Looking for a delicious chili cheese mac that the entire family will love, especially the kids? Try this one-pot meal made with corkscrew pasta noodles, cream cheese, ground beef, and cheddar cheese.

One pot meals are my jam! I love them! Not only do they taste amazing, they save so much time cleaning up the kitchen afterwards!

Last night the kids and I went down to a neighbor’s house who was hosting a “Healthy Kid Friendly Meal Sampling” – mom’s competition. I guess I kind of missed the memo compared to the other moms who all brought dishes primarily with only veggies and or turkey or chicken (gag).

I say I missed the memo because I brought homemade Chili Cheese Mac – yup, my recipe had beef, cheese and noodles as the main ingredients. But…I looked at the competition in a different way. Something healthy that MY kids would eat. You all know by now that I have super picky eaters and I sneak in veggies where I can, but if my kids had it their way they would eat noodles, rice and nutella sandwiches for every single meal (and you know what? some days that is what they eat…otherwise they just wouldn’t eat at all). So…rather than serving the nasty powdered box mix of Hamburger Helper I set out for a homemade version…much “healthier” in my opinion.

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Guess what? Not only did my kids eat it, but all of the other kids too! AND…at the end the moms and kids all voted and guess who won? You guessed it! My Chili Cheese Mac! (well I actually tied for 1st place with a mom who brought these baked avocados…but if I had voted for my own recipe, I would have won, hahaha!) The kids and I won a cute little cutting board!

Check out these 25 Ground Beef Dinner Ideas!

Doesn’t that just look amazing?!?! I can assure you that it was.

Ingredients

ground beef – use 85% fat or less
Rotel – I used the original flavor of Rotel
beef broth –
water – regular ol’ sink water is fine
pasta – I used corkscrews (also called Cellentani) pasta noodles
milk – I used whole milk for the most flavor
cream cheese – I’m a brand snob, and only ever use Philadelphia brand cream cheese
Velveeta cheese – Velveeta melts great and works perfect in dishes like this

Let’s Make Chili Cheese Mac Together!

Here’s a picture tutorial to help you make your own!

Step 1: brown ground beef in a dutch oven and add seasonings

I love my Emile Henry dutch oven for these one pot meals

Step 2: Add Rotel

Step 3: Add beef broth

I added 2 cups of beef broth, but I found that I needed to add more at the end to help the noodles soften up

Step 4: Add water

Step 5: Cover and bring to a boil

Step 6: Add in noodles

Step 7: Cover again and let boil (this is when the noodles cook)

Step 8: In the meantime, in a small saucepan heat 1/4c milk

Step 9: Add cream cheese

Step 10: Add Velveeta cheese and whisk

Step 11: Once the noodles are cooked, stir in the cheese mixture

Sorry the picture is so dark, my kitchen is in extreme need of a lighting makeover!

And there you have it! Dig in!

One more selling point: Lover Boy was at one of his MBA classes while we were at the sampling so he didn’t get dinner…but when he got home that night he asked what we ate because the house smelled really good!