Vegan Hamburger Helper with Homemade Cashew Free Cheese

If you’re an 80’s kid, like me, and you grew up in the States, you most definitely experienced Hamburger Helper as a part of your childhood. My mother went back to nursing school the same year that I went to kindergarten and when my brother was just out of diapers so needless to say, she was juggling a lot. I guess it goes without saying that we had a lot of “boxed” meals growing up. This recipe is all the nostalgia of those family dinners without any of the meat or dairy!

If I’m honest, I was a little hesitant to post this as a recipe because it wasn’t one that I carefully sat down and planned out. Truth is, I was under the weather last week and wanted comfort food. This was thrown together with a lot of odds and ends but when I posted it on IG last week everyone went a little crazy, so here we are! Hope that you all enjoy.

What you are going to need to buy:

Pasta, I used orecchiette because I had it on hand but an small noodle will work. I do like this shape because they are like little noodle bowls for the sauce!

Your favorite plant-based ground meat - (I used the ground from Impossible Foods)

Small Sweet Onion, diced

Minced Garlic - (like this jarred options from Spice World!)

1/2 cup Vegetable Stock - Or half a cup of water and a veggie cube

Butter - (We love THIS ONE from Earth Balance)

Salt & Pepper

Liquid Smoke

Homemade Vegan Cheese Sauce! (Find that recipe HERE!)

What you are going to need to do:

To start, let’s make the sauce!

I make this cheese sauce every month or so and have it in the fridge to throw into all kinds of things, which is just exactly what happened with this recipe! Hope on over and make it! Will you have some left over? Yep. Is that a bad thing? Nope!

GO TO THE CHEESE SAUCE RECIPE HERE

Welcome back!

The rest is pretty easy.

In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, begin to cook down your plant-based meat, along with the diced onion. Once you put them in the pan try not to stir or move them around too much because you want to get some good color/char on the meat.

After about 1-2 minutes stir the mixture and add a tablespoon of dairy free butter, a tablespoon (or more if that’s your thing…) of minced garlic, a pinch of salt and pepper, 8-10 dashes of liquid smoke and continue to cook until the meat is done and the onions are nice and soft.

While the meat and onions cook, bring a pot of salted water to boil on the stove and when it’s ready, drop 4 servings of your pasta (follow the box directions for portions and cook time.)

Next, add your veggie stock to the meat and onions and using a wooden spoon, scrape up any of the little bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan! This is where all the flavor is hiding!

Add in 1 cup of your cheese sauce and stir to combine.

A note about the cheese sauce: If you make the cheese sauce ahead of time, and I hope that you do because it stays good in the fridge for weeks…it will solidify a bit. It’s much easier to “melt” it back into your Hamburger helper if it’s runny so you can just scoop out what you need and toss it into the microwave for 10-20 seconds, stir, and that should do the trick!

Drain pasta, but save 1 cup of pasta water.

Add the pasta to the cheesy/meat mixture and stir to combine. If the dish is too dry and not all that “creamy” slowly add the pasta water to thin the mixture and help the sauce emulsify. You may not use all the water and that’s okay because if you get it too runny then you’ll need to cook it longer and let some of that liquid evaporate.

Taste for seasoning. Add salt, pepper, if necessary.

I like to top mine with fresh herbs to serve. Either thyme or rosemary work really well!

Enjoy!