One Pot Chili Mac and Cheese
by Chungah
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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
Video
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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Holy smackeroni and cheese Batman!! I just saw this on someone’s board on pinterest, came here, found your crazy awesome site, and have made this for supper. This is so deliciously easy and yummy! As a mommy cooking for 7 people, this is so much appreciated!
What possibly got in your mind to create this? You inspire me!
Out of 6 kids 2 adults only had one not like it and I think he was just having a bad day and didn’t want nothing but his corn bread. I did have to play with it alittle since I was cooking for 8 and I wanted left overs for the weekend. I had hot Mexican chili powder so I was scared to add more so I added some of my homemade taco seasoning. I wanted a little deeper red color so I added two T of tomato paste. Next time I will add green peppers and might try it with corn.
I made this Monday and my husband & I loved it. Thank you for this recipe!
I made this tonight and it was kind of bland. I added more cumin and chili powder and in the end added a spoonful of salsa which gave it more flavor. If I were to make it again, I would double the ground beef and cut the noodles in half. I thought the ratio was a little off. There is definitely room to experiment a little! You have to add more liquid if you want to make it more like Chili. If you want it more like mac and cheese, I suppose you could use the recommended liquid add more cheese and throw it in the oven for a bit.
Molly, it really depends on how you want this to be – more mac and cheese or more chili. This is really a hybrid recipe, so although I could’ve added more spices, I wanted to keep a nice balance without overpowering any of the flavors.
Hi Molly, I completely agree with you! I wish I had seen your comment prior to making this tonight. Way too bland and definitely needed more spices. I ended up also adding a lot more cumin and chili powder.
I made this for dinner last night and it was SOOO good! Such a warm, hearty food after a long day. I subbed whole wheat rotini (because that’s what I had on hand) and just one can of kidney beans rather than partial cans of kidney and white. So delicious! Thanks 🙂
90% of my meals in my recipe book come from your blog. They are DELICIOUS and this one is no exception. You’re fabulous!
I love your blog…but recipe makes me crazy because you’re using partial cans of beans. I’m going to use an entire lb of ground beef (because that’s how it’s packaged) and full cans of beans. Thankfully, I”m an experienced cook and can figure out how to make adjustments to recipes to serve my family….plus I want leftovers!!!
I know what you mean but sometimes using an entire can of beans in a recipe is just too much!
Looks like we don’t drain grease after cooking meat…correct?
That’s really based on personal preference – feel free to drain or keep as is. I honestly didn’t feel the need to drain the excess fat.
This was really good!
This was the first Pinterest recipe I’ve made and it was perfect for an easy, tasty Wednesday night dinner. I asked the husband this morning if he was cool with it for dinner again tonight and he said “most definitely, it was really GOOD!” I’m so glad I ran across your blog and will be using it as a resource for recipes going forward.
p.s. Butters is precious!
Can I make this in a crockpot? How long would you cook it for?
Please understand that it is very difficult to give exact conversion information to translate traditional oven/stovetop recipes to the slow cooker method. I recommend using your own judgement to convert this recipe to utilize a slow cooker.
This was the first Pinterest recipe I’ve ever made! And in fact I made it for supper today. Skipped the parsley & only used 1/2 an onion (all I had around). Great lil recipe, very filling & it was delicious! I would add more chilli powder next time & maybe some green onions. Thank you for sharing! I’ll definitely be going back to this one in the future 🙂
Just made this. I think the recipe should read 6 oz. of pasta. It soaked up all the liquid, not like a soup at all. But very tasty.
Mindy, this is not really supposed to be a “soup” per se. This is really a hybrid between mac and cheese and chili, so there should only be a little bit of thickened chili along with some cheesy goodness 🙂
My boyfriend and I (mostly him) are Corgi obsessed even though we don’t have a little puppy of our own yet. Butters is too freaking cute!
I made this last night — I knew our teenaged boy would eat the whole thing as written, so I actually used 2 pounds of hamburger meat and pretty much doubled the rest of the recipe ingredients, except used the same amt of elbow mac and 6 cups of chicken broth. OMG, amazing and delicious. The broth is wonderful! Since the kid almost single-handedly consumed the HUGH Asian quinoa salad I made — we have leftovers of this recipe. Chung-Ah – I am so glad I found your site. Your recipes inspire me! I have made so many of them! This one is a keeper too!
Omg, Chung-Ah… Butters is freaking adorable! I miss my dogs so much. *cries*
Butters sound like a name I’d want to give my future kid. LOL! That and Cookie, Crumble, Cocoa, Berry, Sugar… stuff like that. And mixing 2 food items into one pot? You’re smart.
If you want to make this for a serving of 4, then cut the amount of the ingredients in half. I made this tonight to serve 4 but in reality it is closer to a serving of 8-10. It did taste good though. I substituted tomato sauce for the tomatoes as my wife does not like canned tomatoes.
I think we may have more hungry eaters here. The two of us cleaned this up in 2 sittings!
Did you just use a can of beans each. Or did you measure 3/4 cup. I just threw a cam each. Hoping it works.
Susie, I measured 3/4 cup for each. There is about 1 1/2 cups in a can of beans.
Just made this! It is delicious and so simple! Thank you for sharing it!! Yummmmm!