This Puerto Rican Picadillo recipe is one of the most easy dinner meals to make in 15 minutes! Made with minimal ingredients and maximum flavor.
What is Picadillo?
Picadillo in English is basically just cooked ground beef. It is a Latin American dish that is very popular because of how delicious and inexpensive it is to make. In Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other countries picadillo is also called carne molida.
A Puerto Rican picadillo is made with the same traditional base of flavors that Puerto Rican foods have. It has sofrito, sazon and adobo! It also has ground beef and a little bit of water. This is how my uncle made it since I was a little girl and how I grew to love ground beef with everything!
This is the one recipe I feel everyone should learn to make because it is super versatile. You can have it as your main meal at dinner time over white rice or a baked potato. You can make it as a party food for a dip.
You can make many recipes from one batch of picadillo.
You can make a masa de pastelillo and stuff it with the carne molida. You can also make a beef empanada or ground beef stuffed plantain cups. My absolute favorite way to use carne molida is to make alcapurrias and pastelon.
Jump to:
Ingredients
All or most of the ingredients of a Puerto Rican picadillo can be found in the Latin section of your local supermarket or in a Hispanic grocery store.
- Ground beef- I used ground beef with a high-fat content for flavor in this recipe.
- Sofrito- I used 2 tablespoons of green sofrito. You can use recaito or any kind of sofrito you find. They all have a great base so the recipe won’t be much different.
- Tomato sauce- I used tomato sauce but you can use tomato paste if you prefer. You just use half of what the recipe calls for the tomato sauce.
- Manzanilla olives- The olives I suggest you add them even if you don’t like eating them because of the flavor they give the dish. If you don’t like olives ust cook the dish and take it out if you like.
- Water- In this recipe, I use water to make the sauce. There’s no need to use any type of broth because all the ingredients will release liquid that will combine for the perfect sauce.
- Seasonings- In this recipe, we use only sazón and adobo. You can substitute the adobo with salt.
Substitution
- Meat- I use 20% fat ground beef. For best result, I suggest using ground beef with between 20 to 27 percent fat. This recipe can be made with ground chicken or ground beef.
- Sofrito- If you can’t get any sofrito you can make my homemade sofrito substitute that will work just as well.
How to make it
Step 1: Start by cooking the sofrito and tomato sauce together in a pan over high heat. We cook these first because the sofrito is raw vegetables that we need to cook alone first for better flavor. Don’t skip this step, trust me it makes a difference in taste.
Step 2: Then you add the ground meat, seasonings, olives, and water. Slowly mix all the ingredients together. Start separating the meat into smaller chunks. The smaller the better.
Step 3: Keep breaking the meat apart until all that is left is small pieces. Keep moving it around because ground beef tends to stick together when it cooks.
Step 4: In the last step all you do is cook the meat and mix it a couple of times.
⭐️Tip: You can make this picadillo in the crockpot and it will take you about 4 hours. But I say the stovetop method is better because is faster. Another fast way to make it is using an instant pot.
Recipe Tips
- If you want your picadillo to have a lot of sauce, the best way to do this is to cook it with a lid on. What this will do is to avoid evaporating so much liquid while cooking. This is good for when you are making this recipe to go over basmati coconut rice, mashed potatoes, or veggies.
Variations
- Vegetables– Some people like to add garlic, onions, green bell peppers, or red bell peppers. I only add onions and peppers for specific dishes. But if you want to add those go ahead. You can add other veggies such as carrots, or potatoes. You can customize it depending on what you want your meat for.
- Raisins– I have seen so many recipes that add raisins but a traditional picadillo from Puerto Rico does not include any that’s the Cuban version. But as with everything you can give it a try and see if you like it.
Recipes to make with picadillo
There are many delicious recipes to make with this ground beef recipe. I use it to make tacos, Mexican tostadas, and Mexican dorilocos (loaded Doritos). I also make sloppy joes and even chopped cheese sandwiches. There are many recipes that I make with ground beef like rellenos de papa, pastelon, canoas, and many more.
Storing
- Store- You can safely store the ground beef in your fridge in an airtight container or freezer bag. Keep for no more than 5 days in the fridge and for 3 months in the freezer. Make sure to give the meat time to cool down before storing it.
- Freeze- When freezing the meat make sure you save it with all of its juices/sauce. This is because the juices will help keep the picadillo moist while reheating. If you have a lot of meat left it is best to store it in freezer bags in small portions so you don’t risk not using all of it and having to toss the rest.
- Reheat- I like to reheat carne molida on the stovetop. Use a pan over medium heat, add about ¼ of water so the meat won’t dry up, and cover while reheating. You can also reheat in the microwave. Just give it about 20 seconds at the time then stir it and heat it again until it is to your liking.
Frequently Asked Questions
That delicious sauce you find in any picadillo recipe is a mix of all the juices from the ingredients and a little bit of water. The sauce has tomato sauce and sofrito which helps make the sauce.
Carne molida and picadillo are the same thing it is just called different in different parts of the world. In Puerto Rico, we call it carne molida but it is fine to call it picadillo.
All these recipes are different in the way they are seasoned and the vegetables that they have. They are similar in that they are all made with ground beef. The Cuban picadillo is different because it has wine and raisins. The Mexican picadillo had different chiles and different seasonings like cumin and thyme. The Filipino recipe has fish sauce and sometimes also soy sauce. The one from Puerto Rico has sofrito, sazón and adobo.
More dinner recipe ideas
💬 Do you have any questions or comments on this Puerto Rican Picadillo Recipe? Leave your questions or comments below and I’ll reply!
Puerto Rican Picadillo Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef
- 2 tablespoons sofrito
- 2 tablespoons tomato sauce
- 1 ½ teaspoons sazón
- 1 teaspoon adobo
- ¼ cup manzanilla olives
- ½ cup water
Instructions
- In a large pan over high heat, add sofrito and tomato sauce. Cook for about 2 minutes. Make sure to mix this a couple of times to make sure the sofrito doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.
- Add your meat, sazón, adobo, olives, and water. Break up the meat while it cooks. This is to avoid having lumps of beef. Cook for 10 minutes. Serve and enjoy.
Leave a Comment