How cutlets are made. Recipes for juicy minced meat cutlets and the secrets of their preparation

Homemade cutlets are undoubtedly a symbol of a happy family life. There will be no wife rip cutlets in the house where tsa rit discord and constant quarrels! This meat dish is prepared only for loved ones and loved ones. Today we will be good housewives and create home comfort, p prepared The most delicious homemade cutlets!

It has been noticed that cutlets are eaten faster than any other meat dish. They make sandwiches with them, they are delicious both hot and cold, and any side dish goes well with them. If there is soup and cutlets in the refrigerator, then the man and children will eat the delicious homemade cutlets first!

Cutlet is the most popular and simple meat dish made from minced meat. Although initially the cutlet was just a piece of meat on the rib bone. This dish was made in Europe, and now it is believed that the word “cutlet” comes from the French côte and côtele - rib and ribbed, respectively.

In Russia, they learned to cook cutlets thanks to Peter I, who, as you know, loved everything European and in every possible way introduced into Russian everyday life not only foreign customs, but also culinary recipes.

By the end of the 19th century, the cutlet in Russia changed and turned into the same flat cake made from minced meat. And then not only meat dishes, but also fish, vegetables, poultry, and rice began to be considered a cutlet.

Needless to say, there are many recipes for cutlets, but nothing better than homemade cutlets has yet been invented! No cutlets from the best restaurateurs in the world can compare with those that just came out of the frying pan of a good housewife.

The main secret to cooking cutlets is to fry them correctly. Perhaps you have encountered this problem more than once, when the top of the cutlet is already well fried, but inside it remains raw. To prevent this from happening, you need to know simple rules:

  • Don't start cooking in a warm pan! The pan for frying cutlets must be hot!
  • If you fry breadcrumbs in the cutlets, do not throw them directly into the pan. Dip the cutlets in breading and place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes before frying. Then the crackers will not crumble and burn.
  • It is better to fry not in sunflower oil, but in melted fat.
  • When the cutlets are fried on both sides, add a little water to the frying pan, cover with a lid and simmer until done.

By following these simple rules, your cutlets will always be fried, juicy and appetizing!

Are you ready to mince mince and make cutlets? Wait a little longer! Read some more of our tips, and also study the cutlet recipes that are on our website. Perhaps you will find something new.

And the tips are actually very simple:

  • To make the cutlets more tender, add a little water to the minced meat.
  • To make the cutlets more juicy, you can add butter to the minced meat.
  • It turns out that you don’t have to add eggs to cutlets. Moreover, the eggs can make the cutlets tough.
  • Don’t be afraid to add vegetables to the minced meat to taste – potatoes, carrots, cabbage!
  • The best minced meat is the one you just grind in a meat grinder yourself. Minced meat from a blender turns out worse. Naturally, you just have to rely on the quality of purchased minced meat.
  • It is best to mix different types of minced meat.
  • You can add grated cheese to the cutlets! Then the dish will only taste better.

Now let's start cooking!

Homemade ground beef cutlets

You will need: half a kilogram of minced beef, 1 onion, 1 egg, 2-3 pieces of white bread, 150 ml of milk, salt, flour (or breadcrumbs).

Preparation: Break the bread into pieces and soak in milk. After soaking, knead it well with your hands until you obtain a homogeneous paste of milk and bread. Grate the onion. Place minced beef in a bowl, add grated onions, put in a mixture of milk and bread, break an egg into it, and add salt. Mix the minced meat with all the ingredients well with your hands. Make cutlets from the resulting minced meat. Roll the cutlets in flour or breadcrumbs. Fry the cutlets in a frying pan in vegetable oil until cooked.

Homemade cutlets with potatoes

You will need: half a kilogram of minced beef or pork, 200 grams of potatoes, 50 grams of onions, 2 tablespoons of milk, 2 eggs, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, vegetable oil.

Preparation: Grate the onion, peel the potatoes and grate them too. Mix meat with onions, potatoes, add milk (so that the potatoes do not darken), eggs, 2 tbsp. spoons of vegetable oil, pepper and salt. You can add chopped garlic. Mix everything thoroughly. If the minced meat turns out liquid, add flour. Form cutlets, sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Fry in a frying pan on both sides. Then reduce the heat, cover with a lid and simmer
cutlets 10 minutes. You can fry without breadcrumbs!

Jul 19, 2016 luna.kenny

Secrets of making delicious cutlets

Prepare the minced meat:

  • Of course, the main condition is high-quality meat. We buy minced meat (if we trust the seller) or cook it ourselves using a meat grinder. It’s better to turn the meat through a large nozzle. Chop the meat.
  • Very tasty cutlets are made from a mixture of minced meat: beef, pork and chicken. Or I combine pork with one of the other two - poultry or beef. According to my mood and desire.
  • Now let's move on to the bread! The bread that you plan to use for minced meat will need to be soaked in cold, boiled water, and certainly not in milk. If you soak bread in milk, then this deprives your cutlets of juiciness, since when frying, the proteins of meat and milk interact with each other.

