Ground beef, beef mince or minced meat, is a meat product, made of beef finely chopped by a meat grinder. Ground beef is sometimes referred to as hamburger meat or just hamburger, because one of its most popular uses is making the sandwich of that name.

A more recent addition to the meaning of mince is to describe poor quality horses. As the vocabulary has developed on racecourses across the country, variations such as "goose mince", "dog mince" and even "elk mince" have been known to occur.

Despite popular urban legends, ground beef is not made from things like small animals, but is instead made from the leftover meat created when the sides of beef are carved into steaks and roasts.

Ground beef also features prominently as an ingredient in:

• meatloaf
• sloppy joe
• Tex-Mex cuisine
• Midwestern cuisine
• Italian cuisine: the Italians use it to make meat sauces for, for example, lasagna and spaghetti bolognese
• in the Middle East it is used to make spicy kofta and meatballs
• with mashed or boiled potatoes in the Scottish dish "mince and tatties"

In some cultures other meats are used ground, instead of beef. In South Asia both lamb (mutton) and goat meat are also minced to produce keema, though the process of mincing is manual.

Beef

Hackfleisch | Hakkliha | Carne picada | 挽肉