Jumping on the Creamy Taco Mac bandwagon

Choo-Choo!!

I've seen this recipe posted on a couple of blogs that I follow and it's being posted about on the message board that I'm on.

At first I ignored the buzz. Creamy Taco Mac?? What's that?

But the buzzing continued. Creamy Taco Mac..could it really be that good?

Then the buzzing became so loud that I could no longer ignore it. I was going to post on my message board and ask for the recipe but lucky for me I saw it in my Google Reader. Juliann's Easy Eats blogged about it. She got the recipe from Lauren's Kitchen which is another blog that I follow. And Lauren got the recipe from...well, you get the point.

I was worried that the recipe wouldn't live up to the hype surrounding it. But it did. It so did.

I doubled the recipe. To see my adjustments go to My Verdict underneath the original recipe.




Creamy Taco Mac

Ingredients

• 1.25 lbs ground turkey
• 1/2 onion, chopped
  
• 8 oz dry pasta + 1 cup reserved pasta water
• 1 16oz jar of salsa
  
• 4 Tbsp mild taco seasoning
• 3 oz cream cheese
  
• 1/2 cup sour cream
  
• salt & pepper
• 1 cup shredded Mexican cheese, plus more for garnish
  

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook pasta per directions. Reserve one cup of pasta water.

Over medium heat, brown ground turkey until no longer pink. Add onion and cook 5 minutes. Add taco seasoning and salsa. Allow to simmer over low heat for 5 minutes. Add cooked pasta, reserved water, cream cheese, sour cream, and shredded cheese. Give it a good stir until cheeses are melty and incorporated. Simmer over low heat for 2-3 minutes. Season with salt & pepper, as desired. Top off with cheddar cheese for extra cheesy goodness.

My verdict: So freaking good!!! I doubled the recipe above. I used an entire box of pasta. This really does make a HUGE amount of food. I was a bit skeptical that half a box would be enough for all of us and we ended up having my brother and stepdaughter over for dinner and we still had leftovers. I only slightly increased the amount of meat above. I used 1 1/2 lbs of ground beef because that's what I had. I thought it was plenty of meat for this dish. I used 2 16oz jars of mild salsa, an entire envelope of taco seasoning, a whole medium onion, an 8 oz container of sour cream and the whole 8 oz tub of cream cheese. YUM, YUM, YUM!!

*In case you actually have some leftover, keep some of that pasta water to reheat on your stove top and your leftovers will be creamy and delicious.