For example, when cutting a filet from the tenderloin, you have to trim off quite a bit to shape it into an individual portion. Hang on to that and couple it with leftover trimmings from a fattier cut, like ribeye, for a juicy, flavorful blend. If you have a KitchenAid stand mixer, it might make sense to get a meat grinder attachment , rather than buy a standalone grinder.
This has a fine plate and coarse plate, so it can be used for grinding meats and dried bread, as well as firm fruits, vegetables, and cheeses. Most parts are dishwasher safe, too.
It also includes a meat pusher, which has a wrench on the opposite end for unscrewing the ring that holds the plates in place. While this is all you need for grinding meat, there are compatible add-ons that make it even more useful. An optional food tray expands the surface area for holding food, making it faster and easier to keep feeding ingredients into the grinder. And then there's the sausage stuffer attachment which works with the grinder to feed the prepared sausage mix into casings.
It includes both a narrow tube ideal for breakfast sausages, as well as a large tube for bratwurst , Italian sausage, and other large sausages. KitchenAid also makes a durable metal food grinder attachment , if you prefer that to plastic. It comes with three grinding plates fine, medium, and coarse , small and large sausage stuffer tubes, a large removable tray, a food pusher, a storage case, and a cleaning brush. Size: 8 x 7. If grinding your own meat is an occasional project, we recommend the KitchenAid Food Grinder Attachment view at Amazon , which is easier to store than a stand-alone grinder.
Hand-cranked meat grinders are less expensive and tend to be smaller than their electric counterparts, but they require more manual labor to use. If you expect to grind large batches of meat, you might want to upgrade to an electric model, especially considering this tip from Bryan Flannery: Grind twice.
This will give an even blend of fat to lean. Avoid grinding more than two times, though, as multiple runs will negatively alter the texture. Metal parts will stay chilled if you refrigerate or freeze them prior to grinding, which helps keep the meat cool.
That said, any meat with a high-fat content should be as cold as possible before grinding, says Katie Flannery. Fat gets slimy, so you want that to be chilled well, but not every grinder can handle frozen. Enjoy the day-of when possible; from grinder to grill is a treat. Stainless steel, in particular, is highly regarded as one of the best options.
It's hypoallergenic, rust-resistant, and more likely to stay sharp and last longer than other steels. A grinder of this type will probably cost you more upfront but will be a worthy investment in the long run, as it'll be in tip-top shape years down the road, ultimately saving you money on repairs or replacements a cheaper version might warrant.
Think about what type of food you plan to grind. Do you need multiple grinding plates or a sausage stuffer? Do you want a grinder that can handle more than meat? At one point or another, your meat grinder knife and plates are going to dull you'll notice when it starts to smear and jam.
Here's the good news: It's fairly easy to sharpen them. One of the simplest methods is by way of sharpening stones view at Amazon. Before use, soak each stone in water for about 10 minutes.
Then, use the stone with the square center to replace the knife and sharpen the plate, and the stone with the circular center to replace the plate and sharpen the knife.
Lock it into the machine by securing the retaining ring, and then run the meat grinder for about five seconds or 10 to 20 cranks for manual machines. Just make sure you sharpen your knife and plates on the same day to create a fresh surface for optimal cutting performance. As you're working with raw meat, it should be no surprise that your grinder should be washed immediately after use to avoid cross-contamination and foodborne illness. To start, run one to two pieces of bread through the feeding tube.
This will soak up tiny pieces of meat lurking inside the machine. Next, unplug your machine and carefully disassemble it. While some parts may be dishwasher safe, it's always best to hand wash to preserve the integrity of your tools. Let the feeding tube, knife, grinding plate, and any other gear soak in warm, soapy water for a few minutes to help loosen oils and other residues, and then wash softly with a sponge just be cautious of the blade's sharp edges.
A bottle brush can be used to clean the inside of parts, and a damp cloth is sufficient for wiping down the motor housing. Using a towel, dry all parts immediately to avoid rust and other premature deterioration.
You can put chicken or turkey in a meat grinder, but it likely won't be as flavorful as its fattier beef and pork counterparts. Try adding additional fat to the grind and seasoning well before cooking if you plan to take this route.
After you've prepared your casing and ground meat , clean the grinder by feeding a piece of bread through it, remove the grinder attachment, wash and dry it, reassemble, and add the sausage stuffer attachment. Place a sheet pan below the grinder to catch the sausage. Feed a piece of casing onto the sausage stuffer, leaving just an inch or two hanging off the attachment, and tie a knot at the end.
With the machine on its slowest speed, begin feeding small balls of ground meat into the hopper of the grinder. You'll get some air first, causing the casing to fill like a balloon, and then the meat will follow.
Slowly guide the casing off the sausage stuffer attachment as it fills, and if you see air bubbles, force them out. Leave approximately 4 inches of casing at the end. Beginning with the knotted end of the casing, measure the desired length of sausage and squeeze to mark the end of the first sausage. Do the same for the second sausage, and then twist between the first and second sausages about three times. Continue to do this for the remainder of sausages, alternating the direction in which you twist.
Coil the sausages on a sheet pan and puncture any air bubbles to avoid any splits as they cook, and then for best results refrigerate uncovered overnight before cooking.