    For cutlet mass, stale, white wheat bread is best suited, because fresh bread will give the finished cutlets an unpleasant stickiness. Keep in mind that white bread increases the volume of products well; it absorbs the released meat juice and gives the minced meat sufficient fluffiness, softness and juiciness. Just don’t put a lot of bread in the minced meat, because it absorbs the oil quite well in which the cutlets are fried in a frying pan, and therefore they will turn out very fatty. You can add 15 or 20 percent of the bread to the minced meat relative to the weight of the meat.

    If you are preparing schnitzels and cutlets from ground meat, then you do not need to squeeze the bread soaked in water before adding it to the prepared minced meat.

  • To improve the properties of minced meat, you can add a little low-fat cheese or sour cream instead of a bun.

    Onion. If you put onions in the cutlet mass, it would be better not to put them through a meat grinder, but just finely chop. The onion gives the cutlets juiciness.If you add sauteed onions to the minced meat, it will give the dish a special aroma and extend the shelf life of the cutlets.

    Garlic, salt, pepper or other favorite spices to taste.

    Eggs. If you want juicy cutlets, you don't need eggs!Since they will not add anything other than additional toughness to the cutlets, and then the cutlets will certainly lose their juiciness. It’s all to blame -egg white, because when frying it quickly coagulates, the meat releases a large amount of juice, and the cutlets turn out dry.Eggs are usually mixed into minced meat as a binding component only in catering, so that more bread and water can then be put into the cutlets - since without eggs, minced meat with a lack of meat will simply fall apart.

    H So that the cutlets themselves do not stick to each other, and it would be more convenient for you to cut them, add a little starch to the minced meat. I like to add grated potatoes.

Combined all the ingredients.

step 2:

  • Place the fully kneaded minced meat to prepare juicy cutlets in a plastic bag (or better, two or one thick plastic bag) and beat the meat on a hard surface. This procedure compacts the meat well, and after this it will no longer fall apart in the frying pan, as housewives often complain and therefore prefer to add eggs to the cutlet mince. Beat the meat on the table and after this procedure, put it in the refrigeratorrest - from 2 hours to a day.

Frankly, I don’t do this often, I’ll even say I don’t. But the younger generation sometimes specifically asks to cook cutlets, they really like the procedure of beating the minced meat :) At times like this, when they come to visit, I eat cutlets like this.

How do I do it?

  • In order for the cutlets to be “airy”, the cutlet mass must be kneaded for 10-15 minutes. But I'm lazy. I knead the minced meat in the container of the kitchen processor, set the dough kneading mode, for 5-7 minutes I'm free.

Forming cutlets:

    When forming cutlets, it is very useful to give them the juiciness we desire, to put a piece of ice and a small piece of butter in the middle of each cutlet.

    And so that during the cooking process the minced meat does not remain on your hands, your hands must be moistened with water.

    I advise you to roll the molded cutlet in a loose egg-leison (or, to preserve the juices inside, it’s even better to first roll it a little in flour, and then in the egg) - when you place the cutlets in a frying pan, the egg will provide an impenetrable shell and help preserve it that way. Thus, all the delicious juices are inside the cutlet (if you wish, then after rolling in the egg, you can bread the cutlet in ground breadcrumbs). The breading can be partial: only in one egg or only in flour. Another way is in flour and then in an egg. Full breading (or it is also called “Viennese breading”) looks like this: first in flour, then in egg, and in breadcrumbs. Sometimes they make double breading: also in flour, in egg, in breadcrumbs, again in egg, and then again in breadcrumbs.

    Cutlets made from minced meat and onions with garlic should be fried immediately, without waiting until they become dry.

    The cutlets must be fried in a well-heated frying pan, then the juice will not flow out of them, and the cutlets will turn out juicy and tasty.

    The correct frying pan is with a thick bottom. Cast iron - perfect

  • The oil is hot, the frying pan is clean.
  • After each frying batch, thoroughly remove any burnt marks.
  • Fire is close to minimal.
  • Fry on both sides. When pressed, the finished cutlets should ooze slightly. On the cut - grayish. Not red, not pink.

I hope the tips are useful!

Cutlets with pasta or mashed potatoes, and even with pickles. Mmmm. delicious. Well, who doesn't love it? Today we will prepare delicious minced meat cutlets, soft, juicy and very tender. This is our signature family recipe. We tried many options, but settled on the recipe that we want to offer you today. Still, it makes the cutlets the most delicious.

