This Puerto Rican Picadillo or Carne Molida recipe is one of the easiest dinner meals to make in 15 minutes! Made with minimal ingredients and maximum flavor.
This Puerto Rican Picadillo is what we Puerto Ricans call ground beef, but we also call it carne molida.
Every country has a ground beef recipe, and what changes is the flavor. In Puerto Rico, we use sofrito, sazon and adobo to season. The base we use for almost all of the Puerto Rican foods we make.
This is the one recipe I feel everyone should learn to make because it is super versatile, and you can make various recipes. It is super delicious to be served on top of steamy white rice. Or serve on savory cones for appetizer.
Jump to:
Why This Recipe Works
There are many delicious recipes to make with this ground beef. I use it to make tacos, lasagna, or baked potatoes, just to name a few. These are just a few of the many recipes we use carne molida as a base:
- The pastelillo masa to make beef pastelillos.
- The green fried plantain cups are stuffed with meat.
- Delicious beef alcapurrias.
- Easy beef pastelon.
- As a topping in any hot dog recipe.
Recipe 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-Used 2 tablespoons of green sofrito. You can use recaito or any kind of sofrito you find. If you can’t get any sofrito, you can make my homemade sofrito substitute that will work just as well.
- Tomato sauce- I use tomato sauce, but you can use tomato paste if you prefer. You just use half of what the recipe calls for of the tomato sauce.
- Manzanilla olives- I suggest you add olives even if you don’t like eating them because of the flavor they give the dish. If you don’t like olives, just cook the dish and take it out if you like.
- Water- In this recipe, I use water to make the sauce. I like making the meat saucy.
- Seasonings- I use only sazón and adobo. You can substitute the adobo with salt.
How To Make Puerto Rican Picadillo
- Photo 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.
- Photo 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.
- Photo 3: Keep breaking the meat apart until all that is left are small pieces. Keep moving it around because ground beef tends to stick together when it cooks.
- Photo 4: In the last step, all you do is cook the meat and mix it a couple of times.
Recipe Tips
- You can make ground beef in a crockpot, and it will take you about 4 hours. But I say the stovetop method is better because it is faster. Another fast way to make it is using an Instant Pot.
- 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.
- 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.
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 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 Recipes
💬 If you enjoyed this Puerto Rican Carne Molida recipe, give it a 5-star rating and leave a comment or question below.
Watch us on YouTube or follow along on our Facebook Page, on Instagram, or on Pinterest.
Puerto Rican Picadillo
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