridge for another meal, depending on what I do with it that could easily turn into another 4+ servings.

So yes, I'm another who'd stretch it to 10.

Growing up my mother was stretching meat of necessity more than choice and I guess I've still got habits learnt from her.

We get 8 but I love mushrooms so put loads in and bulk it out with other veg.

I did a batch the other day and got 8 - but that had 3 tins of tomatoes, loads of sofrito, mushrooms and pancetta