In general, there are simply a huge number of recipes for fried cutlets. What they are not made from, and what they do not add. Cutlets are made from pure minced pork or pure beef, mixed, with or without the addition of lard. Semolina and grated potatoes are also used, and even more so all kinds of spices.

Our recipe is probably close to classic fried minced meat cutlets, I don’t know for sure, but since this recipe produces delicious cutlets, and this is the most important thing, we will cook according to it.

Ingredients

How to cook classic minced meat cutlets

We prepare all products according to the list of ingredients. It is better to take minced pork and beef - due to the fatty pork, the cutlets will turn out very juicy and tender.

Serve the finished minced meat cutlets hot. They turn out very juicy - the breadcrumb crust allows you to completely retain all the meat juices inside the cutlet. Mashed potatoes, rice, porridge, as well as salad or vegetables in any form are suitable as a side dish. Bon appetit!

How to make classic minced meat cutlets according to a step-by-step recipe with photos

Recipes for fluffy and delicious homemade cutlets with minced meat are stored in almost every housewife’s culinary notebooks. Despite the apparent simplicity of this dish, it has its own little secrets. It is important to adhere to certain proportions of meat and bread, cooking technology and frying temperature in order to get an excellent result.

In this simple recipe, I will tell you how to make cutlets from any minced meat - pork, chicken, beef or mixed - very juicy, how to do it correctly, and how long to fry them in a frying pan. And also, what to add to the minced meat for cutlets and what to do to prevent it from turning out liquid.

Classic cutlets are made from pork, but you can use beef, chicken, turkey for minced meat, or prepare mixed minced meat. If the meat is lean, I recommend adding a little lard to the cutlet mixture for juiciness, and a little melted butter to the chicken and turkey cutlets. Before passing the meat through a meat grinder, strip it of all tendons and films and cut it into small pieces.

In order for the minced meat cutlets to be tender and juicy, you need to add stale wheat bread, previously soaked in water or milk, to the minced meat. This type of bread retains moisture well. To prevent the minced meat from being liquid, the bread must be squeezed out of excess liquid before chopping.

Step-by-step preparation

Serving the dish

Serve the cutlets hot with any side dishes - porridge, boiled pasta, stewed vegetables, boiled, fried potatoes or mashed potatoes. Vegetable salads and all kinds of pickles will perfectly complement the meal. The classic sauce for cutlets is tomato or ketchup, but you can also use others to suit your taste.

Video recipe for making classic minced meat cutlets

From this video you will learn how to cook the most delicious minced meat cutlets in a frying pan. I invite you to watch!

  • In addition to potatoes, you can add other vegetables to the cutlets for juiciness. For example, grated zucchini and squeezed out excess juice.
  • Add spices and seasonings to your liking. These can be Italian herbs, allspice, ground coriander, paprika and others.
  • To make the cutlets more tender, simmer them a little under the lid, adding half a glass of salted water with a pinch of seasoning to the frying pan. And if you simmer them in sauce, you will get very tasty cutlets with gravy.

Other cooking options

You can prepare cutlets according to this recipe in a slow cooker - fry them in a bowl or place them in a steamer stand and steam them by pouring a little water into the bowl. With this cooking method you will get very tender steamed cutlets. I also recommend making healthy cutlets with oatmeal, adding some oatmeal to the minced meat instead of bread.

Step-by-step recipe for making classic minced meat cutlets

Cutlets are a dish that was in every Soviet home and which all our housewives still prepare. Although it did not appear here, but far abroad, and initially it was a piece of meat on a rib, wrapped in another layer of minced meat. But now we know a completely different cutlet. And every self-respecting housewife knows how to make minced meat cutlets according to the classic recipe.

Homemade minced meat cutlets are prepared according to one basic recipe, but each housewife decides for herself what to add to the minced meat for the cutlets, so everyone turns out different. Although the minced meat cutlets themselves have a fairly simple recipe. I tried cooking it in different ways, and today I will share them. We will look at how to cook the most delicious minced meat cutlets in a frying pan, in the oven, steamed and in a slow cooker.

Kitchen appliances

  • Skovorda.
  • Baking tray and oven.
  • Multicooker.
  • Steamer or saucepan and colander.
  • And in all cases, a deep plate, spoon, knife.

Ingredients

To prepare this recipe for fluffy minced meat cutlets you will need:

How to choose the right ingredients

The main components of classic cutlets are always stable, but which types to choose is a matter of taste. There are still a couple of tips though:

  • For minced meat, you can take pork or beef, but it is better to mix them in a 1:1 ratio.
  • It is best to take dried bread, then it will be evenly distributed in the minced meat.
  • Choose milk with medium fat content.
  • The oil must be refined and odorless.

