Hamburger Stroganoff

Here is a quick meal for a busy night--easy and much better tasting than one from a boxed mix! {Read the note at the end for a quick meal tip!}

Hamburger Stroganoff
1 lb. ground beef
1 onion, minced, or 1 Tb. instant minced onion
1 beef bouillon cube
2 Tb. butter
½ tsp. garlic salt
1 cup sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can mushroom pieces, optional
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown beef and onion in butter. Add bouillon cube, garlic salt, and cream of mushroom soup. Simmer 10 minutes. Add sour cream and serve. Do not boil the sour cream. Add fresh parsley if desired and serve over rice, noodles, or potatoes.

Variation 1: Skip the butter and drain the hamburger and onion after browning.

Variation 2: Add ½ tsp. paprika to achieve a light pink color, and more authentic taste.

Tiffany's Notes: This is a super basic recipe.  You can always cut the fat by choosing a low fat ground beef and reduced fat sour cream and reduced fat soup.

A way to make this recipe even faster to prepare is to buy ground beef meat in bulk (hopefully when it's on sale!) and brown it all at once in a big pot.  Then, I drain the fat off (I even go a step farther and rinse the meat in a fine strainer under warm water).  The cooked ground beef gets divided up into smaller baggies.  I place the small bags of meat into a larger freezer zip-top bag and put them in the freezer.  Then, when I need meat for tacos or hamburger stroganoff or a pasta dish like lasagna I can pull out a small bag of pre-cooked meat, defrost it, and that meal prep goes fairly quickly!  Pre-cooking meat is one of my favorite meal planning tips.