Hey y’all!! I’m back with a simple meal from my childhood that can be prepped, cooked, and served in under 30 minutes!! The recipe is literally the simplest thing ever, you do not need a lot of ingredients, and it cooks fast which is a huge plus if youre pretty busy.
The recipe I’m sharing today is known as the famous Goulash! My Mammaw used to make this recipe ALL of the time and then when I was a kid, my mom would make it for my brothers and myself as well. It takes maybe about 20-30 minutes if that and you are bound to have some leftovers, so it is definitely a win win situation.
Here is what you will need for this recipe:
Velvetta Cheese, 1-2 cans of Rotel, an onion, a jalepeno, elbow noodles, some ground beef (I used the 15% fat), and some sour cream! I like to get both hot and original rotel because I love spicy food and Fred doesn’t so I can do half and half of each can or just use both cans depending on the amount of ingredients I am using at the time. I also got a cheese grater from the dollar store this past weekend, so I felt like it was the perfect time to be super extra and grate the velvetta lol. That is all the ingredients that you will need for this meal, so lets move on to the prep part!
So to start you will need a pot to boil the water in so that you can cook your noodles later on in the meal. I like to add salt to my water that is being boiled and then I typically turn the burner up just to ensure that the water will come to a boil a bit faster.
After you get your water started on the boiling process, then you can start cooking the ground beef. I like to just use my small pan because it is always the perfect size for this one lb. of ground beef. Before I add my meat to my pan, I just rinse it off to make sure it’s all good before we start to cook. Once it is rinsed, then I throw it in my small pan, turn my burner on about low medium – medium, and let the cooking process begin. Since the ground beef is just starting to cook, this is typically the perfect time to cut up your onions and jalepeno. I just used not even half of the onion and just diced them up into small pieces and then repeated the same steps with the Jalepeno. After everything is diced, you will want to throw half of the onions and peppers into the ground beef to let the flavors cook into your meat. Make sure to keep your burner on low medium – medium because you do not want the meat to cook too fast.
While the meat is cooking, your water should be boiling at this point and then you can add in your noodles. Since it was just Fred and I eating I only used half of the box, but if you have a family of four or more I reccommend using the entire box. After you drop the noodles in, you can sprinkle in a little more salt and just occassionaly stir the noodles to make sure that they do not stick to the bottom of the pan.
At this point, your meat should be done and you can move on to the next step. The next step honestly isn’t much, but it does require you to drain the meat just so that you can go ahead and season the meat while you wait for the noodles to finish up. After the meat is drained, then you will want to season the meat, but not too heavy because there will be a lot of flavors incorporated in it once its done. I usually use some black pepper, some lawrys, and some garlic powder to give it some flavor and it honestly tastes delicious just like that lol. I know I’m weird for thinking ground beef is good just by itself, but it is!! When I was kid I would literally just warm up the leftover ground beef and then sprinkle some cheese on it and be good to go lol but don’t judge me for it!! Lol anyway, after you season the meat then you can just leave it to the side while you wait for the noodles to finish up.
If you need more ground beef ideas, click this picture to see another recipe I made with it!
Once the noodles are done, then you will want to drain the water out and then place the noodles in the same pot they were just cooked in. Once you have the noodles back in the pot, then you will want to add the other half of your onions and jalepeno. You definitely do not have to put the pepper in it if you don’t like hot food, but if you do then go ahead and throw it in because it will give it a real nice flavor. After you add in the onion mix, then you will want to throw the rest of the ingredients in. It truly does not matter what order you put the ingredients in because they will all be getting mixed together anyway! I did add in the onions and sour cream before the cheese just so that I could make sure it was all evenly distributed.
After I added the onions and sour cream, then I truly threw in the rest of the ingredients. I grated the velvetta with my dollar store cheese grater (it works like a charm for only being $1!!), added in both cans of rotel, and then added in my ground beef. (Sidenote: If you don’t have a cheese grater that is totally fine because you can just cut the cheese into little baby blocks to help it melt faster!) Once everything was all in the pan, then I turned my burner on low and just stirred all the ingredients until all of the cheese was melted and everything was warmed back up. After everything is melted, go back to your seasoning and add in a little more. I usually just use the lawrys and black pepper once evrerything is done and it is good to go!!
Yepp, that is literally all it takes to make this delicious and super quick meal! When you really think about it, I guess it could be like a Homemade Hamburger Helper if you truly think about it. Anywho, I hope you all enjoy one of my favorite meals and let me know how you like it!! If you ever cook one of my recipes, let me know by posting #SimplyMadisynnRecipes ! I love seeing y’all utilize my simple recipes, so don’t be shy y’all!! Thank you so much for stopping by to check out another Simple Recipe, your support is always appreciated. Have a wonderful day and see y’all back here soon for another Simple Recipe!