Cooking process

Mix the minced meat

In a frying pan

In the oven

The cutlet recipe is quite simple, but sometimes something happens and everything starts to go wrong. To prevent your cutlets from causing you trouble, read these recommendations:

  • Do not overfill the bread with milk, otherwise it will turn out too liquid, as will the minced meat itself later.
  • If you end up with liquid minced meat for cutlets, there are several options for what to do: it’s best to just put it on a fine sieve and wait until the excess moisture drains out.
  • The minced meat must be beaten well while stirring, then the cutlets will not crack and will turn out fluffy.
  • If you are frying the cutlets in a frying pan, make sure the oil is hot enough first. If it is not hot, the cutlets may stick to the pan.

What to serve these cutlets with?

Cutlets are homemade, so they are usually served with simple homemade side dishes. If these are more dietary cutlets made from minced chicken or turkey. it is better to serve them with vegetables and other low-calorie foods.

Juicy cutlets made from mixed minced meat according to various recipes are best served with boiled or mashed potatoes, buckwheat, and wheat porridge. It would be delicious to add some cutlet gravy or cutlet sauce to it.

Cutlet recipe video

Now watch the video so you don’t miss a single detail of how to fry cutlets in a frying pan using minced meat according to a classic recipe. You will also get tender and golden-brown minced meat cutlets, like in the video, if you do everything correctly.

Other options

The classic cutlet recipe is just the base. You can add and change anything to them. You can mix different types of meat, add carrots or potatoes, experiment with spices. You can put all sorts of fillings inside the cutlets with filling or fry them in breading. You can fry and stew them and generally do whatever you like.

One of the traditional dishes of Russian cuisine is cutlets. Almost every housewife knows how to cook them. At the same time, many people make minced meat for beef and pork cutlets according to the classic recipe. However, if desired, you can introduce a new product that will have a positive effect on the taste of the finished dish.

How did the cutlets appear?

Before you find out whether minced beef and pork are juicy and flavorful, it’s worth diving into history. How did such a dish come about? It is worth noting that the cutlets looked and were prepared initially differently than they are now. The dish first appeared in France. And no wonder. After all, this country is considered the birthplace of numerous culinary delights. The cutlets were pieces of meat not separated from the ribs. Several layers of pulp were wrapped around them, like a cake. There had to be a bone. After all, it was convenient to hold on to her. Do not forget that in the old days, etiquette did not include the use of a fork and knife when eating meat dishes.

Today, the cutlet is made from mushrooms, vegetables and fish. After some time, similar dishes appeared, such as meatballs, steaks, and so on.

How much bread do you need?

Why do some housewives turn out cutlets tasty, juicy and aromatic, while others turn out the dish tough and dry? To make the pork juicy and soft, you should follow a few simple tips. They will help you achieve excellent results.

You should not add a lot of bread and other ingredients to the minced meat for beef and pork cutlets. Such additives are used not to save food, but to obtain an unusual structure of the finished dish.

Potatoes and bread make the cutlets juicy and airy. However, there should not be more such components in minced meat than meat. Otherwise, not only the taste will suffer. These cutlets may fall apart or be too dry. By the way, many professional chefs recommend using this dish to avoid stickiness.

Minced meat products

To ensure good minced meat for beef and pork cutlets, you should choose fresh and high-quality products. We should not forget that it is difficult to make something good and healthy from tasteless ingredients. Therefore, you should not buy minced meat of dubious quality in the store. It's best to cook it yourself.

Most often, hard parts of the carcass, where there are films and cartilage, are used to make minced meat at home. In addition, the flesh from the shoulders, loin, neck and brisket is perfect. If you want to combine lean beef and fatty pork, then you should follow the proportions of 2 to 1. The result is juicier cutlets. If necessary, you can add a little lard. The minced meat of this component should contain no more than a quarter of the volume of beef.

Before chopping, the meat should be cleaned of cartilage, veins and films. Thanks to this, the mass will become pleasant in texture and more homogeneous.

Add onions correctly

If you add onions, you get delicious minced beef and pork cutlets. However, there are some peculiarities here too. Do not add large pieces of onion. It should be passed through a meat grinder. In addition, proportions should be taken into account. For 1 kilogram of minced meat, about 200 grams of onions are required.

