Delicious Indian-style ground beef curry for a busy weeknight dinner! Moist juicy ground beef ( minced beef ) and potatoes cooked in aromatic curry sauce. This humble curry dish is super fast, easy, and incredibly delicious.
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I love making recipes with ground beef as it is very nutritious, easy to cook, less time consuming, and budget-friendly. Here are more of our favourite Mongolian Ground Beef and Chilli Pepper Beef, ground beef recipes you can try out.
This dish is also known as Keema Curry or Keema Aloo Curry in Indian. What I love about this dish is it's great for meal prep and you can cook one day ahead.
This recipe is adapted from my grandma's family recipe and a bit of my personal twist. I fried the potatoes before simmering them together with the beef mince to prevent them from getting mushy. Used both fresh tomatoes and tomato puree to bring more colour and flavour to the curry paste.
Why you need to try this ground beef curry recipe?
- It takes only 10 minutes prep and 20 minutes cooking time, you will achieve the best Indian-style Keema curry with minimum effort just in 30 minutes. It's just so easy to prepare, versatile, aromatic and so flexible.
- The list of spices and seasonings you need for this recipe is very short and so easy to make. This curry is a must keeper for busy days!
- Spiced the dish with simple cupboard friendly spices, turmeric, garam masala, cumin/jeera powder, and chilli powder but not extremely spicy.
- I've made this recipe for my friends and family quite a lot of times and everyone enjoyed it. It has been regular in our meal rotation. One of the most warming and filling comfort food that everyone loves.
What Goes In The Dish
Meat: I love to use lean ground beef for this recipe. You can use either minced beef with a bit of fat percentage, lamb, chicken, turkey, or any mincemeat you wish!
Vegetables: Potato cubes and green peas are ideal vegetables to add. Carrot, squash, pumpkin, chayote, eggplant, courgette go well too. You just need to cut into small cubes.
Spices: You will need 4 simple spices, turmeric, chilli, cumin, and garam masala powder which you can easily find in any grocery or supermarket. Those are key spices that make the dish aromatic.
How To Make Ground Beef Curry
Here is the quick cooking process that takes under 20 minutes.
- Sauté the potatoes: Let's start with sauteing the potato until golden brown. You can skip this step and simmer together with beef mince but highly recommend to sauté them as it can prevent them from mushy and retain their texture even they are fully cooked and tender.
- Cook the meat and sauce: Sauté chopped onions and follow with the garlic and ginger paste. Then add the chopped tomatoes and tomato puree. Add the spice ingredients and minced beef.
- Cook for few minutes until the beef colour changed into brown and add the cooked potatoes back in. Add warm water and simmer for 8-10 minutes until cooked through. Turn off heat and sprinkle chopped coriander and freshly ground pepper.
Curry Sauce Pro Tips
3 simple tips that you can try to make the flavourful curry sauce :
- Use shallot onions and cook until soft and translucent then add the other ingredients so it will melt in the sauce easily.
- Use both fresh tomatoes and tomato puree, as fresh tomatoes have a sweet, sour taste and tomato puree brings more flavour and deep red colour to the dish.
- Always use warm water instead of cold water as cold water can stop the cooking process and harden the tomatoes and onions.
Most Asked Questions
If you prefer your curry with more sauce or creamy texture, you can add a half cup of heavy cream. Or you can make it dairy-free with coconut milk or cashew nut cream. Minced beef curry with coconut milk is quite popular in the UK.
You can simply serve up with cooked basmati rice, plain naan, garlic naan, chapati, roti, flatbread, etc. Garnish with extra chopped coriander and fresh chilli slices. To make some sides, try a simple salad with onion, cucumber, fresh chilli, and lime.
It's one of the mildest Indian curry dishes and you can always adjust the amount of chilli powder. Or you can use paprika powder instead of chilli powder, which has a vibrant red colour and is mild in taste. If you are making it a kid-friendly or mild version, you can omit chilli powder.
For meal prep and cooking large batch
If you are serving a crowd, you can easily double or triple the amount of this recipe. You can make it one day ahead, keep it cool in the fridge with an air-tight container. It lasts in the fridge for up to 2-3 days. Reheat on the stove just before serving.
