Don’t over mix: Burgers, meatloaf, meatballs and other ground beef recipes will be more tender if you handle the meat as little as possible as you add seasonings and other ingredients. If you over mix it, you’ll end up with a firm, compact texture after cooking.

Never let raw meat, poultry or seafood touch cooked meat or any ready-to-eat foods, as this can cause cross-contamination. Foodborne pathogens from raw meat can easily spread to ready-to-eat foods and cause food poisoning.

Yes, raw meats can touch each other because you’ll be cooking them thoroughly before you eat them. Then you could possibly transfer bacteria from the raw meat to the food that won’t be cooked. Cooking the raw meat will kill any bacteria that might be on it.

The following are a few basic tips from some experts:

1. Add any of the following ingredients to provide moisture:
2. Add seasonings for flavor.
3. Do not overwork the meat: The more it is handled/over mixed, the tougher the burger.
4. Keep burgers cold until you are ready to cook them.
5. Bring down the heat.
6. Minimize flipping.

If using beef, drain the fat once the meat is cooked and before you add the seasoning. Save money by using ground beef with a higher fat content for tacos, pasta, and more. After browning the meat, drain off the fat using this method to reduce fat and calories.

For filler and flavor, add chopped herbs and soaked breadcrumbs. Minced garlic, fresh herbs, and dried spices flavor ground meat so effectively because they get mixed right into the center of the meat, unlike with a steak or roast, where the seasoning just sits on the surface.

The higher fat content gives much better flavor to the taco meat and helps it stay juicy. And you will drain the grease off the ground beef prior to adding the spices in the homemade taco seasoning.

You don’t have to, it’s more of a preference. If you don’t your sauce will have more grease in it. If you drain it, then it won’t. I don’t bother draining for things like sauces, but when I make ground beef taco meat I drain it because otherwise the tacos are too drippy and greasy.

Generally, the higher the cooking temperature, the greater the shrinkage, so cook ground beef at a moderate temperature rather than high heat. Overcooking will result in a dry, tasteless result as the juices evaporate.

Draining the grease from ground beef will make a dish healthier and is usually recommended. Brown the meat first to extract the fat. Then, you can spoon the grease out of the pan or use a colander to drain the grease. It is important you do not discard the hot grease down a drain as it can cause damage to the drain.

You might be frying at too low of a temperature allowing your burger to absorb too much grease and inhibiting it from developing a proper sear. It might also have to do with overhandling the meat or the recipe you are using. You can find my recipe for a perfectly cooked “Skillet Cheeseburger” at TheAnthonyKitchen.com.

Do not drain cooked meat. Add 1 cup of water, 1 – 8 oz.

Blotting the beef with paper towels and rinsing the meat with hot water can reduce fat content by as much as 50 percent. A 3-ounce portion of pan-broiled beef crumbles, after blotting, has 195 calories and 12 grams of fat.

Though not necessary, some individuals prefer to wash their ground beef with water before cooking. The washing can remove excess blood that seeps out of the beef naturally. Though rinsing the beef may settle your mind, the USDA recommends not washing your meat to prevent cross-contamination.

Set pressure to “high,” and cook about 6 minutes for one pound and about 10 minutes for two pounds. (Alternatively, you can cook one pound ground beef from frozen. Just set the timer to 30-40 minutes instead.)

According to the USDA, it’s not recommended to wash any raw meat before cooking. Not only does it not remove all bacteria, it also causes the bacteria on the meat to get on the sink or other surfaces that get splashed in the process of washing.

“Washing or rinsing raw meat and poultry can increase your risk as bacteria spreads around your kitchen,” cautioned Carmen Rottenberg, Administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. “But not washing your hands for 20 seconds immediately after handling those raw foods is just as dangerous.”

One common mistake that consumers make in the kitchen is washing or rinsing their meat or poultry before cooking it. However, washing raw poultry, beef, pork, lamb or veal before cooking it is not recommended. Bacteria in raw meat and poultry juices can be spread to other foods, utensils and surfaces.