Secrets of delicious cutlets

If you prepare your own minced meat for beef and pork cutlets, then you should remember a few secrets of a delicious dish:

  1. You should add a few tablespoons of water, preferably cold, to the finished minced meat. You can also use a piece of ice. As a result, the finished cutlets will be more juicy, since water will evaporate during the cooking process, not juice.
  2. Butter made from cream will add airiness.
  3. You should be careful with chicken eggs. This product not only allows products to maintain their shape, but also makes them more rigid. You should not put 3 eggs per 1 kilogram of meat. It is better to replace them with grated potatoes.
  4. You can enrich the taste of cutlets in a very simple way - by adding zucchini, potatoes or carrots to the minced meat. These products will make the dish softer.
  5. To make the minced meat “sticky”, you can beat it on the table surface. This manipulation will saturate the product with air, which will make the finished cutlets fluffy and tender.
  6. Various spices added to the minced meat for beef and pork cutlets will give the dish a spicy aroma. The recipe with the photo, alas, is not able to convey the aroma. Chefs recommend using parsley, sweet paprika, a mixture of various peppers, nutmeg, marjoram, thyme, garlic, and so on.
  7. It is recommended to use melted butter as a fat for frying. If such a product is not affordable, then you can use lard. But if necessary, you can fry the cutlets in vegetable oil, but without the smell.
  8. To get an appetizing crust, it is first recommended to fry the minced meat products over medium heat. They should be browned. Bring to readiness over low heat. Toward the end of cooking, you can increase the flame.

Knowing these secrets, you can start preparing minced meat cutlets. There are a lot of recipes for this dish. This requires the preparation of different minced meat.

Classic cutlets

How to make classic cutlets from homemade minced meat? Pork, beef and other ingredients must be of high quality. For preparation you need:

  • 1 kg of mixed minced meat (beef and pork).
  • Bread or loaf, preferably stale and dry - 200 g.
  • Raw egg - 1 pc.
  • Onions - 3 pcs.
  • Water at room temperature - 1.5 cups.
  • Pepper and salt.

Preparation

First you need to prepare minced meat for beef and pork cutlets. The recipe involves the following steps step by step. First of all, you should put the bread in a deep bowl and fill it with water. Milk can also be used for these purposes. When the bread softens, drain the liquid.

The onion must be peeled and minced or finely chopped. If desired, you can fry it, but only in butter. Place minced meat and chopped onion in a container with softened bread, beat in an egg. Don't forget about spices and salt. When all the ingredients are in the bowl, mix them well. That's all, the minced meat for the cutlets is ready. All that remains is to form the cutlets and fry them. After the dish is ready, you can pour a little water into the pan and steam everything for 10 minutes.

Cutlets with greens

To prepare cutlets from minced beef and pork with herbs, you will need:

  • Mixed minced meat - 600 g.
  • Onion - 1 head.
  • White bread - 3 pieces.
  • Fresh milk - ½ tbsp.
  • Egg - 1 pc.
  • Parsley and dill - 1 bunch each.
  • Garlic - no more than 2 cloves.
  • Ground pepper, salt, flour for breading.

Cooking process

First, you should prepare the minced meat by chopping the beef and pork using a meat grinder. But if you wish, you can take the finished mass in the store. The main thing is that the purchased minced meat is fresh. You should warm the milk a little and then pour it over the pieces of bread. They should soften.

It is recommended to chop the dill and parsley. The liquid should be drained from the bread and then added to the container with the minced meat. Here you also need to add greens, onions, eggs, salt and spices. You need to knead the minced meat for the cutlets by hand. That's all. The mass is ready. All that remains is to make oval-shaped pieces, roll them in flour and fry.

Minced beef and pork cutlets "Juicy"

To prepare these cutlets you will need:

  • 1 kg of minced beef and pork.
  • 100 g hard cheese.
  • 2 onions.
  • 2 eggs.
  • 4 slices of loaf or crackers.
  • Pepper and salt.
  • 100 g butter from cream.
  • 1 pack of breadcrumbs.
  • Flour for breading.
  • 2 tbsp. spoons of dill.

Cooking steps

These cutlets are prepared with filling. To do this, grate the cheese on a fine grater. The butter should be softened. After this, you need to grind it with a fork, mix with chopped dill and cheese. From the resulting mass you need to roll small oval balls. The filling is ready.

Now you can prepare minced meat for beef and pork cutlets. You shouldn't make it without eggs. The bread crumbs should be cut into pieces and then filled with cold water. When they become soft, you need to drain the liquid. The onion should be peeled and then chopped. It can be finely chopped or grated. Pork and beef should be minced in a meat grinder. Place minced meat, crackers, egg, spices and salt in a deep container. The components must be mixed well.

Now the minced meat is divided into portions and the filling is wrapped in it. The pieces should be rolled in flour, dipped in a beaten egg, and then rolled in breadcrumbs again. After this, you need to fry the cutlets over medium heat.

Cutlets "Hercules"

In this case, eggs are not added to the minced meat. They are replaced with oatmeal. To get juicy minced beef and pork cutlets, you will need:

  • 1 kg mixed minced meat.
  • 300 ml milk.
  • 140 g oat flakes.
  • 2 onions.
  • Pepper, salt.
  • 100 g flour or breadcrumbs.
  • A bunch of greenery.

