Mexican style ground beef with carrots, potatoes, green peas, raisins, and tomato sauce. Great as a taco filling, over white rice, or on a tostada. One of our favorite ground beef recipes.
Prep Time10 minutesmins
Cook Time30 minutesmins
Total Time40 minutesmins
Course: Dinner
Cuisine: Mexican
Keyword: Easy, ground beef, picadillo
Servings: 8servings
Calories: 528kcal
Author: Douglas Cullen
Equipment
Cutting board
Kitchen knife
3 or 4 small bowls
Large frying pan or skillet
Ingredients
2lbs.low-fat ground beef
2medium white potatoes
2medium carrots
1cupgreen peaspreferably use frozen peas not canned
½cupraisins
1cuptomato sauce
1tsp.salt
½tsp.black pepper
¼tsp.ground cuminoptional
2bay leavesoptional (remove before serving)
2tbsp.cookingor olive oil
Instructions
Peel the carrots and potatoes first.
Chop the potatoes and carrots.
Preheat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat.
Add the ground beef to the frying pan and lightly brown the ground beef. (about 5 minutes)
Add the potatoes and carrots, stir and cook for 6 minutes.
Add the raisins and peas and stir.
Add the tomato sauce, salt and black pepper and stir.
Reduce to medium-low heat and cook for 20 minutes until the liquid has reduced and the potatoes and carrots have softened.
Taste and add salt if necessary.
Notes
Preparation
Picadillo should be moist but not wet when served.
If it is starting to get dry before the potatoes and carrots are cooked add 2 tablespoons of water as needed so that it remains moist.
Chop the potatoes coarsely if you are going to serve it over rice or on a tostada. Chop them finer if you are going to serve it in tacos.
If you are making tacos, it goes well with both corn and flour tortillas.
If you use canned peas, rinse them well to remove excess salt.
Substitutions
If you don't have any tomato sauce, use 3 Roma tomatoes that have been smoothly blended as a substitute. Tomato paste works too using smaller quantities.
Optional Ingredients
You can add ½ cup chopped white onion if you like. Add the onion at the same time you add the potatoes and carrots.
If you want your picadillo to be spicy, add 1 or 2 very finely chopped serrano peppers or jalapeño peppers when you add the potato and carrots.
Storage
Picadillo will keep well refrigerated for 3 day in an airtight storage container.
It will keep well in the freezer for 3 monthsin an airtight storage container.