Light Turkey Chili Mac and Cheese

This recipe does NOT taste healthy. It tastes like a big plate of chili cheese fries. Surprisingly, I would definitely consider this a light meal. It uses whole wheat pasta, 2% milk, ground turkey, and reduced fat cheese. It’s not exactly a salad, but it definitely doesn’t break your calorie bank. Its about 480 calories for each very sizable serving.

These are my favorite meals to make. I love taking unhealthy, rich, heavy meals and lightening them up so you can eat them guilt free! We paired this with a super simple salad and called it a day!

So, you start by making the turkey chili (which has a super secret ingredient that provides depth and complexity). Throw your ground turkey into a big pot over medium high heat and break up the meat. As the turkey is browning, chop up your onion and garlic. Add the vegetables into the pot with the turkey and cook for a few minutes until the onions begin to look translucent.

Yum. This is such a simple chili recipe. It really just has four main ingredients plus the spices. And it is sooo yummy and healthy!

So! Once your onions have cooked down a little bit, add your cumin, chili pepper, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Stir this around and let your spices brown for a minute or so. Then add in your tomato paste.

I always buy the tomato paste that comes in the bottle that looks like a tube of toothpaste. This is the brand I always buy at my grocery store. It’s so convenient because in most of the recipes I make, I only need a little bit of tomato paste, and I hate wasting that entire can just for a spoonful of the stuff.

Stir the tomato paste into the turkey and veggie mixture and let it cook for a few more minutes.

Turn your heat down to medium and add the two cans of diced tomatoes and the water. Take your wooden spoon and scrape all the brown bits off the bottom of the pot from where the the turkey, veggies, and spices stuck. That stuff is pure flavor!

Bring the chili to a boil, and then turn the heat down and let it simmer, covered, for thirty minutes.

Peak under the lid and stir the chili occasionally :).

Meanwhile, as the chili is cooking, we are going to make the MOST delicious cheese sauce ever!

The cheese sauce starts with a roux. A roux is a super simple thickening agent that is made up of one part fat and one part flour. In this case, we are going to use butter for our fat. So melt three tablespoons of butter in large pan, and add three tablespoons of flour once it is melted.

(I added a third tablespoon of butter and flour after I took this picture)

Whisk the butter and flour together until it forms a thin paste.

The roux needs to cook for a minute or two before adding the milk so the flour taste can cook out.

Now we add the 2% milk! Bring the sauce to a simmer and cook until it has thickened.

Take the sauce off the heat (make sure you do or the cheese will become grainy!!) and add your cheese, salt, and pepper!

If you don’t want to buy aged gouda, you can just use cheddar instead, or any other cheese you have really.

Stir in your cheese and watch it slowly melt into the sauce…yum.

Just give me a spoon and I’ll call this a meal… :)

Once your chili has simmered for 30 minutes, take off the lid, add the pasta and simmer/boil for about eight minutes, or until the macaroni is just about cooked, but not quite.

Why not just cook the macaroni separately in water, you may ask? For two reasons:

1. The chili flavor soaks into the macaroni, giving it that much more flavor.

2. The starch from the pasta thicken the chili and gives it the perfect consistency.

NOW for the secret ingredient.

Coco powder.

If you don’t believe me, try a spoonful of the chili before adding the coco power and then after adding it. You will be able to tell the difference. Before adding the coco powder, the chili is tasty, but it needs something. It doesn’t have enough depth and complexity of flavor. If you are going to make chili in 30 minutes, you need to add something that will give you the flavor of cooking it for hours. Coco powder! Don’t skip this step! It is important!

Now that all of your components are ready to go, put the chili macaroni into a big bowl and add the delicious, thick, creamy cheese sauce. Stir it a few times and add the whole thing to a 9×13 pan. I ended having about a cup that wouldn’t fit without spilling over the top. I saved mine and ate it later….or maybe I ate it then….but either way, you might have a little left over. Eat it, throw it away, save it, whatever.

Top it off with the remaining half cup of cheddar cheese.

Yum…

Yummmmmmmm…

Okay, that was the last one. I promise.

Put the Chili Mac and Cheese into a 350 degree oven and bake for twenty minutes!

Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let it sit for another twenty or so minutes so that it doesn’t ooze everywhere when you serve it. Or don’t wait…it will taste the same either way. Which is delicious.

Slice and serve!

Here is the recipe:

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