How to cook properly

Beef and pork should be separated from bones, cartilage, veins and films. After this, the meat needs to be chopped. This can be done using a meat grinder. Milk, preheated to room temperature, should be poured into the prepared minced meat. Onions need to be peeled and grated or finely chopped. The resulting pulp should be transferred to a container with minced meat. You also need to add salt, herbs, pepper, and oatmeal. It is recommended to grind the last component using a coffee grinder.

The minced meat for the cutlets should be mixed and then placed in the refrigerator for an hour, after covering the container with plastic wrap. After the specified time, you can form cutlets and fry them. Finally, it is recommended to stew them.

Recipe with rice

Minced meat for cutlets can be prepared with rice. To do this you will need:

  • 1 kg minced meat.
  • 200 g rice, preferably round.
  • 2 eggs.
  • 2 onions.
  • 2 cloves of garlic.
  • Salt pepper.
  • Flour.

How to make cutlets

First, rinse the rice in cold water. Now you need to pour it into a saucepan and pour boiling water over it. At the same time, 1 part of rice requires 2 cups of water. Onions and garlic should be peeled and then passed through a meat grinder along with the minced meat. Add rice, salt, spices to the resulting mixture, and then mix well. Form the mixture into cutlets and fry them in vegetable oil.

Quick cutlets

If desired, you can make cutlets from minced beef, pork and chicken. In this case, the dish turns out to have an unusual structure. However, most often only pork and beef are used. To quickly cook cutlets, you will need:

  1. 600 g mixed minced meat.
  2. 4 eggs.
  3. 2 raw potatoes.
  4. A bunch of green onions.
  5. 50 g mayonnaise.
  6. 3 tbsp. spoons of flour.
  7. Spices.

Cooking method

Green onions should be finely chopped. The potatoes must be peeled and then grated. After this you need to prepare the mixed minced meat. Add pepper, potatoes, salt and green onions to the resulting mass. All ingredients must be mixed well. After this, add flour and mayonnaise to the mixture. After mixing, the mixture should be formed into pieces and then fried in oil.

In conclusion

Properly preparing minced meat for beef and pork cutlets is only half the battle. It is important to make it light, airy and tender. To do this, it is recommended to place the prepared minced meat in the refrigerator for about half an hour. It is recommended to mix the components by hand. This will determine the consistency of the mixture and also remove any lumps. When forming cutlets, the minced meat often sticks to your hands; to prevent this from happening, you can soak them in cold water.

Hello dear friends and readers of my blog! Today we will talk about the most delicious memories of Soviet childhood - meat cutlets. In our school canteen they were prepared in large quantities. Already an hour before the start of the big break, the entire floor she was on was already saturated with this smell. When the bell rang for the big break, we all raced for a very, very tasty treat on a piece of white bread.

It would seem that what could be simpler than cooking meat cutlets? Today it is not even necessary to grind meat through a meat grinder, since in stores you can buy quite decent ready-made minced meat from beef, pork, lamb, and mixed ones. Add the rest of the ingredients, shape them into oblong or round shapes and fry.

If you want them to turn out fluffy and juicy, then you need to add additional ingredients, due to which juiciness appears. This can be oatmeal, white bread, grated zucchini, raw vegetables (potatoes, cabbage) and even cottage cheese. If you don't add them, the finished dish will be too dry.

I want to say that the most delicious cutlets for me consist of minced meat, onions with garlic and white bread. They can be prepared from only one type of meat (pork, lamb, beef) or from a combination of them. It’s just important to know that beef requires much more onion and other ingredients for juiciness than others, including those prepared from mixed types of minced meat.

Ingredients:

  • Minced meat – 500 g
  • Onion – 2 pcs.
  • White bread – 100 g
  • Egg – 2 pcs.
  • Milk – 125 ml
  • Garlic – 1-2 cloves
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Salt, ground black pepper
  • Spices as desired
  • Vegetable oil for frying
  • Bay leaf

It is better to take one half minced beef and half pork. I buy mixed immediately, but it doesn't matter.

Wash the onion, remove the skins and cut into several pieces. We also peel the garlic. Now pour the required amount of bread with the required amount of milk, having previously separated the crust.

Important. For 1 kg of meat you need 200 g of white bread without crusts and 250 ml of milk.

Then pass 1 onion, garlic and bread, previously soaked in milk, through a meat grinder. I’ll immediately note that before putting the bread into the meat grinder, you don’t need to squeeze it out. All the milk should ultimately end up in the minced meat.

