9 Lazy Crockpot Ground Beef Dinners

These lazy crockpot ground beef dinners are what a pound of beef and a slow cooker can do on a weeknight.

From a big pot of chili to sloppy joes, a crockpot lasagna, and a cheeseburger soup my kids ask for by name, they’re the dinners I make when I want the crock to do the work.

Here are the nine I rotate through!

One honest note before the list.

Ground beef needs to be browned in a skillet before it goes in the crock, or it cooks into gray, greasy clumps, so “lazy” here means ten minutes at the stove and then nothing until dinner.

1. Crockpot Chili

The one that gets made every other week from October to March.

Browned beef, two cans of beans, crushed tomatoes, onion, and a spoonful each of chili powder and cumin, and it simmers on low for six hours while the flavors get to know each other.

It’s better on day two, so I make it the night before if I’m feeding people.

Cheese, sour cream, green onions, and a bag of Fritos on the table, and everyone does their own bowl.

2. Sloppy Joes

Homemade sloppy joes taste nothing like the can, and they take the same amount of effort!

Browned beef goes in with ketchup, brown sugar, mustard, Worcestershire, diced onion, and bell pepper, and it thickens up over three or four hours on low.

Toast the buns, because a soft bun turns to mush under this in about a minute.

Potato chips and pickles on the side, and it’s the dinner I feed a table of kids without thinking.

3. Crockpot Lasagna

Real layered lasagna, in a slow cooker, with uncooked noodles that soften right in the sauce.

Browned beef gets mixed into a jar of marinara, then it’s layers of sauce, broken lasagna noodles, and a ricotta and mozzarella mix, three or four times up.

Four hours on low, and the edges get browned and a little crisp against the crock while the middle stays soft.

Let it sit twenty minutes with the lid off before you cut it, or it slides apart on the plate.

4. Cheeseburger Soup

A creamy potato soup with browned beef and a lot of cheddar, and it tastes like a cheeseburger in a bowl.

Diced potatoes, carrots, celery, and onion cook in broth with the beef, and the cheese and a splash of milk go in at the end so they don’t curdle.

My kids would happily eat this three times a week.

Crumbled bacon and a few pickle slices on top, which sounds wrong and isn’t.

5. Stuffed Pepper Soup

Everything that goes into a stuffed pepper, minus the stuffing part.

Browned beef, diced bell peppers, onion, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and broth cook together all day, and cooked rice gets stirred in at the end.

Keep the rice separate until serving, because it swells up and drinks the broth if it sits in the crock.

A little shredded cheese on top, and a piece of crusty bread.

6. Crockpot Bolognese

The fanciest thing here, and it’s still ground beef and a can of tomatoes.

The beef browns with onion, carrot, and celery, then goes into the crock with crushed tomatoes, a splash of milk, and a bay leaf for a full eight hours, and the long cook is what makes it taste like a restaurant sauce.

Toss it with rigatoni or pappardelle, and grate a lot of parmesan over it.

It freezes beautifully, so I make a double batch and have sauce for a month.

7. Taco Soup

Chili’s cousin, for the nights I’m out of chili powder and have a taco packet.

Browned beef with a packet of taco seasoning, a packet of ranch, black beans, corn, a can of tomatoes with green chiles, and broth, and it cooks on low for four hours.

The ranch packet is the odd ingredient and it’s the one that makes it.

Tortilla chips crushed on top, cheese, sour cream, and avocado, and it feeds eight for very little money.

8. Hamburger Potato Casserole

Layers of sliced potatoes and browned beef in a creamy sauce with cheddar melted over the top.

The sauce is condensed mushroom soup thinned with milk, and the potatoes go in raw and soften in it over five hours on low.

Slice the potatoes thin with a mandoline so they cook through, and put a layer of them on the bottom so the beef doesn’t scorch.

It’s the humblest thing on the list and it disappears the fastest!

9. Crockpot Goulash

American goulash, the kind with elbow macaroni, and the one my mom made in a Dutch oven.

Browned beef, onion, garlic, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and Italian seasoning cook together for a few hours, and dry macaroni goes in near the end to cook right in the sauce.

Check the pasta at twenty minutes, since every slow cooker runs a little different and macaroni overcooks quickly.

Cheddar melted over the top, and it’s the definition of a comfort dinner.

Notes on Ground Beef in a Slow Cooker

Brown the beef in a 12-inch skillet first, every time, and drain the fat before it goes in the crock, or the dinner ends up with a greasy layer on top.

I brown three pounds at once on Sunday and freeze it in one-pound bags, which is how the “lazy” part actually happens on a weeknight.

Use 85/15 or 90/10 beef, because the fattier stuff renders too much liquid into the sauce.

The soups and chili are done in four to six hours on low and don’t get better past eight, and the pasta ones need watching in the last half hour.

A 6-quart slow cooker holds the double batch of chili or bolognese with room to stir.

All of these except the lasagna and the casserole freeze well, and the chili, taco soup, and bolognese freeze better than they reheat from the fridge.

I keep freezer trays for portioning the soups, so a single serving comes out of the freezer without thawing the whole batch.

More Crockpot Dinners on the Site

The quick crockpot dinners with ten minutes of prep post has a few more ground beef recipes in the same spirit.

My hearty crockpot beef stew with root vegetables is for when you’ve got stew meat instead of ground.

And the crockpot chicken alfredo pasta is the other pasta I cook right in the crock.