Goulash aka Beefy Macaroni and Cheese

Whether you call it goulash or beefy macaroni and cheese, this hearty cheesy pasta dish is a family favorite and the perfect comfort food.

Notice there’s no parsley sprinkled on the goulash to make it more attractive. Seriously, who does that at home? Like my seven year old would say “Geez mom no parsley? You’re really phoning it in tonight.”.

Don’t you hate it when you argue something and you’re wrong? Especially with your spouse? My husband loves this recipe and calls it goulash. I’ve never heard of this being called goulash, the goulash I’m familiar with is Hungarian goulash which is a stew made with chunks of beef. I asked a friend who was also from the Northeast where my husband is from thinking maybe it’s a regional thing and she said “Oh that’s American Chop Suey”. Say what? I grew up on the West coast and think this is Beefy Mac and Cheese. What it’s not is Chili Mac which is a whole different thing. Barely.

Regardless what you call it, today we’re enjoying a little comfort food and throwing the kids one so they’ll stop complaining about “all the fancy dinners”. They say that like it’s a bad thing!

This is much heartier than plain old, but absolutely fabulous, macaroni and cheese. Ground beef, or turkey or tofu or whatever you want, is sautéed with onion, garlic and oregano and then diced tomatoes to make a simple yet substantial dinner that’s a family favorite.

No need to pick up a blue box, you can get the recipe for scratch Macaroni and Cheese right here and it’s just as fast and not fluorescent.

For making such a family pleasing dinner you definitely deserve a glass of wine.

Or two, I don’t judge.

Chef Shelley

Goulash aka Beefy Macaroni and Cheese

4 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Servings: 4

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

  

• ¾ pound ground beef. If using extra lean beef use a little oil when sautéing otherwise no need to add oil
• 1 cup diced onion about 1 small to medium onion
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 1 teaspoon oregano or Italian herbs
• 1 15 ounce or 28 ounce can diced tomatoes depending on how much you like tomatoes. Use petite diced if you don’t want big tomato chunks.
• 1 recipe macaroni and cheese

Method

 

1. While macaroni cooks, brown ground beef and onion.
2. Add garlic and oregano and sauté 30 seconds.
3. Add tomatoes with juice and simmer until liquid is almost gone.
4. Add cooked macaroni and cheese and stir together until completely mixed.

Notes

Depending on how many pots you care about using, you can do macaroni, cheese sauce and ground beef at the same time in three pots to be faster, or cook the macaroni, put it in a colander to drain and use that pan to make the sauce and only use two pots. To be really tidy, but it takes longer, cook macaroni in a large pot, put it in a colander to drain, use that pot to cook beef etc and then make the cheese sauce right in the pan with the cooked beef. Voila one pot dinner!