If you were born, raised, or have visited the Midwest, you may recognize this recipe from a well-known Lincoln, Nebraska, restaurant. Despite being told it’s an acquired taste, I enjoy them because I grew up eating them. A loose meat sandwich is what it is. The meat should be divided using a slotted spoon. Serve on buns with sliced dill pickles and mustard.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 40 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr |
| Servings: | 26 |
| Yield: | 26 servings |
Ingredients
- 4 ounces ketchup, or more to taste
- 5 teaspoons salt
- 1 tablespoon prepared mustard
- 1 tablespoon creamed horseradish
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 5 pounds 85% lean ground beef
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 cup minced onion
- 1 teaspoon monosodium glutamate (such as Ac’cent®)
Instructions
- Combine ketchup, salt, mustard, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, and ground black pepper in a 1-cup measuring cup. Add more ketchup if combined ingredients don’t equal 1 cup. Stir until well mixed. Place ground beef in a stock pot; pour ketchup mixture over the ground beef.
- Fill the same measuring cup with warm water. Stir to loosen any fine seasoning remaining; pour into stock pot. Stir onion into ground beef mixture; add monosodium glutamate. Mix until ingredients are well combined.
- Cook and stir the ground beef mixture over low heat until the ground beef is finely crumbled, about 15 minutes. Bring to a boil; cook until flavors blend, about 25 minutes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 182 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 2 g |
| Cholesterol | 53 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 15 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 577 mg |
| Sugars | 1 g |
| Fat | 12 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Best maidrites ever!!!!
I have used this exact receipe for years and I’m going to add the extra horseradish and mustard per Gregs comment below. I’m from Sioux City and miss the Tasty Inn Sandwiches! They are a hit in my house!
I was introduced to Tastee Inn & Out as a child in the 1980s. My mother was a customer as a UNL college student in the 1970s. It’s been 2 decades since I lived in the area and of course, sadly, the original closed some years ago. I achieved my Culinary Science degree from the Culinary Institute of Virginia in 2009 but we never learned anything like this in class. This recipe is authentic to the original leaked recipe from the Journal-Star. Follow it and you will do well. My only advice would be to find the finest grind possible, course grind simply wouldn’t work. I like to add my own serving guidelines. I always garnish with w 2 dill pickle slices (the pickle is important, don’t use a modern flashy variety) and basic yellow mustard. Once the sendwich is prepared I always wrap in parchment paper individually and preferably steam it but a quick nuke simulates it. If your buns are already warm eliminate the extra step. The whole point is to get it as warm and fresh and Tastee as possible.
Tastee taverns are always a hit in the Sioux City, IA area. I make these for a summer get togethers a lot.
I changed the amounts of the ingredients to accommodate using only 1 pound of ground beef. I eyeballed the amounts. I didn’t really measure, I used my best judgement and it tasted just fine! My only wish was to serve it with pickles, I was out of them.
I used to work prep for the restraunt that made this recipe in Lincoln Ne. This recipie is almost exact except for the horseradish was approx 3T and the mustard was 2T per 5lb of meat. This recipie was advertised to be low fat because we removed the extra fat from the juices…here is how we did it. Add all meat and sauce and cook while “mashing” and stirring while it cooks so the meat texture is fine. Strain all juice off the meat pressing it thru a colander. Freeze juices. The fat will rise to the top and harden, it can be cut off and removed. The remaining juices are pored back over the meat, mixed and heated. Serve with slotted spoon. Mustard and pickle..enjoy!
This was INCREDIBLE!!! Definitely do NOT drain the meat before adding sauce! This is where all the wonderful flavor comes from! Add the sauce mixture right to the RAW meat and just keep cooking and stirring until all the juices are dissipated. Mine took about 40 min of cooking on Med/High and stirring. TASTES JUST LIKE THE ORIGINAL “Tastee”!!
Wow!! So good and easy. My whole family loved it!!!
I’ve been making these sandwiches for many years, and they are wonderful. Very much a family favorite. To the person who said to be sure to drain the beef before adding the “sauce”, you aren’t doing it right. The wet mixture goes onto the RAW ground beef and then you cook and stir stir stir. When it is done there will be no discernible sauce. Just loose meat heaven.
This was yummy. I did drain the beef before adding the sauce, important.
Made as written except that I left out the MSG because I avoid it whenever possible. After tasting it I ended up adding more horseradish and I think it needed that. To me, these were like Sloppy Joe’s without the sloppy and we liked them better. The pickles gives the sandwich a nice crunch so don’t leave them off.