Lean ground beef, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and spices are used to make this picadillo. It is a widely consumed dish in several South American cultures. The flavors of Mexico will be on your plate thanks to this quick and simple dish.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 45 mins |
| Additional Time: | 5 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 10 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
Ingredients
- 6 tomatoes
- ¾ cup water
- ¼ onion, halved
- 1 clove garlic
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- ½ onion, chopped
- 1 serrano pepper
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tomato, chopped
- 2 pounds lean ground beef
- 1 (7.75 ounce) can Mexican-style hot tomato sauce (such as El Pato®)
- 3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 3 medium carrots, peeled and cubed
- 1 jalapeno pepper, sliced
- 2 tablespoons chicken bouillon granules
- ½ tablespoon ground cumin
- 1 bay leaf
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Make tomato sauce: Place tomatoes (whole) in a medium pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then use a slotted spoon to transfer tomatoes to a blender. Add 3/4 cup water, onion, and garlic. Blend until smooth and set aside.
- Make picadillo: Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir onion and serrano pepper in hot oil until onion is transparent. Add garlic; cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomato and cook for 1 minute. Add ground beef; cook and stir until beef is browned and crumbly, about 8 minutes.
- Pour in Mexican-style hot tomato sauce; cook for 2 minutes. Mix in potatoes and carrots; cook for 2 minutes. Add blended tomato sauce, jalapeño, bouillon, cumin, and bay leaf; mix well. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat and simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
- You can substitute ground turkey for ground beef.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 372 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 24 g |
| Cholesterol | 79 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 25 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 529 mg |
| Sugars | 7 g |
| Fat | 20 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I didn’t have serranos/jalapeños handy so I used 1tsp of cayenne pepper. yummm served with a side of buttery rice
Perfect for picadillo tacos
This recipe was delicious!!! A little time consuming, but made a huge portion, which will be good as leftovers. Was worth the time it took to prepare!!! Thank you!!!
This was absolutely delicious!!
This is the closest recipe I’ve found that tastes like my grandmother’s. I diced the veggies up much smaller, which makes it easier to serve as a taco filling, or in an empanada.
I think posting a recipe on a site has to be a baring, giving experience and I thank you for posting. I sure as heck haven’t done it so please know I the following is my attempt st honest yet occasionally colorful critique. I liked a lot of the techniques on paper. I did enjoy the onion-serrano sauté base and the potato and carrot addition, but so much liquid in this recipe. In order to make this recipe work I needed to strain the solids and retain and separately reduce the liquid. Also cumin isn’t sufficient. Needs adobo and Mexican powdered chile in place of the single jalapeño. Depending on the fat content of the beef one might use I’d suggest making the side tomato-onion-garlic base with a mini can of tomato paste and 1 standard tomato instead of six tomatoes. Unless you have a paella pan it will be hard to brown anything after the beef addition let alone the enormous amount of resultant liquid from the blending of six tomatoes. Overall I liked the flavors but am curious what equipment this was prepared on when the dish was first documented. Really happy to see a Mexican picadillo recipe but for the purpose of a review I have to say monitor your liquid input and how wide of a pan you can use. Steam and excess liquid are the enemy here. Fantastic quesadillas filling though.
Added serranos to the blended tomato, came out very spicy and delicious but I would recommend adding extra veggies like peas/zuchinni/bell peppers for some color and more texture. Ate it as tacos with some queso fresco on the side.