Southwestern Macaroni and Cheese

At a glance

What stands out: Southwestern macaroni and cheese is simply jazzed up boxed mac & cheese. With the addition of ground turkey, black beans, and shredded cheese, it’s a filling straightforward meal that your entire family will love!

How long it takes: 30 minutes
Equipment you’ll need: skillet, saucepan
Servings: 6

Southwest mac and cheese

This recipe is for the days when you just need a speedy and straightforward solution for dinner. Southwest mac & cheese is a main dish that everyone will like, it comes together fairly quickly, and doesn’t require a lot of prep work or clean-up. It’s sort of like Hamburger Helper. (Try our from-scratch Hamburger Helper recipe, too!)

We always have a few boxes of macaroni and cheese on hand for lunches but we like them for speedy dinners, too. It’s always fun to mix it up a little and do something different with the macaroni and cheese. That way the kids and the adults are happy with dinner.

We like to go the southwestern route. We pair the macaroni and cheese with cooked ground turkey, our favorite from-scratch taco seasoning, black beans, bell peppers and onions. If you happen to have leftover taco meat in the freezer or fridge, use that instead of the ground turkey. Leftover chicken is good, too.

Once it’s all combined, we stir in extra cheese to up the cheesy goodness of the southwestern macaroni and cheese. Continue heating it in the saucepan until the cheese melts. If you want, put it all in a casserole dish and pop it in the oven for a half hour or so.

Serve with toppings! Dress it up like you would a taco with fresh cilantro, sour cream, and salsa.

• Yield: 6
• Prep: 10 minutes
• Cook: 20 minutes
• Total: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 boxes (6 ounces each) mac & cheese (such as Kraft dinner)
• 4 tablespoons butter
• ½ cup milk
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 16 ounces ground turkey (93/7)
• 1 cup diced red onion (about ½ medium onion)
• 1 cup diced red bell pepper (about 1 pepper)
• 1 cup black beans (from 15 ounce can, rinsed and drained)
• 1 tablespoon taco seasoning (more to taste) (more if desired)
• 6 ounces Mexican blend shredded cheese ( 1 ½ cups)
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced (more if desired)

Method

1. In a large saucepan, prepare mac and cheese according to box directions.
2. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add ground turkey, red onion, and red bell pepper. Sauté, breaking up turkey, until turkey is cooked through and onions are translucent.
3. Stir in black beans, taco seasoning, prepared macaroni and cheese, and shredded cheese until cheese is melted.
4. Serve topped with sliced green onions.

Notes

Meat: You can use ground beef if you prefer. If you happen to have leftover taco meat, you can use that. You can also stir in cooked chicken instead of using ground meat, or skip the meat and serve it as a vegetarian dish.

Serving ideas: we like to serve this with taco-style toppings, such as diced tomatoes, salsa, diced avocado, fresh cilantro, and so on.