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I’ve given a dish of aristocratic origins an accessible update! Ground beef Wellington uses minced meat rather than fillet steak to make it a more budget-friendly, but nonetheless impressive, dinner centrepiece. My version is packed with juicy beef, fresh vegetables and herbs and is surprisingly easy to bring together. Go on! Show off!
Non-meat-eaters can also revel in the pastry-encased splendour that is Lentil and Butternut Squash Wellington or Mushroom Wellington.
Ground beef recipes
Nutritious, accessible and finance-friendly, ground beef is always on my shopping list. It provides so many culinary options from the traditional to the unusual, quick and easy to gourmet, and it can take you on gastronomic adventures around the world without leaving the kitchen! Here are a few of my obvious and less obvious favourites:
Classic meatloaf is a throwback I can’t resist. As well as ground beef I add an equal amount of ground pork for uber-juiciness. Don’t forget the ketchup crust!
Homemade burgers are simple beef patties best on the barbecue. How you layer them up is up to you.
Shepherd’s Pie (Indian Style) is a spicy mashup of East meets West. Beef mince and vegetables in a creamy tomato curry sauce under a comforting and crispy mashed potato topping.
Harissa beef stuffed eggplant is North African flavours combined in an aromatic dish of tender eggplant and succulent beef with a texture to die for.
Lasagna soup, yes, soup! Wild, right?? This one’s a shortcut to a slurpy and meaty one-pot lasagna.
What is Beef Wellington?
Beef Wellington is celebratory dish named in honour of the Duke of Wellington after his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. The original English recipe calls for a slab of beef fillet to be coated in either pâté or duxelles and then wrapped in a puff pastry shell.
We recently had the joy of tasting the Gordon Ramsay’s version at the Savoy Grill in London and it was a masterpiece! The mushroom layer had a hint of truffles…pure bliss.
These ingredients may be fit for king and suitable for a royal bank account, but I find traditional beef Wellington exclusive and high pressure! This modest version with ground beef is inexpensive and easy to prepare. And if it goes wrong, you haven’t ruined a top price piece of meat!
This minced beef Wellington is a family-friendly dish that can be enjoyed by all. Not everyone can manage (or appreciate!) a hunk of rare beef. The ground beef with additional vegetables is soothingly familiar, even dubbed ‘the hamburger Wellington’ in my house.
Recipe Tips and Notes
- The key to this ground beef Wellington’s success is texture. Cut all the vegetables into even and uniform small dice. This will help them cook through and ensure moisture, as well as seamlessly merging with the mince in each mouthful.
- Allow the beef and vegetable mix to cool before wrapping it in the pastry to avoid any unpleasant sogginess.
- If you score the pastry, be sure to make the cuts small and shallow. A deep cut will split the pastry case open, and the precious juices will leak out leaving dry meat and wet pastry.
- Brush the Wellington with beaten egg for a shiny, golden finish.
- Although juicy with meat and vegetables, I like to serve a gravy option. My red onion gravy is sweet and tangy and offsets the beefy flavour.
Serving suggestions
While this beef Wellington recipe contains a healthy portion of potatoes and vegetables already, I like to make it feast-worthy with a couple of other accompaniments.
For a more humble menu, I’d serve Irish mashed potatoes, maple glazed carrots or lemon butter green beans and a red onion gravy.
Or for the Duke himself, this show-stopping mashed potato casserole with mushrooms and caramelised onions, honey garlic roasted parsnips, and a luxurious mushroom sauce.
Storage and leftovers
Whatever your Wellington, they are the perfect ‘get-ahead’. Prepare this ground beef recipe up to the point of putting in the oven, cover tightly with cling film and keep in the fridge for up to two days before cooking as per the instructions.
Or freeze, also uncooked, for up to 3 months. Defrost thoroughly in the fridge overnight before oven cooking.
Any cooked leftovers can be refrigerated for 2-3 days. You can reheat slowly in the oven or in the microwave. Check the meat is cooked through before serving.
More main courses with puff pastry
- Salmon en croute (salmon wellington)
- Chicken and leek pie
- Chicken pot pie with roasted vegetables
- Turkey marsala pot pie
Ground Beef Wellington
Ingredients
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 1 celery stick
- 1 potato, medium
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- 5 mushrooms
- 4 rosemary or thyme sprigs, leaves only
- 2 tbsp This is an affiliate link.olive oil
- 80g/1/2 cup frozen peas
- 450g/1 lbs ground beef
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 500g/17oz puff pastry
- flour for rolling
- 1 egg, beaten
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350F/180C and take the pastry out of the fridge to soften a bit. Peel onion, carrot and potato. Dice all the vegetables into similar size pieces. Put a frying pan on medium heat with olive oil, chop up the rosemary and mince the garlic and add them to the pan.
