Make Ahead Ginger Beef

There’s nothing better than coming home to a cooked dinner after a busy day. That’s why slow cooker recipes are perfect for meal prepping! And with the help of this freezer friendly ginger beef recipe, you can prepare a flavorful dinner for your family with just a few minutes of work in the kitchen. On top of being quick and easy to prepare, this simple make ahead recipe is packed with flavor thanks to the delicious combination of fresh ginger, garlic, and soy sauce.

Freezer meals made with beef strips are so fast to put together. We were able to get a two for one sale on them and made 10 beef strip freezer meals in less than 30 minutes. Watch us put those together in the video below. 

Ginger Beef Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds beef stir fry strips
• ½ cup onion, thinly sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons ginger, minced
• 1 cup beef broth
• ¼ cup soy sauce

Assembly Instructions:

1. Combine the beef strips, onion, garlic, ginger, beef broth, and soy sauce in a large freezer bag. Squish the ingredients together to combine the beef with the sauce.
2. Remove excess air from the bag and seal to close. Freeze the ingredients until you’re ready to cook.

Cooking instructions:

1. Transfer the ginger beef ingredients to the refrigerator to thaw overnight.
2. Pour the ingredients into your slow cooker and set the crockpot to cook on low for three to four hours.

Ginger Beef Recipe Ideas

With the help of your slow cooker, you can whip up this quick and easy beef dinner with just a few minutes of prep work. While your beef is cooking in the crockpot, use these recipe ideas to create a delicious dinner for your family tonight.

• Serve over rice. Round out your meal with the help of some rice. Prepare a batch of white or brown rice to serve alongside your slow cooked beef.
• Add some veggies. Another simple way to create a full meal for dinner using this ginger beef recipe is to mix in some vegetables. With the help of veggies, like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, snow peas, bell pepper, or green onion adds some healthy flavors to your dinner.
• Try different cuts of beef. Using stir fry strips for your ginger beef recipe is a great way to speed up the prep work of your dinner. That’s because this handy cut of meat comes pre-cut. But if you have a few extra minutes to prep your ingredients before you freeze your meal, you can use a variety of different cuts of beef in this recipe, including sirloin, chuck roast, stew meat, flank steak, or even ground beef.

Can Slow Cooker Ginger Beef Be Made on the Stovetop?

Using your crockpot to cook your beef is a great way to prepare tender and juicy meat. But if you don’t have a slow cooker handy, you can also prepare this dish on the stovetop. Simply add the ingredients to a large skillet or Dutch oven and cook covered over medium low heat for around one hour, until the meat is tender. Make sure to stir the ingredients occasionally to keep the sauce from sticking to the pan.

How Do You Mince Ginger?

Using fresh ginger is a great way to add a ton of flavor to your meal. But if you’ve never prepared fresh ginger root before, you may be wondering how to mince it to add it to your sauce. Just follow these two simple steps to prep your fresh ginger.

• Peel the ginger root. Use the side of a spoon to peel the outer layer off the root before you start chopping and mincing.
• Grate the ginger. The easiest way to mince ginger is to use a grater or microplane. Simply rub the ginger over the grater to finely chop the root. If you don’t have a grater, you can also use a sharp knife to cut the ginger into tiny pieces.

Our Ginger Hack for Freezer Meals:

Our hack for saving time but still getting that fresh ginger taste is to use the squeezy tube ginger. You can usually find it in the produce section at your local grocery store. It’s already minced so it saves that step but tastes fresher in my opinion than ground ginger.

Can I Use Ground Ginger in Ginger Beef?

Fresh ginger is the best way to add flavor to your sauce, but taking the time to prepare fresh ginger isn’t easy if you’re in a hurry. If you don’t have any fresh ginger on hand, ground ginger can be used to prepare the sauce for your beef. But since ground ginger has a much stronger flavor than fresh, you won’t need as much. Use around ½ teaspoon ground ginger in place of fresh ginger in this recipe.

How Do I Thicken Ginger Beef Sauce?

Since you’ll be preparing this ginger beef recipe in your slow cooker, the sauce added to your beef should thicken as the meat cooks. But if you feel like the sauce is too runny after the beef has finished cooking, you can easily thicken it with a little bit of cornstarch.

Start by combining two tablespoons of cornstarch with two tablespoons of cold water. Stir the two ingredients together until the cornstarch dissolves and add the mixture to your slow cooker. Turn the heat up to high and place the lid back on the crockpot. Allow it to simmer for around 30 minutes, until the sauce thickens.

To speed up the cook time of your sauce, you can also transfer the liquid from the crockpot to a saucepan and add the cornstarch mixture. Simmer the sauce until it thickens, around 10 minutes.

Other freezer meals with beef strips:

• Beef Stir Fry 
• Beef Curry
• Mongolian Beef
• Beef Fajitas
• Sheet Pan Beef and Broccoli Meal