Million Meal Meat Sauce

[Granny Smith]

I 'borrowed' this recipe from another forum. It sounds good to me.

Million Meal Meat Sauce

4 pounds lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
2 cloves garlic minced
2 cups tomato juice (I have used sauce in this also and it works fine)
1.5 cups beef broth
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Brown meat, drain off excess fat. Add onion and garlic and cook slowly until onions are tender. Add remaining ingredients and simmer 15 min. or until hot throughout. Skim off excess fat in necessary. Pack hot meat and sauce into hot jars leaving 1-inch head space. Process pints 1 hour 15 minutes and quarts 1 hour 30 min. at 10 pounds of pressure.

It makes about 5 pints or 2 quarts but I usually double it to make it worth it.

This sauce is the base for a lot of other meals. I use it to start sloppy joes, just add additional seasonings for that and I usually add a tomato paste to thicken, a little spicy ground mustard for that zing in sloppy joes and some green peppers.

It makes a really great soup starter too. Just thin out with more beef broth and sometimes I add more diced tomatoes to make "hamburger soup" with diced potatoes, ,mixed veggies (what ever happens to be on hand). The guys love that one. And of course it can be used to make spaghetti sauce when the rush is on. You can add spaghetti seasonings and thicken or thin depending on how you like your sauce. And of course it tastes great poured over home canned potatoes. Talk about fast food it is more convenient and I don't have to drive to go get it, just walk to the pantry. Can't ask for more than that.

[Valerie]

I just read this for the first time. (Got that pressure canner now so I'm looking for anything I can use it on!) Surely that is not really 1/5 cup of onion. I don't have a cup for that! Is that really 1.5 cups?

[Granny Smith]

I would say 1 1/2 cups is right. I'm going to fix the recipe right now.

edited to add: I corrected the spelling, too.

[catinhat]

This comes up on the 'new threads' page, even though the last date on it is back in August of 2010. I suspect that some kind soul bumped it up for me - and I thank you! ;D

[Granny Smith]

No problem. I was checking to make absolutely sure it was here. As long as I was on the page, I bumped it up to make sure you could find it easier.

[catinhat]

Do you think I could use ground turkey? I am going to have a fair amount of dark meat turkey here soon to can, and I'm thinking that dark turkey is plenty lean, and if I canned it in beef broth, chances are it'd pass as cooked hamburger. (sneak, sneak, sneak)

[Valerie]

LOL Laura! I have often wondered if I could pass dark meat turkey off as hamburger!

I have to confess, when I first saw this recipe, I thought it made a ton of sauce, to get it's name. It never dawned on me until today that it was a base for a million different meals.

[Granny Smith]

Valerie, it really has very little sauce, just enough to keep the meat moist.

Laura, I think turkey would work just fine. I made my last batch with 2/3 pork and 1/3 beef. It tastes the same as the one I made with all beef.

Also, if you don't have beef broth, you can substitute water and beef bouillon or beef soup base (1 1/2 t. of either). I do that and omit the salt.

[catinhat]

Valerie, I keep getting the name of it twisted in my brain with the 'Million Man March' and calling it Million Man Meat Sauce...like it would feed a million men, lol. Big jar!

Thanks for the info, Gayle. I think I will do it with the dark turkey, because when I can up the legs/wings, I always get about 2x the jars of dark meat. I can cut a fair amount of that off raw, grind it as 'burger' and then cook down whatever is still sticking to the bones (to can as cubed turkey).

Also, Valerie, I have made 'hamburgers' from old roosters that were very dark meat and too tough for any other option. If you add some beefy flavors (garlic, onion soup mix, worcestershire, soy sauce, black pepper) it tastes good. I don't generally try to pass them off as ground beef if it's a hamburger, but something like that mixed into spaghetti sauce or tacos, I'm pleading the 5th.

[Granny Smith]

Jan 4, 2012 17:25:00 GMT -5 catinhat said:

Valerie, I keep getting the name of it twisted in my brain with the 'Million Man March' and calling it Million Man Meat Sauce...like it would feed a million men, lol. Big jar!

That's what I've been calling it! Million Meal is too hard to say, but Million Man just rolls off the tongue.

[Valerie]

LOL! Hey at our house, if we can't get the right word, we just make up our own. We can do that with names, too, I reckon!