Cheeseburger Macaroni… A One-pot Meal
This easy homemade venison cheeseburger macaroni recipe will quickly become one of your regular meals that your whole family will love. It tastes a lot better than the boxed version, and doesn’t have all of the preservatives found in a box of Hamburger Helper. This homemade copycat version is still a one-pot meal, and the easy cleanup makes my favorite dinners even better.
Ingredients
You’ll need a large skillet (I use my cast iron dutch oven, Amazon affiliate link), ground venison, taco seasoning (recipe link), tomatoes (you can use Rotel if you like a little spice), beef broth, elbow macaroni, cheese, milk, flour, and butter (for the cheese sauce). As you can see, the ingredients list is small, so you can easily replace this recipe with the boxed stuff. After trying this recipe, I can guarantee that you will never buy another box of Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Mac!
Hunting Harvest Recipes
There are some benefits to making this recipe with ground game meat, and we use deer meat since my family is blessed with the opportunity to hunt deer every year. Elk meat would also work well, and you could add beef broth to the ground venison while it cooks if it tastes a bit too gamey (or has been sitting in your freezer for over a year). You can read more about the health benefits of wild game meat in this article. We have the locker add 30% ground beef to our ground deer meat, just to give it some versatility for venison burgers (straight deer burgers don’t have enough fat, and are very dry).
Nutrient-packed Beef Broth
Adding a couple of cups of beef broth will also help increase your daily value of nutritional intake. The grocery store sells a variety of beef stock and broth, however I prefer to make my own homemade beef broth (this is one of my pantry staples). I would make venison broth, however we take our deer to the locker and do not have the bones to make the nutritious broth. So, for now I make the homemade version of Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper using beef broth.
Even My Picky Eaters Like This Recipe
If you have a picky eater in your family (or have little kids), I promise this cheesy homemade Hamburger Helper recipe will quickly become a family favorite. My family often fights for the leftovers to take for lunch the next day! This is one of the most popular recipes in my house, and I love how the ingredient list is healthy. The best part is that the recipe is quite forgiving, and you do not need to be a good cook or spend a long time in the kitchen for this recipe to taste delicious!
If you like this recipe, you might like:
- Venison Sloppy Joes
- Venison Burgers
- Venison Pot Pie
- Venison Roast
- Venison Stew
- Venison Salisbury Steak and Gravy
- Venison Lumpia Recipe (Filipino egg rolls)
- Venison Shepherd’s Pie
- Venison Breakfast Sausage Recipe
- Venison Sausage Gravy and Biscuits
- Venison Breakfast Skillet
- Ground Venison Soup
- Venison Tater Tot Casserole
- Venison Stroganoff
- Venison Chili
- Venison Tacos
- Venison Cheeseburger Macaroni
Easy Venison Cheeseburger Macaroni
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground venison
- 1 package taco seasoning
- 10 oz can tomatoes (fresh tomatoes are also great, can use Rotel for added spice)
- 3 cups beef broth
- 1½ cups elbow macaroni
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 2 Tbsp flour
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 cup shredded cheese
Instructions
- Brown ground venison1 pound ground venison
- Add taco seasoning, and stir into the cooked ground venison1 package taco seasoning
- Add tomatoes, beef broth, and macaroni, boil covered until noodles are cooked10 oz can tomatoes, 3 cups beef broth, 1½ cups elbow macaroni
- While macaroni is cooking, make the cheese sauce:
- Melt butter in a separate pan (I use a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup)2 Tbsp butter
- Stir in flour, making a paste2 Tbsp flour
- Slowly add milk while stirring, thinning the paste¾ cup milk
- Once macaroni is cooked, add milk and flour mixture and cheese to the pan1 cup shredded cheese
- Cook an addition few minutes, until cheese melts, and cheese sauce thickens
- If you liked this recipe, please rate at the bottom of the page, thank you!
Great recipe!
This recipe is really simple, and tastes great! I make this in my 12” cast iron for lunch meal prep because of the versatility and protein.
I recommend sautéing diced mushrooms and garlic right after the meat is browned to give it some extra depth. I also used a can of fire roasted tomatoes which turned out well. And you can never go wrong with more cheese!
I made this recipe on my son’s birthday. He turned 18.
He chose this as his birthday meal.
He loves it.!!!
Thank you for this simple and easy meal recipe. I appreciate you.
Awesome! Happy birthday to him!