Healthy Hamburger Helper
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Ditch the box and make our healthy Hamburger Helper recipe for dinner instead! It’s a one-pot lean ground beef pasta dinner that’s a family favorite comfort food!
If you love easy one pan dinner recipes and crave the comfort foods you grew up with, this healthy Hamburger Helper is for you!
Many of us grew up eating the delicious cheesy pasta dish, but I’m here to tell you it’s so much better when you make it from scratch!
Ready to eat in less than 30 minutes, this cheesy hamburger helper is the perfect quick dinner that everyone will love!
One pan, 30 minutes, simple ingredients.. there’s a lot to love about this easy hamburger helper recipe. But maybe you’re wondering, what’s the difference between store bought and this homemade hamburger helper recipe?
What Makes This a Healthy Hamburger Helper?
- A lot less sodium. When you make it from a boxed mix, 1 cup of cooked hamburger helper has over 1200 mg of sodium! Our healthy hamburger helper recipe has less than 400 mg of sodium for a 1.5 cup serving.
- No preservatives. The store-bought version is loaded with preservatives, added colors, and anti-caking agents. While these aren’t bad in small quantities, they’re totally unnecessary.
- Better for you – Our recipe calls for lean ground beef, pasta, some spices and real cheese, unlike the packaged mix that includes powdered cheese and preservatives.
Ingredients
Substitutions
Pasta: For pasta you can use rotini, penne or medium shells (cook time is all similar). We don’t recommend gluten free pasta for this recipe.
Ground Beef: To ensure that this recipe is truly a healthy hamburger helper, we recommend using 85% lean ground beef or ground turkey.
Worcestershire sauce: To substitute 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire, use 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce or ketchup, and 1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar.
Salt: You can cut the amount of salt in half if you’d like, then add more to taste.
Beef Broth: We recommend using homemade bone broth in this recipe but any broth will work. Chicken or vegetable broth/stock can be used interchangeably. We recommend using a low or no salt broth.
Cheddar Cheese: You can omit the cheese from this recipe to make it dairy free if you’d like. We haven’t tried this recipe with other types of cheeses. We recommend using a block of cheddar cheese and grating it yourself as pre-shredded cheeses don’t melt as well.
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How to Make Homemade Hamburger Helper
- Heat skillet over medium-high heat. Spray the pan with cooking spray. Brown ground beef and onion in the pan until cooked through-about 10 minutes.
- Add in the seasonings, pasta, broth and water. Stir and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally for 12-14 minutes.
- Move the pan off the heat and stir in the shredded cheese.
- Once combined, serve and enjoy!
What to add to Hamburger Helper
This healthy hamburger helper is delicious on its own, but you can add other things the ground beef pasta to make it taste even better. Here are some suggestions:
- Pickles: Similar to adding pickles to a burger, they are delicious in this dinner, too!
- Veggies: You can add sautéed veggies to this recipe. Zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and bell peppers are all great additions to this recipe
- Cheese: You can never go wrong with extra shredded cheese!
- Hot Sauce or Red Pepper Flakes: If you like spicy pasta, stir in a splash of hot sauce, or add a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes.
Hamburger Helper Recipe FAQs
We don’t recommend using gluten free pasta for this recipe. With one pot ground beef pasta dishes like this, gluten free noodles tend to become very mushy. Use at your own risk!
Serving Suggestions
This healthy hamburger helper is a great meal on its own, but we like to serve it with bread on the side and freshly shredded parmesan cheese on top!
If you’re looking for some veggies to serve with it, here are a few healthy options:
Storage and Reheating
Keep any leftovers in a covered container in your fridge, and use them up within 3 days.
Freezing: We haven’t tried freezing this meal, and we don’t recommend it. When you freeze and thaw cooked pasta, it often ends up in a mushy mess!
Reheating: You can reheat hamburger helper at 80% power in the microwave for a couple of minutes, or in a sauce pan over medium heat on the stove top. We recommend adding a couple of tablespoons of broth or water to prevent the ground beef and pasta from drying out.
Other healthy one-pan recipes
Here are some of our other favorite dinner recipes that only require one pan. Click here to grab our free healthy 30 minute dinners cookbook.
Healthy Hamburger Helper
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- ½ cup finely chopped onion
- 3 cups dry rotini pasta sub penne or medium shells (10 oz)
- 2 cups beef broth
- 2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 ½ teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Heat a large saucepan or pot over medium-high heat. Spray the pan with olive oil cooking spray.
