Sriracha BBQ Ground Beef and Green Beans

Inspired by my sticky sweet ground beef and broccoli, this ground beef and green beans skillet is super easy to make and packs a bigger flavor punch than a 20-minute dish should. The entire recipe comes in under the 1,000 calorie mark and every serving has 26 grams of protein with just 16 grams of carbs. It’s perfect for serving over a bed of rice, cauliflower rice, or a blend of the two!

This is a minimal recipe so you can probably jump straight ahead to the printable recipe card at the bottom. If you have an ingredient question, I’ll cover everything I can think of in the tutorial below.

How to Make It

Step 1: Cook ground beef and bacon in a large skillet. 

Unlike the sticky sweet ground beef recipe I mentioned above, this spin uses raw bacon instead of pre-cooked. As you can imagine, this provides a bit more flavor and fat for the spices to bloom in.

Pre-cooked would work fine, just add it after the beef is fully cooked. You can typically find leaner pre-cooked bacon options like turkey that are actually crispy. So if you wanted to save some fat and have crispy bacon, that’s an option.

Speaking of crispy, if you wanted crispy bacon with your ground beef and green beans, cook the bacon on its own and remove from the skillet before adding the beef. Then add it back in at the end of cooking.

For the spices, I used most of the dry spices from my Ninja Foodi pulled pork recipe. If you want a smokier flavor profile, use smoked paprika. You could even use a dash of liquid smoke. Feel free to experiment here!

Step 2: Add beef broth, sriracha, Worcestershire, and your choice of BBQ sauce.

As-is, this recipe is not overly spicy. If you wanted to crank things up a notch, you could use a bit more sriracha. Though it’s probably safest to add that at the end when serving. You can also add a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes at the end.

For the BBQ sauce, I used Stubb’s Original. It’s a pretty low carb sauce, but you could save some extra carbs and calories with something like G Hughes sugar free BBQ sauce. That’s what I used in my chipotle bbq ground chicken tacos. Love the stuff!  Trader Joe’s also has a great sriracha and roasted garlic bbq sauce I used for my bbq chicken meatballs recipe.

Picky Eater Note: If you have a veggie hater in the house like I do, you could stop here and use the ground beef and bacon mixture for something like sloppy joes or in wraps. I bet you could make a mean bbq mac and cheese as well. Check out my queso mac and cheese with ground beef or buffalo ground chicken mac and cheese recipes for inspiration.

Step 3: Add the green beans.

Update September 2025: In my recent chili garlic green beans and ground turkey, I cut the green beans into thirds (and also incorporated spinach). I think this is the best way to work green beans into dishes like this.

I used a 12-ounce refrigerated bag of fresh, trimmed green beans. Frozen or canned should work fine. If you’re making a grocery run, pick up an extra bag to make what I call the best air fryer green beans or my rotisserie chicken stir fry.

And for other ground protein and veggie ideas, check out my honey sriracha ground chicken with broccoli or Tex Mex chicken and cauliflower skillet.

Originally, this recipe called for microwave steamed green beans to shortcut the cook time. But I eventually updated it with the added beef broth so all the flavors get to know one another (like with the coconut milk in my spicy coconut ground chicken).

For a bit of added texture and flavor, I topped my ground beef and green beans with toasted sesame seeds, crushed red pepper flakes, and a pinch of brown sugar. This is optional. Oh, and if you wanted to serve with something other than rice, I bet my air fried rosemary parmesan potatoes would be great here.

Now, I know you’ve bean waiting on this part. The recipe card is below. If you have any questions I didn’t cover, leave a comment at the bottom of the post.

Sriracha BBQ Ground Beef and Green Beans

A simple one-pan dish with smoky bacon, seasoned ground beef, and green beans in a spicy BBQ sauce.

4.71 from 41 votes

Print Pin Rate

Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes minutes

Servings: 4 Servings

Calories: 250kcal

Author: Mason Woodruff

Ingredients

• 1 lb Ground Beef 96/4
• 4 slices Bacon cut into thin strips
• 1/2 Tbsp Paprika
• 1/2 Tbsp Dry Mustard
• 1/2 tsp Black Pepper
• 1/2 tsp Cumin
• 1/2 C 132g BBQ Sauce (I used Stubb’s Original)
• 2 Tbsp 30g Sriracha
• 2 Tbsp 30g Worcestershire Sauce
• 2 C Beef Broth
• 8-12 oz Green Beans

Instructions

• Add the ground beef and bacon to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Mix the dry mustard, paprika, black pepper, and cumin together and add to the skillet. Cook until no pink remains in the beef and the bacon is fully cooked, about 8-10 minutes.
• Mix the BBQ sauce, sriracha, Worcestershire sauce, and beef broth together. Once the meat is cooked add the liquid ingredients, stirring everything together.
• Add the green beans to the skillet and submerge them in the liquid. Continue cooking over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, for 8-10 minutes or until the liquid ingredients have thickened to a sauce-like consistency.
• Serve over rice with toasted sesame seeds, scallions, or your choice of toppings.

Notes

Each serving (1/4th the recipe) has 5 WW SmartPoints (blue plan).

Nutrition

Serving: 250g | Calories: 250kcal | Carbohydrates: 17g | Protein: 27g | Fat: 7g