Okay, so tonight I decided to tackle this one pot macaroni cheeseburger soup I’ve been seeing around. Sounded like pure comfort, and honestly, I was looking for something easy. My kitchen’s been a bit of a warzone lately, so the “one pot” part really called to me.
Getting The Beef Going
First things first, I grabbed about a pound of ground beef. Just regular stuff, nothing fancy. I tossed it into my big Dutch oven – that thing’s a workhorse, I tell ya. Got the heat on medium-high and just started breaking it up with a spoon, letting it brown. You know, get all those nice crispy bits. Once it was mostly cooked through, I tipped the pot a bit and spooned out most of the grease. Didn’t want the soup to be an oil slick.
Building the Flavor Base
Next, I chopped up a medium onion. Nothing too precise, just a decent dice. Threw that into the pot with the beef. Let those cook for a few minutes, stirring them around until the onion started to soften up and smell amazing. Then, in went a couple of cloves of garlic, minced. I always add garlic a bit later ‘cause it can burn easily. Just a minute or so for that, until you can really smell it.
Then came the liquid. I poured in a big can of diced tomatoes, undrained. And about four cups of beef broth. For seasonings, I kept it pretty simple: a good splash of Worcestershire sauce – that stuff is magic for beefy flavor – some salt, and a generous amount of black pepper. I also threw in a teaspoon of smoked paprika, just because I like that little bit of smoky depth. Gave it all a good stir to make sure everything was mixed up.
Macaroni Time and the Cheesy Finish
I brought the whole thing up to a simmer. Once it was bubbling away gently, I poured in about two cups of elbow macaroni. Just regular dry pasta, straight from the box. Stirred it in, made sure it was mostly submerged in the liquid. Then I popped the lid on, turned the heat down to low, and let it simmer. I set a timer for about 10 minutes, but I peeked and stirred a couple of times to make sure nothing was sticking to the bottom.
After the pasta was tender – I fished one out to check – it was time for the best part: the cheese. I turned off the heat. I had a block of sharp cheddar, so I shredded up a good two cups of that. Sprinkled it into the pot, bit by bit, stirring gently until it was all melted and gooey and the soup was looking ridiculously creamy. You gotta do it off the heat, or sometimes the cheese can get weird and stringy in a not-good way.
And that was pretty much it! I ladled it into bowls. Seriously, from start to finish, it was probably under 30 minutes. The whole house smelled incredible. It was thick, cheesy, beefy, everything you want in a cheeseburger, but in soup form. Even my picky eater cleaned his bowl. Definitely making this one again. So easy, and just one pot to clean. You can’t beat that.
