Clay and I both love cooking pasta dishes. The only problem is that one of our daughters won’t touch the stuff so that makes mealtime hard. She loves pizza but not sauce on pasta. Weird. Anyway, I have managed to create a twist on a Hearty Chili Mac recipe and she ate it! She really ate it! She didn’t love it. But she did eat it so I’m giving myself points for that one.
Disclosure: I received complimentary Ragú® Sauce to help facilitate our mealtime recipe. All opinions are strictly our own and were formed through personal testing of the product. Your results may vary.
I took a standard Chili Mac recipe from Ragú® using Ragú® Hearty Traditional Sauce and changed it up a bit by adding in some more ingredients. The original recipe is super quick and easy and calls for just a few things including ground beef, Ragú® Hearty Traditional Sauce, chili powder and elbow macaroni.
I wanted something a bit more tex-mex so we added in a 15 oz can of deiced tomatoes with green chilies, a 15 oz can of blacked beans and a 15 oz can of corn. If you’re not big on canned vegetables you can always use freshly cooked black beans and fresh off the cob or frozen corn. Either way works. Then we topped it with a little cheese. I think a mexi blend would be perfect but we only had shredded mozzarella on hand. It was still delicious.
This was a pantry raid meal night so I used what we had on hand and served it with green beans, crunchy Italian bread and cottage cheese. Yum. Yum! We all ate until we were stuffed! I think that the sauce really brought the flavors together and made the taste pop. Ragú® Hearty Traditional Sauce has a delicious taste your whole family will love. Even the picky one!
I love being able to take a dish that we already enjoy and taking it up a notch to really make it ours. The kids, Clay and I all love to cook. We all love to experiment in the kitchen and cooking together is one way that our family makes mealtime #Saucesome! For this particular meal our son made sweet tea and our oldest daughter cooked the green beans. Clay helped brown the ground beef and I did the pasta with the sauce, tomatoes with green chilies, corn and black beans and mixed in the hamburger, chili powder etc. Basically, I cooked the pasta and assembled the dish. I love it when we cook together as a family!
Clay loves to mix things up when he’s cooking and he had the idea for the tomatoes and green chilies. I had the idea for the corn and black beans. He actually wasn’t too sold on that idea until he tasted it. Then he loved it and ate two big bowls of Chili Mac. Dude! He needs to trust me in the kitchen! I know how to make food concoctions too! I’ve been cooking since I was 12. I think I know what I’m doing. 😀
As a family, we ALWAYS eat together. We don’t always sit at the dining table. Sometimes we watch a movie together while we eat, but we are always together. We laugh. We talk. We enjoy being together. I think that if we ever get so busy that we don’t have our evening meal together, our family dynamic will change too much and it just won’t be the same. I know as the kids get older they’ll be going on dates and eventually getting married and doing their own thing.
But I hope that we can continue to have meals together as a family at least once per week. We host family gatherings in our home often with extended family and I want that to continue. That is one thing that makes our family what it is. And that is “Saucesome”!
Hearty Chili Mac Recipe
Hearty Chili Mac
Ingredients
- 1 lb. ground beef (lean )
- 1 jar (8 oz. Ragu® Traditional Sauce)
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. chili powder
- 15 oz corn (drained)
- 15 oz black beans (rinsed and drained)
- 8 ounces elbow macaroni (cooked and drained)
- shredded cheese (optional)
- green onions (optional)
- sour cream (optional)
Instructions
- Cook ground beef in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until done.
- Stir in Ragu® Traditional Sauce, chili powder, corn and black beans.
- Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer covered 10 minutes.
- Stir in cooked, drained macaroni and simmer, stirring often, until heated through.
Notes
https://www.ragu.com/recipes/ragus-family-favorite-chili-mac
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?Please leave a comment below letting us know you made this recipe. Then tag @cinnamonhollow on Instagram and hashtag it #cinnamonhollowrecipes Original Chili Mac recipe from Ragú®
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I am a stay-at-home- mom, living in KY with my husband and children. I’m a travel and lifestyle blogger encouraging folks to live their life one adventure at a time while also focusing on beauty, essential oils and health. From time to time I also like to showcase my adorable pets along with my family. Along with Cinnamon Hollow I can be found at The Martin Family Adventure … read more
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