Paula Deen's Goulash - Delish!

 

If this isn’t comfort food then I don’t know what is! Paula Deen can cook! People might want to make fun of her for her love of butter and saying y’all, but Y’ALL, that woman has some mighty fine recipes! And believe it or not, they don’t all contain a stick of butter. This one doesn’t and I made a little healthier version by using ground turkey instead of beef. You can use which ever floats your boat.  The name “goulash” doesn’t sound very appealing, but you can get passed that like I did. I ran across this recipe while I was looking for something else and the picture stopped me in my tracks. It looked so delicious….and boy was it ever! As I started reading the recipe I may have started drooling a little bit. I love every ingredient in this recipe, how could I not try it? Clearly that was going to be impossible. The day I found the recipe, I made it. My husband just keep saying, “this is so good”, “this is really good”, “this is so flavorful”.  Well he’s right. This recipe is so delicious and full of so much flavor. Now we are a bit of sissy’s on the hot sauce category so I backed ours down a bit. I read the reviews and a lot of people said it was too hot for them. You could start with 1 Tablespoon and add a little more after it cooks and you can taste it. Remember, you can add hot sauce as you go, but you can’t take it out. This makes such a huge recipe, I’d hate for you to ruin it all by making it too hot…..season with caution. Now let’s get started on this bad boy so you can make it tonight too!

 

Ingredients:

·         1 tablespoon olive oil

·         2 lbs lean ground beef or ground turkey

·         1 large Vidalia onion, chopped

·         1 red bell pepper, chopped

·         4 cloves garlic, chopped

·         3 cups water

·         1 (29 oz) can tomato sauce

·         2 (14.5 oz) cans fire roasted tomatoes

·         2 teaspoons dried basil

·         2 teaspoons dried oregano

·         3 tablespoons Paula Deen Hot Sauce – I cut this back to 1 tablespoon

·         1 teaspoon garlic powder

·         2 cups elbow macaroni (uncooked)

·         kosher salt, to taste

·         black pepper, to taste

·         parsely, to taste

 

Directions:

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add the beef, and brown for 10 minutes, breaking up with the back of your wooden spoon as you stir. Add the onion and bell pepper and continue to cook, while stirring, until tender, about 5 minutes.

 

Add all the remaining ingredients, except the macaroni, and cover with a lid, and simmer for 20 minutes. At this point I started second guessing my pot choice. Not so sure 3 cups of water and pasta will fit in here. Hmmmm.....what to do???

 

Stir in the macaroni, cover with the lid, and simmer for another 30 minutes. Let's pretend you don't notice that I had to get my husband to help me pour everything into a larger pot.

 

Let mixture stand for 20 minutes before serving. Try to be patient. This is a good time to make some cheddar biscuits or garlic bread. You definitely need bread with this comfort meal. Garnish with parsley.

 

Come on, how delicious is this looking??

Enjoy one bowl, then go back for seconds…..like we did. I hope y’all enjoy this as much as we did. I think you will.