Monday Meals: One Pot Turkey Chilli Cheese Mac

So, shall we talk about food?

I like cooking, but I don't have time to cook. I try to eat healthy, but I love junk food. I love fancy food, but I'm really freaking lazy.

You can see the issue here, right?

So I've kind of come up with a ton of meals that are easy to cook, tasty, not too bad for you, and that I make in bulk and freeze, or have for lunch later in the week too. 

Enter stage left, the One Pot Turkey Chilli Cheese Mac. Not the catchiest name I know, but it sums it up quite perfectly. It combines three of my favourite loves, Chilli, pasta and cheese. Good stuff.

The real appeal of this is that it can all be cooked in one pot (as the name would suggests) which means less washing up. Bonus.

There's no specific recipe for this, it's kind of a fly by the seat of your pants sorta dish (NEVER understood that phrase), which is a good thing, cause it means you can kind of add whatever you like/fancy/have in the house!

Essentially you need a GIANT pan, and start by frying off onions and mince, I like to use turkey for this recipe since it's lower in fat and somewhat healthier, but you can use beef or lamb too. Once all the meat is cooked, you want to add a BUNCH of liquid, because you're gonna cook the pasta in it. I generally like to use one tin of chopped tomatoes, one box of passata, a good old glug of red wine, and about 300ml of beef stock. Add in herbs & spices as you like, I normally use basil, oregano, cumin, coriander and hot chilli powder. At this point I like to add a random assortment of sauces too, usually barbecue, chipotle hot sauce and some worcester sauce too. Then add your fresh chilli peppers to taste, I like mine spicy so I add two or three whole chillis!

At this point you should have a TON of liquid! Then you want to add in your beans of choice (I love butter beans in this but kidney beans work well too) and pasta. I've tried this with normal pasta, wholewheat pasta and gluten free pasta, and it all works really well. I do generally make it with gluten free cause I find it less bloating, but it's totally personal preference!

Then all you do is give it a good stir, and leave it to simmer on a medium heat for around thirty minutes if you like it slightly al dente, or 40 if you prefer soft pasta! 

At this point all that is left to do is add a BUTTLOAD of cheese to cover it, and I like to add some fresh Coriander too! And serve!

This keeps really well in the fridge and freezes well, it's incredibly filling and it's tasty too!