Vintage Baked Ground Beef Recipe
Beef Pancake is one of those vintage recipe names that stops you in your tracks — because there isn’t a pancake in sight.
This old-school baked beef dish comes from a time when recipes were named for function, not appearance. “Pancake” didn’t always mean something flat and round; it often meant a mixture cooked all at once and served in slices.
What you get here is a hearty, budget-friendly beef bake made with pantry staples, frozen potatoes, and eggs — the kind of practical dinner that showed up in church and community cookbooks when feeding a family mattered more than fancy presentation.
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Gease an 8×12-inch baking dish.
- In a skillet over medium heat, brown ground beef until crumbly. Drain excess grease, reserving 3 tablespoons pan dripping.
- In a large bowl combine cooked ground beef, reserved pan drippings, milk, eggs, thawed potatoes with onions and peppers, flour, salt, and oregano. Mix well.
- Press the mixture into a prepared baking dish.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, or until set and lightly browned.
- Garnish with parsley if desired and serve with spaghetti sauce on the side if using.
Adapted from Ground Beef Cookbook (Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers, Favorite Recipes Press, 1983.
Some more recipes to try Mock Filet Mignon
Fork Fact
In older European and American recipes, the word pancake didn’t always describe shape. It was often used to describe a mixed dish cooked in one piece and sliced for serving — which is why some vintage “pancakes” are baked, not fried.