Do you drain beef mince fat? page

[HERC0]

I'm cooking some mince to make bolognese with (homemade, all-natural sauce of course, and no spaghetti!) and was wondering if I should drain the fat? Cos we all like fat, right?

Would it be okay to just add the sauce and keep cooking? Initial thoughts are that it can only add to the flavour!

[Metric]

I always keep/use the fat. Sometimes I drain off some of it if I think it'll be too much for the recipe I'm making and use it next time I am cooking a leaner minced meat (ie: turkey, chicken, bison).

[sbhikes]

I drain the fat right into my gaping pie hole. No seriously, I mix in the tomato sauce and leave all the fat in and it tastes great.

[magicmerl]

We add extra fat to the mince....

[Neckhammer]

^ we do the same....actually I use 75/25 so there is little need for any extra.

[Zanna]

I don't drain mine. I do what Neckhammer does, actually. My grass-fed ground beef seems lean so I use a couple of tablespoons of the tallow/marrow combo I get from making beef bone broth, and sauté onions and garlic in that. Then add beef and brown. Sometimes I add bone broth and boil down a bit before adding tomato sauce. It's tasty.

[MarieD]

Grassfed= leave fat in or drain a little off for later use (good as gold - can't waste)
Grocery store = Drain and rinse (mince) and throw it out

[HERC0]

Well last night I cooked some bolognese for tonight, and I tried leaving the fat in and just added the tomato sauce. However, I noticed that even after well over an hour on simmer the sauce never seemed to thicken? It stayed very runny but I like a thick sauce, so is it the fat that's doing that? Any way to thicken it, and stop it from happening in future?

Grassfed= leave fat in or drain a little off for later use (good as gold - can't waste)
Grocery store = Drain and rinse (mince) and throw it out

How much damage will the fat from the grocery mince really do to me?

[primalrob]

How much damage will the fat from the grocery mince really do to me?

all the bad stuff in conventional meat bought at most grocery stores is in the fat. it's not going to kill you or anything, it's just not as clean and well balanced (omega ratio) as grassfed beef. i usually go with the leanest possible conventional beef when making a chili or something, then try for fattier options of grassfed when i have the money to spend.

as for your sauce, fat is very liquid when hot. take that sauce off the heat for a while and it will likely start to thicken up a bit.

[Owly]

Grassfed= leave fat in or drain a little off for later use (good as gold - can't waste)
Grocery store = Drain and rinse (mince) and throw it out

I could see draining it, but rinsing it seems a bit ridiculous and reminds me of crazy low-fat diet stuff. A little residual conventional beef fat is not going to make you keel over and die.