One Pot Chili Mac and Cheese
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Two favorite comfort foods come together in this super easy, 30 min one-pot meal that the whole family will go crazy for!
So after 2 long months of waiting and waiting, I finally brought our new puppy home today. Here is the newest member of the Damn Delicious family – Butters, our 10-week old Pembroke Welsh Corgi.
It’s been a very long day as I sit by hyperventilating each time he whines, but apparently that’s quite normal in the puppy world. So forgive me for today’s short post!
So about this mac and cheese. Now it’s definitely not your ordinary mac and cheese. It’s mac and cheese combined with a super easy homemade chili using pantry ingredients, combining two of your favorite kind of comfort foods in a single one pot meal. It’s quick, easy and sure to be a hit with the entire family. You can’t beat that!
One Pot Chili Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 8 ounces ground beef
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes
- ¾ cup canned white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- ¾ cup canned kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 ½ teaspoon cumin
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 10 ounces elbow macaroni
- ¾ cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add ground beef and onion, and cook until browned, about 3-5 minutes, making sure to crumble the beef as it cooks; drain excess fat.
- Stir in garlic until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Stir in chicken broth, tomatoes, beans, chili powder and cumin; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Stir in pasta. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer until pasta is cooked through, about 13-15 minutes.
- Remove from heat. Top with cheese and cover until melted, about 2 minutes.
- Serve immediately, garnished with parsley, if desired.
Did you make this recipe?
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This was soooo good. My super choosey four year old seriously said “this is crazy good!!”
Can’t wait to try it! Just curious though, why only 8 ounces of ground beef?
You can always add more as needed to suit your preferences.
Does anyone know how many cups this makes?? I want to make it and I know it says “4 servings” but it’s 15 WW points per serving, so was wanting to break it down and see if this was huge servings or if it’s pretty small servings and 4 is reasonable. Thanks!!
Instant favorite! I added the whole 12oz box of twisted elbow veggie pasta, my can of diced tomatoes had green chiles, 1 small can of tomato sauce, a little extra chili powder and 1tsp cornstarch to thicken it up a bit. So much flavor! I LOVE this blog! I’ve made 4 recipes now and they’ve all been added to our favorites! Thank you so much for posting! Following you on Instagram has gotten us out of our home-cooking slump 🙂
Made this today for dinner with my boyfriend and we loved it! It was the perfect meal for a cold, gloomy day. This recipe definitely makes more than 4 servings though, more like 6. It’s also more chili than mac and cheese, but we sprinkled some extra cheese on top. Great recipe! We’ll be making it again for sure 🙂
Making this now but disappointed in that the 10oz of macaroni has soaked all the liquid. Looks nothing like the picture. Looks like a goulash. ???????
Most of the liquid should be soaked up – that’s the beauty of a one pot meal! However, if there is not enough liquid to go around, please feel free to reduce the amount of pasta as needed to suit your preferences.
The only thing that would make this recipe better would be is to make it in the crockpot. Would you have any suggestions on how I might prepare it in the cockpit other than put the macaroni in about 30 minutes before ready to eat? Thank you so much for posting.
It is very difficult to give exact conversion information to translate a traditional stovetop recipe to be used in a slow cooker without further recipe testing. However, here is an article worth checking out on a possible conversion guide. Hope that helps!
I love this chili recipe and you should totally enter this chili contest! I think you have a good chance at winning!
http://bushbeans.thedailymeal.com/
One of our new favourites to our diner menu! We add the pasta separately as we found it soaked up too much of the liquid, and added corn.
This recipe is now a household favorite, my husband (who is extremely picky) loved it, even got seconds… I did double it and instead of onions I used onion powder because my husband hates onions and added a little garlic powder! Absolutely amazing!!!
I will try the recipe, but must comment on Butters the corgi. I know she is well over a year old now, but she seemed to be looking right at me and saying “Don’t you want a puppy just like me?” Why, yes, yes, I do!
I made this with 2 cups chopped leftover cooked Christmas turkey in place of hamburger. It was really great! I am always trying new things to use up all those Christmas leftovers. I can’t wait to try it with the ground beef later on and also will try the vegan recipe from Megan for my vegetarians.
Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I’ve been wanting to make this for awhile, but in a vegan version. Substituted chipotle seasoned crumbled ‘tofurkey’ for the beef, low sodium vegetable stock for the chicken stock, and shredded vegan cheese instead of real cheddar. Used a whole can of low sodium kidney beans, skipped the white beans, and added a handful of lentils, just for fun.
Super delicious! Thanks for the recipe!
Tried and tested – I can honestly say this recipe is ridiculously delicious.
Made a vegetarian version of this tonight and it was delicious! The whole family liked it, thanks!
We tried this recipe tonight. I doubled it. Loved the balance of ingredients. My 2 year old grandson asked for more. That makes me feel good. I didn’t read the recipe right and added the whole cans of beans. Which was fine since this house loves them. I’m grateful for your time in putting this recipe up. We loved it!!!By the way Butter is sooo cute!
Suuuper delicious! Me and my friends made this for fun, though there were a few cooking mishaps here and there (we put in way too much pasta), and it was the best thing I’ve tasted in a looong time! Definitely recommend!
Just made this to take to work for lunch the next few days. I sampled it out of the pot before the pasta is added and it’s so dang good. Besides flavor, the best part is how fast and easy this was to make. Have followed you for years and love your recipes. My favorite so far is still the avocado egg rolls. I brought those to a potluck and could barely get one for myself. Thanks!
I made this last night and my husband and I weren’t real thrilled with it. Taste is so subjective and I saw some people really liked this recipe so I am glad it worked for some. If I made it again I would probably cook a full lb of ground beef instead of half, do less noodles, and add 2 cans diced tomatoes. It wasn’t really chili nor was it really mac and cheese at all. It is always fun to try new recipes though so it wasn’t a total waste.
I never comment but I had to this time. I’ve been searching high and low to find something that my picky boys would eat. We LOVED this – all of us. There was the perfect balance of noodles and cheese to beans and meat that made my 6 and 4 yr old gobble it up. Thank you!