- Gently saute everything stirring occasionally until your vegetables are tender and onions are translucent. It will take about 10 minutes. Then transfer your mixture into a bowl and cool completely.
- Once it’s cooled enough to touch add the ground beef and defrosted peas. Thoroughly mix everything together adding salt and pepper and a half of your beaten egg, reserve the rest for the pastry.
- Dust a clean work surface with a handful of flour and roll out the pastry to a 1/4 inch thickness or use an already rolled one.
- Shape the beef mixture into a log and place it on the rolled out pastry sheet, brush the edges with the reserved egg. Roll it up tucking the ends inside like a giant burrito, brush with the egg all over and place it on a baking sheet seam down. Bake Beef Wellington in the preheated oven for 45 min to an hour depending on your oven until golden.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hey Vikalinka,
Wowsie wowsers…..home run kiddo! What an easy simple โya shore yaโbetchaโ recipe for something that just tastes flipped terrific. Used just a hint of thyme….not big on either Rosemary or thyme; thyme wins out as the lesser of two evils. Iโm a guy, what can I say, donโt eat no durn kitsch nether!
Made it with a side of delicious beef gravy, the recipe DOES NOT need moisture, the gravy was there just because I like well made good gravy. Next time the thyme goes, and there is no danger of Rosemary; gonna hit it with a tiche of Soy Sauce and Worcestershire .
Sounds like success to me! I haven’t made this recipe in ages but you made me want to really soon!
Hi..made this lastnight for dinner..enjoyed by hubby and myself. Must say that my ‘wraparround’ did not come as perfect as yours…but thanks for a super recipe!! Will definitely make it again..’practise makes perfect’.
Thank you for your comment, Brenda!! This recipe is a real winner.
Can you make ahead and freeze?
I have no experience with freezing it so I can’t tell for sure.
Ummm, what beaten egg? I don’t see egg in the ingredient listing at all!
But surely you can see it in the instructions??
Today when I told my husband what I’m making for dinner and described it to him he didn’t seem too excited but loved it when he tried it. I doubled the recipe and instead of making 2 of these I made 4 smaller ones. Very juicy and delicious. Thank you for the recipe!
SO great to hear, Valentina! Thank you for sharing.
This was served on a night that my 5th grader had a friend over to work on a project out in his workshop. Everyone loved it, and our guest went back for seconds! Thanks. This is such a nice recipe – it’s easy and it comes out looking like all kinds of time went into it. Good Enough for Company!
So great to hear! That Wellington definitely looks impressive while not fussy to make!
Thank you so much – this is going on the menu for this week. We keep seeing Beef Wellington on Chef Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen, and it will be fun to serve this to my family and have them think I’m a Real Chef. This looks completely doable and delicious.
I will try with chicken it look very good.
I too, thought of adding diced potatoes which have been par-boiled. It would certainly speed up the cooking of the potatoes which usually can take 40 min to cook thru. I like the idea of sweet potato or yams (I live in the USA after all).
The use of the puff pastry kinda makes this very much like a pasty, yes? Missing is any form of gravy. I suppose an earlier comment above about the bottom being soggy, was because the fat content varies in ground beef.
I LOVE the idea of baking on a rack. Brilliant for sure!
I was going to make individual, smaller packets, kinda the size of pasty, so that I can serve up one or two for dinner, then freeze the remaining pieces and reheat during a hectic week. By enclosing in smaller portions, they’d have that flakey all-around-goodness much like sausage rolls for far less money and more nutrient rich with all the veggies. Well done. Well done….
Lady Victoria of Essex
I also thought of a pasty…..I didn’t realize very many others knew what that was…lol. In these parts, we also add rutabaga…yum!
Yes it is very similar to a pasty!! I love rutabaga or as it is called in the UK ‘swede’. ๐
This is a great recipe , I will make it again. I did use part beef and pork the only issue is the juice on the bottom making it soggy. I had left over meat so I tried making small ones and baked them on a wire rack, they came out perfect this time. Love it.
Sorry to hear it was a bit soggy. It was supposed to be juicy inside but shouldn’t be soggy on the bottom but glad to hear you enjoyed the recipe, Nance. ๐