One-Pot Vegan Hamburger Helper (Cheeseburger Pasta)

I haven't actually eaten it yet, but it smells really good! I'll write more in my review later lol EDIT: it's ok. it's not one of my favorite recipes, but it's good.

Doubled the recipe to use 1 lb pasta and added 1 8oz can of tomato sauce. Used 2 pkgs Trader Joe's beef less ground.

I used Beyond Beef ground "meat" and added some wine, bay leaves, and a big heaping 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast to bump up umami flavor.

By far one of the weirdest recipes that I made. I kept the noodles and beef separate. Beef portion: Pretty easy and quick, I didn’t have to do any draining. But after I added the cornstarch, I felt like the seasoning wasn’t being properly dispersed, so I took some of the pasta liquid and cooked it off. Overall, beef portion is easy and great to modify Now the noodles, maybe it was the cheese, but it turned into just noodles and cheese, there wasn’t any magical creaminess. And honestly, the recipe doesn’t need the noodles. I did modify the recipe; I used one whole onion and a shallot, but this recipe needs more vegetables. Luckily it’s easy to change it up and modify it. Try it if you’re in a rush, exclude the noodles if you want.

This stuff is really good on its own, but it definitely needs more veggies. My favorite add ins are tomatoes, spinach/kale, mushrooms, and bell peppers. If you want this to taste more like the non vegan ranch burger version, add in some vegan mayo, dried dill, and onion powder.

This was great! Creamy and filling, and made WAY more than we expected, two servings for both of us and still easily half left over. Our Kroger only had Beyond, I usually go for Impossible, and I think next time I'll be holding out for it because the Beyond just doesn't brown as well and has a distinct flavor I'm not a fan of. We didn't measure the cheese, we used half a bag of Simple Truth cheddar-style shreds for the flavor, and half a bag of Chao shreds for the melt, but that makes the cheese cost about $10. The Simple Truth solo would probably be just fine. The chili powder has a noticable heat but not overwhelmingly so, it's just right. All in all, super easy and quick, took less than 30 minutes from start of chopping to eating, and the whole thing fit perfectly into a 12" nonstick deep saute pan. We did the additional step of using the tomato sauce, and used Better Than Bouillon vegetable base for our broth.