Many people believe that the finer the onion is, the tastier it will be. But it seems to me that if the onion pieces are larger, then, on the contrary, the dish will turn out juicier. If I'm too lazy to assemble the meat grinder, then I just finely chop the onion with a knife))

Now put the minced meat in a deep bowl, add one egg, onion, garlic and bread ground through a meat grinder and mix everything well.

Important. If the minced meat turns out watery, place it in the refrigerator for an hour. It will become thicker.

Then comes the turn of salt and ground pepper. Let me make a reservation right away that in almost all recipes for first and second courses, salt is added “to taste.” This is very easy to do when we can periodically taste our dish while cooking. But how to salt raw meat to taste?

We must remember that animal meat is very sensitive to salt, and it is easier to spoil it by over-salting than under-salting.

So we just add a big pinch of salt. It would be enough. Many seasoned chefs generally believe that meat (especially from livestock, as well as game birds and game with red meat) itself contains a fairly high percentage of various salts, and therefore it does not even need to be salted.

So remember, meat should be salted moderately. This applies not only to minced meat for making cutlets, but to all meat dishes.

Add one or two pinches of ground pepper. Now you need to mix everything thoroughly again. You can also add any other spices to the minced meat, but my son likes the finished dish to have just a meaty smell and taste, so I just make do with pepper and bay leaf.

And now the most crucial moment begins: we take a small part of the finished minced meat in the palm of our hand and form balls of any size. Now, by flattening them, we give them an oblong shape.

But now the question arises: to bread the cutlets or not to bread them? Masters of culinary art recommend breading. To do this, you can use breadcrumbs, flour and even ground oatmeal.

I’ll tell you a secret - I didn’t even think that the juiciness of the cutlets depends not only on the quality of the meat and the quantity of other “non-meat” ingredients, but also on the correctness of the breading. Previously, I did as I was taught at home - I rolled the pieces formed from minced meat in ground breadcrumbs or flour and placed them in a hot frying pan. Much later they told me that I was doing everything wrong.

Today we will do everything right. Pour the breading into a shallow plate or dish (I took breadcrumbs), and break the remaining egg into a bowl, beat it with a fork, mixing the yolk with the white homogeneously and adding a little salt.

First, roll the cutlet in breadcrumbs, then dip it in a lightly beaten and salted egg, and then roll it in breadcrumbs again. The breading turns out thicker and holds tighter. And therefore, it will not allow the juice to leak out during frying.

This is the longest and not very pleasant process. If you are short on time, you can simply roll them in flour.

500 g of minced meat yields 8 fairly large cutlets.

And now, having rolled our culinary products in breading, we place them in vegetable oil preheated in a frying pan and fry on each side until golden brown over medium heat.

During the frying process, I cover the pan with a lid to avoid splashes. Just then remove the lid from the frying pan very carefully so that water from the lid does not get into the frying pan onto the boiling oil. At the end of the cooking process, we fry the remaining onion, previously chopped.

And the final stage remains - we put everything in the frying pan, add a little water, a couple of bay leaves and simmer on low heat for 20 minutes, covering the frying pan with a lid. During this time, excess water will evaporate. If desired, you can add tomato or sour cream during stewing.

Minced meat cutlets - a simple recipe with cabbage

Some housewives believe that only vegetables can add juiciness to meat cutlets, and first of all, white cabbage. All the processes for preparing this dish are exactly the same as in the first recipe, but instead of bread, we grind fresh raw cabbage in a meat grinder along with onions and garlic.

Ingredients:

  • Minced meat – 500 g
  • Onion – 1 pc.
  • Fresh white cabbage – 200 g
  • Egg – 1 pc.
  • Garlic – 1-2 cloves
  • Flour – 2 tbsp. l.
  • Salt, ground black pepper
  • Spices as desired
  • Vegetable oil for frying
  • Breadcrumbs (can be replaced with flour)
  • Bell pepper – 1 pc.

Despite the fact that white cabbage really makes our dish juicy, tender and soft, I don’t really like adding it as an additional ingredient to minced meat, because during heat treatment it develops a peculiar smell, which sometimes even interrupts the smell of the meat itself. But if I use this vegetable, then I definitely add a little bell pepper, cutting it into small pieces.

After we mix all the ingredients, add 2 tbsp. l. flour (it will bind excess cabbage juice, preventing our culinary products from falling apart during frying), mix everything well and form cutlets. Bread them in breadcrumbs (without dipping them in the egg first!) and fry them on both sides in a frying pan.

Then put all the overcooked semi-finished products back into the frying pan, pour in a little water and add a bay leaf. Cover with a lid and steam over low heat for about 20 minutes. When all the liquid has evaporated, our delicious second course is ready. Instead of a side dish, you can serve our cutlets

How to make meat cutlets with zucchini soft and juicy?

