Garbage Plate #SecretRecipeClub (2024)

It's time again for Secret Recipe Club reveal day for my group, Group D! What is Secret Recipe Club? It's a bunch of food bloggers separated into four groups that post once a month on a designated Monday. Each month, we are paired with another foodie from our group secretly (hence the name). We then pick a recipe (or two or more) from that blog and make it. On our reveal day, we reveal whose blog we had and what recipe(s) we chose all at the same time. It's like a Secret Santa every month, but with food and blogs! It's a great deal of fun :)

This month I was assigned to Erin's blog, The Spiffy Cookie. Because I have been in Group D for so long, I'm getting blogs I have already had once before...which it totally fine by me. It's rare that I go to a blog and only pick ONE recipe. Most of the time, I have to narrow it down significantly. I followed Erin's blog long before I joined the SRC and still love her taste in foods - because it's so much like mine. I had once again had one of her recipes on my monthly meal plan already, so I didn't really have to hunt through recipes to pick one. HOWEVER, I have to share some of her more recent recipes that are on my to-try list: Shepherd's Pie Potato Skins, Breakfast Quinoa Burrito Bowls, BBQ Bacon Mango Pizza, Peach Cinnamon Rolls, and Pineapple Cranberry Zucchini Bread.

The recipe I had on my meal plan was for Homemade Garbage Plates. Years and years and years ago, while watching some sort of foodie show, we saw Garbage Plates that were in Rochester, New York. We only went to Rochester once while living in New York for 7 years...to get Nick's Grand Prix GXP. Unfortunately because it was such a long drive and the process to get the car was a few hours, we didn't go out to get a Garbage Plate while we were there.

Now that we're back down south, we really don't want to go back to New York, so a copycat will have to suffice. What is a Garbage Plate? A Garbage Plate consists of: your choice of two hamburgers, cheeseburgers, red hots (hot dogs), white hots (hot dogs), chicken tenders, haddock, fried ham, grilled cheese, or eggs. Then you choose two sides: home fries, French fries, baked beans, or macaroni salad. It's served topped with a beef sauce (dubbed "hot sauce") that has been slow-simmered plus mustard and onion - and you put two pieces of buttered Italian bread on the side.

What I learned from my experience...this is A LOT of food. You may want to half the portions. You'll never finish it. I tried so hard to do it, but I couldn't. I subbed macaroni and cheese for macaroni salad because none of us eat macaroni salad. We did cheeseburgers and home fries with ONE piece of Italian bread. The "hot sauce" totally reminds me of Skyline chili - it has some similar spices, but not all of the same ones. I will most definitely make these again - I think they would be great for a family get-together because we have a huge family and it has all sorts of wonderful things on the plate! Thank you, Erin, for posting such an awesome recipe - we really loved it :)

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What you need:
For the Garbage Plate Hot Sauce:

• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 cup water, plus some, just in case
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 1 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 3/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1/2 tsp. allspice
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves

For the Garbage Plate Assembly:

• 2 lb. ground beef, formed into 8 patties
• 8 slices American cheese
• 4 cups macaroni & cheese (we used the boxed stuff)
• 4 cups home fries (I did 4 or 5 russets with skins)
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• Mustard
• Hot Sauce
• 1 loaf Italian bread
• Softened butter for bread

Directions:

1. For the Garbage Plate Hot Sauce: in a large skillet, saute onion until soft. Add garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add meat and constantly stir to break it up as finely as possible.
2. Once the meat has browned, add water and tomato paste. Simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Add sugar and remaining spices. Stir well and simmer for 30 minutes. Add water, if needed. You don't want it to be soupy, but you don't want it to dry out either.
4. While your sauce cooks, cook your hamburger patties and top with cheese slices. Cook macaroni and cheese. Cook your home fries. I got "precooked" Italian bread from my deli, so I finished baking it, so it was nice and warm for the butter to melt on it when I sliced it.
5. To assemble the garbage plate: on one side of each plate, add 1 cup of macaroni and cheese. On the other side, add 1 cup of home fries. Place two cheeseburgers on top of those in the center of the plate. Top burgers with mustard and diced onion. Then ladle plate sauce into center of the plate. Add a few dashes of hot sauce and serve with warm, buttered Italian bread.

Recipe slightly adapted from The Spiffy Cookie