Who loves Gilmore Girls? My friend Melissa and I are cooking our way through the entire series of Gilmore Girls, one Friday Night Dinner at a time. Be sure to check out her delish recipes, too, at Simply Whisked.
Okay, can you name the infamous episode of GG with the Beef-a-roni? It’s from the Season 2 opener “Sadie, Sadie” where everyone is waiting for Lorelai to answer Max’s propsal…also Dean went to Friday dinner with Rory to meet the Grandparents. Emily made beef-a-roni and the dinner was a disaster. Such a great episode!
Anyway, back to the recipe. This beef-a-roni is a great weeknight meal. The girls had third helpings and we still had some left. As the week went on, these leftovers got even better. No boiling water is needed for this–everything is made in the same pot. Amen, right?
I also wanted to kick up the meal by including plenty of veggies. Lately, I’ve been adding shredded carrots to all of my tomato sauces. It adds a little bit of sweetness to the sauce.
No boiling water here! This One-pot Beef-a-roni is a great family friendly meal for the weeknight...or Friday Night Dinner.
- 1 red bell pepper chopped
- 2 carrots grated
- ½ cup onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1.25 lbs ground beef
- 2 cups beef stock I use 3 beef cubes, plus water
- 1 cup milk
- 2 cups Italian cheese divided
- 1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 1 pound mini ziti noodles
- 1 jar pasta sauce
- 1 Tablespoon pesto
- Salt and Pepper, to taste
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Heat a large pot over medium high. Add 1 tablespoon oil and heat 1 minute.
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Add onion, garlic, red bell pepper and carrots. Stir and cook for 3 minutes.
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Add beef and crumble with a flat spatula or spoon. Cook until no longer pink. Season with S&P, plus Italian seasoning.
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Add beef stock and milk, then pour in noodles.
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Cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
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Add 1 cup cheese and jar of pasta sauce. Stir and cover for 3 minutes.
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Add pesto and final cup of cheese. Stir.
The mini ziti noodles are perfect for this since they’re longer than elbow noodles, but feel free to use any short cut pasta. Or, as Gabby says, tubey noodles. I found the mini ziti noodles at Meijer…they’re $1 this week! Ground turkey would be a great substitution for the beef, if you’d like to lighten it up.
Are you obsessed with one-pot meals like we are? What’s your favorite Gilmore Girls recipe?
This looks incredible!
This looks really good. Will try this next Friday since we’re having a get-together. I am so excited to try this.
Hi, I want to try this recipe. Is this a Weight Watchers recipe? If so how many points does it have ?
Hi Catherine! This isn’t specifically a WW recipe, but it would be pretty easy to track the points. I would guess around 10 points per serving, less if you use a leaner cut of beef (I used 80/20) or ground turkey. Usually the pasta sauce has 1 point, 1/2 cup cooked pasta about 4 points and 4=5 points for the protein and cheese. I hope that helps a bit. When I make recipes, I upload them to my Weight Watchers app and save–it’s a pain at first, but then next time you make the recipe you can just track it.
What do you use for “Italian cheese”? Is this shredded Italian blend cheese? Shredded Parmesan?