- Brown the ground beef and onion in the pan for about 10 minutes, until the beef is completely cooked and onions are translucent.
- Add in the pasta, beef broth, water, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, garlic powder, chili powder, onion powder, paprika, black pepper and salt. Stir together, cover the pan and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, remove the cover and reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally for 12-14 minutes or until pasta is done and liquid is mostly reduced.
- Move the pan off the heat and add in the shredded cheese. Stir until combined.
This Hamburger Helper was so tasty and easy to make. My husband really liked it as well. Next time, i will probably add some red bell pepper and mushrooms. Looking forward to making more of your receipes.
My husband and my step son love this! It’s one of my go-to recipes when I don’t know what to make. I usually have all the ingredients on hand and I know they will be excited when I tell them I’m making it 😊
My whole family loves this recipe. It’s so easy and delicious.
This is the perfect hamburger helper recipe. I have tried a few homemade versions and the clean eating couple have the best. ❤️
I love this recipe! Super easy weeknight meal that the whole family loves. I always use ground turkey and chicken broth instead of beef and it still turns out great. Thanks for all your easy recipes!!
I grew up on box hamburger helper. It’s nostalgic! I have not really made it for my kids because we try and cook with more Whole Foods. When we tried this, omg, it hit the spot!! So so good !! Cheesy and delicious.
So so yummy! Definitely a saved and added to the rotation kind of meal for our family!
This was so good and easy to make. Our family has always loved the traditional Hamburger Helper, but its not good for you. This recipe hit all the feels of comfort food, all while being good for our bodies. Thank you for sharing all your delicious recipes.
So delicious! Flavors come together beautifully. I added a bell pepper and made it in my instant pot! Will do it again!
This dish is one of favorite meals. It is so flavorful, quick and easy. Easy to sub out ingredients if you don’t have the exact item. The whole family loves it, we probably eat it once a week. So so good !!
That makes me so happy to hear, Katie! Thank you so much!
My husband and stepson both LOVE this! They were used to the brand name, which I refuse to make. I am happy to make this one, though. Thank you!
I’m so glad everyone enjoys it, Heather! thank you!!
So tasty and easy to make! Both my husband and toddler enjoyed it.
This did NOT thicken for me at all – even after the pasta was done (I waited for 30 minutes). I’ll try less liquid next time – I feel like 4 cups total (2 each of broth and water) was a bit much.
I’m wondering if you possibly added more liquid? This recipe has over 125 5 star reviews and we make this almost weekly and have never had this issue. Did you use a different pasta shape? Or gluten free pasta?
I was very careful and measured out exactly two cups each of the broth and water. I used farfalle pasta, which I believe has the same cooking time as the other options. I’m aware that this recipe had a perfect rating, so maybe I did mess up something along the way, but I thought I’d share my experience just in case.
Rotini cook in a little less time than farfalle. I’m wondering if that could’ve been the issue? Very weird!
I wonder if she removed the lid after it came to a boil so the liquid could reduce/evaporate during the simmering stage?
It was a very quick easy recipe to make. I used it for a meal prep so I had lunch ready for the next few days.
I have celiac disease so we substituted regular pasta with Jovial GF and it was AMAZING. Even my actual hamburger helper eating husband loved it. Sooooo easy and delicious.
Easy, healthy and delicious dinner with 40 grams of protein per serving. It’s on my rotation list
This recipe is super easy and absolutely delicious! My family loved it!
This recipe is so delicious and easy to prepare. My family absolutely loved it. I will definitely be adding this into my meal rotation.
This is seriously the easiest and tastiest quick meal I’ve ever made from your site! My picky 2 year old doesn’t eat much healthy foods but he devoured this and had a helping of seconds each time! This single recipe lasted me several days and I’m so grateful to not have to cook each day. Thank you!!
My family loves when I make this. I have to substitute some things due to food allergies but it still comes out fantastic. I use chickpea shells pasta, coconut aminos instead of Worcestershire sauce, vegan cheese (viola brand), and some ground turkey. Thanks for the great easy recipe!
This is hands down a favourite in our household , easy , healthy , and fast !
Super good! I added red pepper flakes to my bowl for an extra kick!
Top of the line recipe.
Love this easy to make and tasty recipe and so do my picky teenagers. It’s a go to meal that everyone in the family enjoys.
This is the best Hamburger Helper recipe on the internet ! Delicious 😋