Name: One-Pot Creamy Beef and Shells
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients: 1 lb ground beef; 1/2 small yellow onion, finely diced; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning; 1 tablespoon tomato paste; 2 cups beef stock; 1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce; 8 oz medium pasta shells; 1/2 cup heavy cream or half and half; 1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, grated; Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste; Note: If desired, you can swap the onion and garlic for 1 teaspoon onion powder and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder.

It’s my goal to get a home-cooked dinner on the table for my family to sit down to together at least most nights of the week. You know as well as I do that thanks to work and soccer practice and endless laundry, that dinner can really feel like a struggle sometimes, so here’s how I make it happen: I have a rotation of meals that I can make without even really having to think about them and I pepper them in throughout the month for those days when I need no-brainer dinners. They’re the ones my family likes, the ones I can cook blindfolded, the ones that come together in 30 minutes or less… like this One-Pot Creamy Beef and Shells. It’s a one-pot, 30-minute meal, but best of all, it’s something that everyone in my house loves to sit down to.

What Do You Need For Creamy Beef and Shells?

You probably have most of these things on hand! You’ll need ground beef, onion and garlic, tomato paste, Italian seasoning, some beef broth, tomato sauce, medium shell pasta, half and half or heavy cream, and some cheddar cheese.

But here’s the thing:

Don’t feel like chopping an onion? That’s fine, sub in some onion powder. Don’t have shell pasta in the pantry? That’s fine. Use some macaroni. This is meant to be easy, it’s meant to be quick, and it’s also meant to be versatile, so use what you have on hand.

How Do You Make Creamy Beef and Shells?

First things first, you need to brown up your ground beef and soften your onion. That should take just a few minutes.

Next, you’ll stir in the garlic, tomato paste, and Italian seasoning and cook it until it’s nice and fragrant, which should take just about a minute. Then, you’ll add your pasta along with the tomato sauce, beef or stock, and about a cup of water. It’ll seem a little liquidy, but not for long.

Bring things to a simmer and let that pasta cook, stirring it pretty often, until the pasta is approaching al dente. It doesn’t need to be totally soft at this point.

Then reduce the heat to low, stir in the cream (or half and half) and the cheese and turn off the heat. This part is hard: cover the pot and walk away. Wait five minutes.

Waiting is hard when it comes to cheesy, creamy, pasta, I know, but in this case it allows the pasta to fully cook through and gives the sauce a chance to thicken a bit and the cheese to melt. All good things.

And then you have a comforting meal to sit down to that you (probably) won’t hear a single complaint about! And it was done in just thirty minutes with basically no brain power. Doesn’t get better than that!