The Easiest Meal to Make When Dinner Hour Catches You Off Guard

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Ever get that feeling around 4 or 5 in the afternoon when you suddenly realize you have nothing prepared for dinner? Even if you try to be organized by meal planning, sometimes you forget that the leftovers are gone or that the next several meals scheduled were for the slow cooker and now you have to quickly come up with a meal for your family.

Some days we just get caught off guard and other days we’re scouring a nearly empty fridge trying to come up with a meal for our family. That’s when we need a simple meal that tastes great.

When I find myself in one of those situations, I make what we like to call, UnBurgers.  

I almost always have the ingredients on hand for this meal which makes it easy to pull together in a pinch and I can guarantee you that when the kids find out we’re having UnBurgers for dinner they are thrilled.

UnBurgers are pretty simple really, but I think you’ll love them. What I know you’ll love even more is how quickly and effortlessly they come together while at the same time satisfying your family’s hunger cry.

Here’s How I Make UnBurgers

• 2 lbs of ground beef (This is for our family of 6 but feel free to adjust this amount based on your family’s size. This recipe is so fluid that the amounts will in no way affect the awesomeness of the meal.)
• Pickles (baby dills, dills, sliced, whatever is in your fridge will be perfect. We always have pickles on hand because every summer we make the best Refrigerator Pickles you’ve ever had. That means I always have jars and jars of pickles on hand.)
• Mayonnaise (Our favorite mayonnaise, hands down, is Hain Safflower Mayonnaise. Good stuff, right there.)
• Ketchup
• Mustard
• Chopped Onions
• Crumbled Bacon (completely optional but totally yummy)
• Lettuce (We don’t always have this on hand and I actually prefer our UnBurgers without it, but one of the great things about this “recipe” is that you can tailor it to your family.)

That’s all you need! We try to be grain free as much as possible around here because we have found that we’re healthier when we limit grains in our diet. That actually makes it much more likely that I’ll have everything I need to pull this meal together since I don’t have to worry about buns.

I can pull this meal together in less than 30 minutes, even if the beef is frozen (which is almost always the case because, after all, I wasn’t prepared for dinner, now was I?) To get the meal started, I put the ground beef in my skillet with just enough water to let the beef start defrosting and then start cooking. This prevents the meat from burning. (I always do this with my chicken too because do you think I would ever remember to pull the chicken out of the freezer the night before? Chances are slim.)

While the beef is cooking I start frying the bacon if I have some and after that the only thing left is to chop up an onion. Everything else is condiments and each family member can decide what they want.

So easy.

I actually prefer UnBurgers now over regular burgers because they’re less messy (especially for littles) and I can still satisfy that burger craving without going through the work of making the patties.

What’s your favorite go-to meal for when dinner hour catches you off guard?

This post contributed by Becky at Purposeful Homemaking