I think one of the greatest misconceptions about me being a food blogger is that I love to cook every single meal every single day. Don’t get me wrong, I love food, I love cooking, I love the connections that come with it, but really, just like anyone else, my motivation waxes and wanes and there are nights when Domino’s (or that box of Cheerios) is realllly appealing.
This is one of my favorite meals for those busy nights when I don’t feel like cooking and I don’t feel like fighting my kids. It’s super quick. I almost always have all the ingredients in my fridge/freezer/pantry. My kids and husband absolutely love it. It’s low in calories and high in protein (not-so-quick note about that–I entered this using the Weight Watchers recipe builder and the points were about what I thought they would be. Then I entered it on My Fitness Pal and the calories were VERY high; when I used those calories to calculate the points, it was about 3 times the original amount. Puzzled, I used a handful of other calorie calculators and they were all much lower. So. If you enter this into My Fitness Pal and you’re confused about why the information is so off, I ran into the same problem. While I’m not sure what’s going on over there, I’m confident the information I’m including is accurate.)
To get started, chop a medium onion, a medium bell pepper (any color), and 3-4 cloves of garlic.
Heat a 12″ skillet that has a lid over medium heat. Add 1 pound of extra-lean ground beef
and cook, stirring frequently, until about halfway cooked. Add onions, garlic, and pepper as well chili powder, cumin, coriander, salt, and pepper
and cook until the meat is cooked through and the onions are tender.
Add 2 cups of V8 juice,
8 ounces of tomato sauce, and 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. Add 8 ounces of macaroni-ish pasta…
and stir to combine and then cover, reduce heat, and cook for 15-ish minutes or until the pasta is al dente. Add a can of drained pinto beans…
and heat through. Remove from heat, sprinkle with shredded cheese,
and replace the lid for 2-3 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Sprinkle with onions and chopped cilantro (if desired) and serve immediately.
Stovetop Chili Mac Casserole
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 lb. ground turkey 93% extra lean
- 1 onion medium, chopped
- 1 bell pepper any color, chopped
- 3-4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 ½ teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon coriander
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper freshly ground
- 2 cups V8 juice
- 1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
- 1 cup water
- 8 ounces macaroni or other small pasta
- 1 can pinto beans drained
- 4 ounces cheddar cheese
- ⅓ cup green or red onions chopped
- ½ cup cilantro chopped, optional
Instructions
- Heat a 12" skillet that has a lid over medium heat. Add ground beef and cook, stirring frequently, until about halfway cooked. Add onions, garlic, and pepper as well as the seasonings and cook until the meat is cooked through and the onions are tender.
- Add the V8 juice, tomato sauce, and water and bring to a boil. Add the pasta and stir to combine and then cover, reduce heat, and cook for 15-ish minutes or until the pasta is al dente. Add the beans and heat through. Remove from heat, sprinkle with cheese, and replace the lid for 2-3 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Sprinkle with onions and serve immediately.
Questions & Reviews
Just made this last night for dinner. Quick. Easy. Perfect! One question though…I know that it’s under 300 cal per serving, but how much is a serving?
I just died it to MFP and it had the chili powder at almost 2000 calories! Plus keep in mind it defaults to only one serving so make sure you are adjusting it to the correct number of servings!
Added not died….oops….
I didn’t love this until I added a little heavy cream at the end. It just needed a little something extra. I’ve found that I don’t love a lot of one pot dinners where you cook the noodles with everything. But if you just add a drizzle of cream at the very end, they become magical.
So I didn’t have V8 on hand, so I used condensed tomato soup, slightly watered down. Not my proudest moment, but it STILL turned out awesome. Also, I didn’t have pinto, so I used Great Northern – also still awesome 🙂
So I didn’t have v8 juice and really wanted to make this recipe so I tried using my vitamix and making my modified v8 juice. Turned out ok but I thought you probably have a better way to make v8 juice
Yep, totally having same problems on MFP. It is always the spices. Either garlic cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, onion powder, etc. I always double check when I enter my own recipes. Not sure why it does that. But this looks delish, I think it is calling my family’s name for tomorrow night, since we go to tumbling like a bajillion miles away (not really…but feels like that). Thanks for all these new fabulous healthy recipes, they have been so helpful with being able to stay on track with eating healthy.
This was a great weeknight kid meal! My husband called it poor man food but he had seconds 🙂