Many grinders are capable of grinding "soft bone," from chicken, duck, other small fowl, and rabbit. Most electric grinders can only grind smaller animal bones and soft bones from chicken, duck, rabbit and sometimes turkey. Beef, pork and lamb are all considered hard bones. The meat grinder size you need will depend on how much meat you want to grind and much how storage space you have in your kitchen. The blades and plates are what do the actual grinding.
The blade is a small, criss-cross piece with a sharp edge on each arm that rotates against the plate, which looks like a flat piece of metal with holes in it.
The size of the holes determines the fineness and texture of the final grind. Step 2: Dismantle all parts, including the feeding tube, plates and hopper, from the body and soak them in hot, soapy water to remove oily meat residue. Step 3: Wash blades separately with a gentle brush around the sharp edges and let them soak in hot water for a few minutes.
Step 4: Use a damp cloth and cleaning spray to wipe down the body and motor. Step 5: Dry all steel parts first, including the blades, with a towel to prevent corrosion and re-assemble your appliance once all parts are completely dry.
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The meat was chilled in the fridge and the grinder parts were chilled in the freezer for one hour prior to grinding. We then ran 1-pound batches of both the cubes and strips of beef through the medium plate of each grinder, noting speed and ease of operation, consistency of grind, and overall quality of the grind, paying particular attention to any fat smearing.
The Sausage Maker had the most consistent grind, easily cranking through the pound and putting out ground beef that looked like it came from a well-run meat counter. Pork butt is another well-marbled cut of meat, with an approximate lean meat-to-fat ratio, that makes it a popular choice for grinding for fresh and cured sausages.
It also features a good amount of connective tissue and sinew, both of which can cause jams during the grinding process if they wind themselves around the blade or auger. Grinder parts were chilled in the freezer for one hour. This test separated the contenders from the pretenders.
A few grinders struggled with speed, and jammed during this test, which led to the dreaded fat smear. The heat from the friction of the jammed grinder caused fat to to render, producing a soft, squishy paste rather than the ground meat we were looking for. This is a messy and frustrating process that could easily turn people off of grinding their own meat. They can be used to grind sourdough into breadcrumbs, chickpeas for falafel, or mirepoix for soffritto.
In light of these other uses, we ran a vegetable grinding test, passing onions, carrots, and celery through each grinder, using all the available sizes of grinding plates. Fibrous vegetables gave some of the grinders a heavy workout, but none of them jammed. The logistics of this test proved more difficult with hand-cranked grinders that keep both of your hands occupied at all times, making it harder to troubleshoot any issues during the grinding process.
Even so, this is a bonus use, not a selling point. Finally, we tested the sausage-stuffing attachments for the models that came with them. As mentioned earlier, meat grinders are not going to blow you away with their sausage-stuffing capabilities. Models with variable speeds did perform better than those with just one speed setting. Pushing sausage farce into casings requires a good deal of force, and single-speed grinders take forever to get the job done, which increases the likelihood of fat breaking and renderings as the farce gets pushed through the chamber by the screw.
If you already own a stand mixer , purchasing a grinder attachment is most likely your best and simplest choice, especially if you are tight on storage space. This grinder produced textbook ground beef and pork, and it also performed well for the vegetable grinding test. The one caveat we had about vegetable grinding is that it can get messy when grinding juicy ingredients; the attachment fixes to the top of the stand mixer, so food comes out of the grinder mouth a good six inches higher up from the counter compared to other electric grinder models.
Once you attach the grinder to the mixer and place it on a kitchen counter, the machine operates at an awkward height, which gives the grinding process a disjointed flow. The high profile of the grinder also makes it hard to fit on countertops with overhanging cabinets. Keep in mind the motor of this grinder varies depending on the model of KitchenAid you attach it to.
This grinder attachment does work well for making sausage, but not stuffing them. You can easily grind meat directly into the stand mixer bowl, then add seasonings, pop the bowl onto the mixer with the paddle attachment, and work the mix until tacky a key part of sausage-making.
But when it comes to stuffing the mix into casings, the elevated height makes it difficult to manage feeding uncased sausage into the hopper with one hand while controlling the casing process at the other end.
However, the multiple speeds built into the stand mixer are a boon for sausage stuffing. It comes with the sausage funnel accessory, three grinding plates coarse, medium, and fine , a very useful cleaning brush, and a case for easy storage.
We highly recommend this metal attachment option over the cheaper plastic model. The parts are sturdier, and can be more thoroughly chilled before using. The blade on this model is far better than the one that comes with the KitchenAid plastic meat grinding attachment. If you want a reasonably priced electric grinder for grinding meat on a regular basis, this trusty Weston model is a little workhorse.
It ground both pork and beef with no issues whatsoever. The meat looked like standard-issue quality ground meat, and cooked up the same way.
Foods go into the hopper with no fuss the food tray can hold about a pound of meat at a time. This grinder comes with two stainless steel grinding plates, fine and coarse. Meat ground well on both, with no fat smear. This Weston model does come with a sausage funnel, but it proved tricky to use because the single speed made the sausage-stuffing process hard to control. We recommend this grinder primarily for basic meat and food grinding. You get a lot with the ginder for the price.
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