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
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.
So good! I used 90/10 beef as it is what I had onhand so I only used one slice of bacon. I only had about 1/4 cup of BBQ sauce and all the spices and sauces I eyeballed for measurements. I used fresh green beans which I steamed in the Instant Pot (set at 0 minutes) and then added when i plated the meal. My husband had straight right and I had a mix of cauliflower rice and regular rice. Spicy and so delicious! Super quick for meal prep!
I just made this tonight for myself and the wife and she loved it. I did substitute a chili garlic sauce for the Sriracha. Instead of just tossing in the green beans I decided to make the spicy sesame green bean side and just mix them in afterward. The flavors together were fantastic.
This might be my new favorite. Quick and easy with no ingredients that don’t hang out in my house on a regular basis. I skipped the bacon second time around because my beef was a bit fattier. I am toying with the idea of adding a bag of cauliflower rice to bulk things up but this can wait for round three. LOVE!!
Added cauliflower rice for round three. Added volume without sacrificing flavor or macros. 🔥
Question: It it considered a win when your husband likes it? And eats it. All… 🤦🏼♀️
This was delicious! I put the sriracha on the side because only half my family likes spicy. I also used cauliflower rice for mine, but my family had brown rice. They requested it again, so it was a hit!
ok, I’m literally 3 bites in and had to stop to write a review. This recipe is so simple and full of flavor. I opted to cook the bacon first, because, crunch. I also used stubbs bbq sauce and it all just comes together soooooo good. Definitely needs to be served with rice. This will be a repeat for sure!
This is a great easy to make meal. We like spicy and this is great.
I am a lover of spicy foods so I was excited to try this. It has a good amount of spice which was balanced by the cauliflower rice I Weber it on.
This was so so so good and simple to put together. It’s easily adjustable with the heat, and the sweetness perfectly balances that element to create something wonderful. Great for a family meal and probably for meal prepping as well. Will be making again!
Incredible! So easy to make and delicious! Used what I had on hand for a couple substitutions: ground turkey, dessert pepper queso, and pepper jack cheese. Seriously out of this world good. Everyone had seconds!
Why this recipe is excellent: you can turn up or down the heat to whatever rating you’d like, has a great kick of flavor and zing, easy, time friendly, and simple ingredients. Will be making more in the future!