Meat cutlets can also be soft and juicy if we add peeled and coarsely grated zucchini to the minced meat. Just before adding it to the minced meat, you must first drain the juice released from it. By the way, zucchini can be replaced with pumpkin. Then we do everything the same as in the first recipe.

Ingredients:

  • Minced meat – 500 g
  • Onion – 1 pc.
  • Zucchini – 1 pc. (medium size weighing 100-150 g)
  • Egg – 1 pc.
  • Garlic – 2-3 cloves
  • Salt, ground black pepper
  • Spices as desired
  • Vegetable oil for frying
  • Bay leaf
  • Breading (crumbs, flour)

Video recipe for meat cutlets with Hercules oatmeal instead of bread

I found a very interesting idea on the video channel “Tatyana Culinary Channel”. Instead of bread, it is proposed to add Hercules oat flakes to meat cutlets, making them very juicy and fluffy. The author of the channel suggests pre-cooking the oatmeal in the microwave, but I usually just pour boiling milk over it, cover it with a lid and leave it until it cools.

Ingredients:

  • Minced meat – 1 kg
  • Onion – 250 g
  • Oatmeal – 1 tbsp
  • Egg – 2 pcs. (small)
  • Milk – 1 tbsp
  • Dried ground garlic – 1/4 tsp.
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Salt to taste (about 2 large pinches)
  • Ground black pepper – 1/4 tsp.
  • Spices – 1/4 tsp.
  • Vegetable oil for frying

Cooking cutlets from minced meat with the addition of raw potatoes

Another option for making minced meat cutlets juicy and soft is to add raw potatoes. You can grate it or grind it together with onions and garlic in a meat grinder.

Ingredients:

  • Minced meat – 500 g
  • Onion – 1 pc.
  • Potatoes – 2 pcs.
  • Egg – 1 pc.
  • Garlic – 1-2 cloves
  • Salt, ground black pepper
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Vegetable oil for frying
  • Bay leaf

All the processes for preparing this dish are described in great detail in the first recipe. Bon appetit!

How to cook minced meat cutlets with cottage cheese in the oven

Just recently I learned that instead of vegetables and bread, you can add cottage cheese to minced meat, so I decided to make these cutlets. Although at first glance this combination is strange and unusual, it actually turned out very tasty. And since this wonderful idea came to me in the middle of the work week, and after work I didn’t have the strength to stand at the stove for a long time, I decided to cook this dish in the oven.

Ingredients:

  • Minced meat – 1 kg
  • Onion – 2 pcs.
  • Cottage cheese 9% fat – 300 g
  • Egg – 2 pcs. (large)
  • Salt, ground black pepper
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Vegetable oil for greasing the baking sheet

It is advisable to choose cottage cheese with a higher fat content, then it will not be dry and it is much easier to turn it into a paste. To do this, we will mash it until smooth with chicken eggs. You need to try so that there are no grains left.

Place the minced meat in a deep bowl, add finely chopped onion to it. Since we will bake our dish in the oven, it is fashionable to chop the onion not very finely.

Now add cottage cheese, salt (2 large pinches), ground black pepper, mix everything very well and form cutlets. Our culinary ones should be approximately the same shape and size so that they have time to bake evenly, bread them in breadcrumbs or flour.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180-200 degrees, line a baking sheet with foil and grease it a little with vegetable oil. Now we lay out our finished semi-finished products, cover the baking sheet on top with foil (like a lid) and put it in the oven for 40 minutes.

After the specified time, we take the baking sheet out of the oven, remove the foil and place it in the oven again for 10-15 minutes so that our dish is browned.

These are the wonderful cutlets we got. And their taste is not curd at all, but light cheesy.

Video on how to make meat cutlets dietary - a simple steamed recipe

Don’t believe it if they tell you that you can’t make diet cutlets from meat. This is absolutely false! Just use lean meats for cooking, and the most important rule when preparing diet cutlets is to forget about frying in a pan and cook them in the oven or steam. Minced meat should be without added fat.

I told you how to bake them in the oven in the previous recipe, and now I will share with you a recipe for steaming them in a slow cooker. I found this recipe on the video channel “Our live with Taiga”. The set of products in the recipe proposed by the author of the blog was selected taking into account the yield for 4 lunch servings. The only thing is that I wouldn’t risk adding a teaspoon of salt to such a quantity of minced meat. Why? I explained in detail in the first recipe.

Ingredients:

  • Minced beef – 500 g
  • Onion – 1 pc.
  • Carrots – 1 pc.
  • Garlic – 1 head
  • Egg – 1 pc.
  • Ketchup – 1 tsp.
  • Semolina - approximately 3 tbsp. l.
  • Salt, ground black pepper

The preparation time for this dietary dish is 40-50 minutes.

With this I say goodbye to you, until we meet again.

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