For Breaking Up Ground Meat, A Potato Masher Is All You Need

If you incorporate meat into your diet, then you might have some packages of ground meat in your freezer. This includes ground beef, turkey, chicken, and even sausage. Among all of the meats to ground, beef is the most widely consumed beef product throughout the United States, amounting to up to 45% of beef products (via Beef2Live).

With ground meat (especially beef) being as versatile as it is, it's easy to use in many different recipes. From tacos, meatballs, meatloaf, stews, burgers, and more, there's a reason why you might pick up a package or tube of ground meat every time you head to the grocery store. Once you take it out to make into a meal, it's usually a simple process to work with. When cooking any form of ground meat, you were probably taught to take out the wooden spoon and break it up into chunks on the hot skillet. While this works, it often takes time and you might find yourself annoyed at continuously breaking it up into your desired pieces.

What if there was an easier method? Yes, even easier than using a wooden spoon. We all love a good food hack, and this one with a potato masher is here to help you save time and energy when making your next skillet of ground meat.

If you think a potato masher is just for mashing potatoes, you might want to read between the lines. A potato masher is actually a versatile tool that you can use to make your job in the kitchen a breeze. The next time you find yourself cooking up some ground beef, chicken, turkey, or any "ground" meat (hello Taco Tuesday), skip the wooden spoon technique. 

If you want to break up your ground meat in perfect crumbles, whip out your potato masher. As you'll notice, a potato masher has small uniform designs on it. When you press it into your ground beef in the skillet, it breaks it up into perfect, even chunks (via YouTube). But keep that wooden spoon handy though! Just as with mashing a potato, the chunks will come out to the top of the masher, so using your wooden spoon to scrape the excess back into the hot skillet will continue making your job easier.

There are also multiple other uses for the potato masher. According to Food Network, the kitchen tool can come in handy for sifting flour, crushing cookies or crackers in a bag for pie crusts and bread crumbs, and combining ingredients.