Beef Mince Sauce

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Truly a zero effort beef mince sauce, perfect for freezing in single serve portions to mix and match. Simple, requires almost no executive function, and comes together in less than 15 minutes. You don’t even have to do any prep.

Before you try this recipe, I recommend having a batch of my All-Purpose Spice Mix ready made. I use it in a lot of my recipes but you can simply just use salt to season this sauce. Often times the right amount of salt goes a long way.

I absolutely love freezing this beef mince sauce into single serve portions to mix and match with my other batch prepped components. It’s one of the best ADHD kitchen hacks I’ve come across. These are the products I use to freeze and store this sauce and my other meal components:

We eat this a lot, so I always make a double batch at minimum. Same effort but lasts even longer.

How to get the most out of this beef mince sauce

This is a great base for other dishes, but works perfectly well on its own. Frozen into single serve portions it’s one of the easiest ways to quickly throw together a high protein, hearty meal. You can have it with pasta, on rice or with a side of potatoes. Or use it to make chilli con carne or taco meat.

Why I don’t bother frying the beef mince in oil

Most recipes for meat sauce will tell you to heat oil in a pan first, then brown the mince. I skip the oil completely and start with a cold pan and here’s why:

Executive function blockage: Heating oil and browning meat in splattering, smoking fat has always been enough to make me not bother at all. Starting cold and letting the meat brown in its own juice has eliminated that barrier entirely. The sauce has enough going on flavour-wise that I don’t miss it.

Clean up: I hate having to clean oil splatters. Off the stove, the surrounding area, or myself.

Sensory issues: I actually find it slightly distressing when I have to tip meat into a pan with hot oil. It’s always messy, always loud, smokey, and I feel like I need to rush now. Plus, cooking in big batches means the meat steams in its own juice anyway, so the browning never really works regardless.

Fat content:Since cutting back on oil I’ve had much better results in my weight loss journey. I only add it when it actually contributes something significant to the dish. Frying mince in it doesn’t, so I skip it.

The same thing goes for soffritto

Having to peel, chop, and fry yet another component. Dealing with the sensory issues of teary eyes and smelly fingers. Extra cleanup. All of that for something that I find not worth the extra effort or potential burnout. We’re talking about building a routine we can maintain. Yes it would make it taste much better overall, but cutting corners like onion powder or chopped tomatoes with added garlic are great ways to overcome those ADHD-specific obstacles. This is not about gourmet dinner parties or magazine worthy passion projects. It’s about just getting food in your gob somehow, and more than once.

Polpa Fine vs Regular Chopped Tomatoes

I acutally hate chopped tomates. They’re watery, uneven, and you end up with large chunks of tomato floating in thin liquid. Polpa fine is finely chopped with a much thicker, more consistent texture that gives you a richer sauce without any extra cooking down. I use it in everything that calls for tinned tomatoes and I wouldn’t go back. Even better if they come with added garlic.