More Delicious Curry Recipes
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📖 Recipe
Ground Beef Curry
Ingredients
- 10 oz Ground beef ( About 300g minced beef ) Or chicken/turkey
- 1 Potato (1 large potato, cut in small cubes)
- 2 Shallot onion ( fine chopped )
- 2 Vine ripen tomato ( chopped )
- 1 tbsp Tomato puree Or tomato concentrate/paste
- 1 tsp Ginger paste
- 1 tsp Garlic paste
- 3 tbsp Oil or ghee
- 1½ cup Warm water add more water if needed
Seasonings
- ½ tsp Turmeric powder
- 1½ tsp Garam masala powder
- ½ tsp Cumin powder ( Jeera powder )
- 1 tsp Chilli powder ( Or paprika powder )
- 1½ tsp Salt ( Or add salt according to your taste )
- ¼ tsp Black pepper
To Serve
- Cooked basmati rice ( Nann/Chappati or Flat bread )
- Coriander/Cilantro chopped ( for garnish )
- Fresh chilli sliced ( for garnish ) optional
Instructions
- Finely chop the shallot onions, vine tomatoes and coriander. Cut the potato into small cubes.
- In a large pan or skillet, drizzle 3 tablespoon of oil and sauté the potato cubes with medium heat until golden brown. Remove from oil and set aside.
- In the remaining oil, add the chopped onions and sauté them until translucent, then add the garlic paste and ginger paste in. Stir for few seconds and follow with chopped tomatoes.
- When the tomatoes become soft, add the tomato puree, salt, turmeric, garam masala, chilli powder, cumin powder. Stir well for 5 seconds, follow with the ground beef and cook until the beef changed into brown and no longer pink.
- Place the sautéed potato cubes back in. Pour the warm water in, stir well, close the lid and simmer for another 8-10 minutes with low heat until the beef potatoes are cooked. You can add extra warm water if the sauce is too thick.
- Turn off heat, stir in the chopped coriander, fresh ground black pepper and transfer to serving plate.
- Serve over a bowl of cooked basmati rice and garnish with extra chopped coriander and fresh chilli slices. Or you can serve with any of your favourite naan, chapati, or flatbread.
Notes
- Tomato puree - You can add tomato puree, concentrate or paste to bring more colour and creamy tomato texture to the dish.
- Shallot onion - I love to use shallot onion in my curries as it is softer and melts quicker in the gravy than regular onions. But if you cannot get shallot onion, it's totally fine to add the regular sweet or red onion.
- Garam masala - You can buy garam masala in most supermarket Asian spice counter. Essential Indian mixed spice must keep ingredient in your pantry if you are a curry lover.
- Cumin powder - Cumin powder is also called Jeera or Zeera powder in some packaging. It has a warm, earthy flavour. You can use either cumin powder or cumin seeds for this recipe.
- Ginger and garlic paste - Freshly grated garlic paste and ginger paste are best to add to curries but if you are in hurry, you can add readymade ginger garlic paste.
Joan says
What can I substitute for tomatoes. I can’t have tomatoes or sauce. I want to try your recipe, my grand daughters love curry dishes. Thank you.
Khin says
Hi Joan, you can add 1-2 teaspoon of tomato paste/puree, or you can simply omit tomatoes if you cannot have it. Hope this helps.
Bronwin says
Really good and so easy to make.
Rachel says
This is sooo incredibly tasty with lots of flavors and not too spicy. Thanks for the recipe, is a 'keeper'!
Khin says
This is one of our go-to quick curry recipes. So glad that you enjoyed it, Rachel. Thanks for sharing feedback.
Ian says
Unusual to not see lamb in Indian style Keema recipes. What struck me was how flexible this was. Cut down on cost by mixing or make it Vegan with Soya mince. Played around using ingredients available (onion/garlic/ginger thin puree in the fridge) and added capsicum and par boiled potato from the fridge. Peas and cooked carrot also would work. Added the fresh tomato and garam masala later and add Fenugreek (Methi ?) as think it adds something. Outcome was excellent. A definite addition to the menu.
Khin says
So glad that you enjoyed it, Ian. We also love to cook Keema curries with lamb and chicken mince too.
Bron says
So quick to make , smells great. Very rich sauce and tastes wonderful . Thzts dinner tonight all ready ....thank you
Khin says
Thank you so much for sharing Bron. I am so happy to hear that you enjoyed it 😊
Melanie Gambling says
Really tasty and easy to make. Will definitely cook this again
Khin says
Thank you so much for trying my recipe.
May says
Yum yum