Cuban Picadillo is a Cuban meal, ground beef, dish that is traditionally served with rice, black beans, and a salad. Perfect weekday dinner, easy, delicious warmed up for the kid's lunch!
Today, you might not need a special trip to the grocery store to make this Picadillo recipe... It might already be in your pantry and fridge, otherwise, you can pop up quickly in a store and come back to this page!
Trilingual life
Funny thing, I am French and I am sharing more Cuban recipes (like this one or that one) here so far! After all, I fell in love with a Cuban, his lovely Cuban family, and his beautiful island, and today, let's try Cuban Picadillo!
Of course, at home, when it comes to cooking, I bring my French touch, el Cubano, his culture, and well, we are in Canada so some North American flair too! What a combo but that makes things in the kitchen more interesting. Now, I have discovered some Cuban dishes and then adapted them. Also, I have adapted French recipes because I could not find certain ingredients here.
I remember my very first shopping trip after arriving from France, I had orange juice in my basket and I was just walking around in looking in the aisles like you look at the paintings in a museum. But that was 7 years ago, almost 8. I can fill up my cart now, no problem!
If you have Picadillo leftovers, I have a nice quick dinner fix but that is for another day...!
If you need to sharpen your knife skills (see what I did here!) you can visit and subscribe to my Youtube channel. Tutorials are under a minute and you will see how I chop my onion, peel my tomatoes or cut a pepper!
Cuban Picadillo
Ingredients
- ½ Green Pepper Diced
- 2 Tomatoes Diced
- 1 medium-sized onions Chopped
- 3 cloves Garlic Chopped
- 350g Ground beef
- 1 cup Tomato sauce
- 1 teaspoon Cumin
- 1 teaspoon Oregano
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- First, you need to prepare the sofrito. It is a base in the Cuban cuisine. Chop your onion, your garlic, dice your green pepper and in dice your tomatoes.
- In a pan, pour some olive oil and add your onion, garlic and green pepper. Cook it on a medium low until the onions are translucent and the pepper tender, it will take about 5 minutes.
- Then, add your ground beef and cook it at medium heat for about 5 minutes or until there is no red anymore. Mix the sofrito and the ground beef together as it cooks.
- Once the ground beef has cooked a little bit, slow down the heat. Add the purée of tomatoes, the cumin and the oregano, mix a little.
- Add salt to taste and let it simmer until fully cooked for another 10 minutes on low.
- Serve with rice and some vegetables of your choice.
Mélanie says
Looks so simple and delicious! I will try it! What do you eat it with?