Copycat Hamburger Helper Lasagna Mix

I love lasagna but it's too much work to make it. I've been tempted by boxes of hamburger helper lasagna in the past but could never get past the scary ingredients, so I've been working on my own version for a while now. The other night I finally got it perfected!

Copycat Hamburger Helper Lasagna Mix

2 tablespoons powdered milk
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast



What else you'll need

5 lasagna noodles broken into pieces
3 cups water
1/4 cup tomato paste (about 1/3 of a can)
1 cup shredded mozzarella

Brown beef and drain. In a saucepan combine mix and water and stir well, then add beef and noodles and simmer on medium heat until sauce thickens and noodles are tender.



Stir in mozzarella until it melts, then serve. Top with Parmesan cheese if you like (I don't!). This was delicious and lasagna like and so easy but without any scary chemicals. I loved it!

Copycat cheesy beef taco hamburger helper mix

I've been busy experimenting with hamburger helper mixes the past couple months and loved this one because it's gluten free (my husband is sensitive to wheat and has been trying not to eat it lately). Instead of pasta it's made with rice and topped with corn chips.

Copycat cheesy beef taco hamburger helper mix

1 cup rice
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes
2 tablespoons powdered milk
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt



This will be quite salty. I would suggest using 1/2 teaspoon of salt if you don't like salty food.

What else you'll need

1 pound cooked ground beef
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
corn tortilla chips

Combine mix with water in a saucepan and stir well. Add in beef and simmer on medium heat until rice cooks and sauce thickens. Stir in 1 cup of the cheese and stir until it melts.



Top each serving with remaining cheese and a handful of crushed tortilla chips. I served mine with a delicious salad to balance it out.

Copycat Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper Mix

Car repairs loom on the horizon and in an attempt to save money we're eating everything in our freezer and cupboards before we buy too much more. I have a HUGE amount of ground beef in the chest freezer and am tired of every recipe I have. I considered buying some Hamburger Helper until I read the box and saw what was in it so instead I'm working on a new series of copycat mixes like...

Copycat Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper Mix

1/2 cup powdered milk
1 tablespoon corn starch
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt (use 1 teaspoon if you want it to taste like 'real' hamburger helper, which is ridiculously salty. Use 1/2 if you don't want to die of hypertension)



What else you'll need

1 pound ground beef browned
3 cups cold water
1.5 cups uncooked macaroni
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

In a saucepan combine mix with cold water and stir well. Add in macaroni and cooked beef and simmer until pasta is cooked and sauce thickens. Stir in 1 cup of cheese until it melts.



Top with 1/2 cup of cheese and serve.



This was SO delicious! It won't be so hard using up all our food if I can make things like this.

Sweet and Sour Meatball Sauce Mix

When I go to parties it's not the desserts that tempt me these days but the appetizers! I don't know where I developed this savory tooth lately but I guess it's a part of getting older. Last month I went to a my daughter's preschool Christmas party and couldn't get enough of...

Sweet and Sour Meatball Sauce Mix (single use)

1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
pinch salt

What else you'll need

1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 pound cooked meatballs

I use my meatball mix to make the meatballs. Combine mix with water, vinegar and tomato paste and stir well.

Cook or reheat meatballs in a wok or saucepan and stir in sauce. Simmer them in the sauce until the sauce starts to thicken. This can also be done in the slow cooker.

Serve them as an appetizer:

Or as part of a meal:

These are a huge hit at my house!

Burger Seasoning Mix

We totally love the meat we've been ordering for the past year and find it very delicious, but somehow the burgers don't taste very good. It's probably because the meat is so lean and we're used to fatty burgers, but it really defeats the purpose of eating organic free range meat if every time we're craving a burger we run out for fast food instead. The whole point of ordering this food was to avoid factory farmed, chemical laden meats!

In this beautiful warm fall I took on the challenge of coming up with a burger mix that would make the ground beef we order taste like fast food... and here is the result:

Burger Seasoning Mix Single Use

1/4 cup corn starch
1/4 cup bread crumbs
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

What else you'll need

1 pound ground beef
4 hamburger buns or rolls
various toppings

Combine the mix with the ground beef and form into patties, then cook them on a grill pan or BBQ.

We served ours with salad and lots of yummy toppings!

I found the biggest challenge in making a burger mix was making burgers that didn't taste like meatloaf! But we didn't mind doing a few test runs until we got a fast food tasting burger that was still made at home with organic meat.

Meatball Seasoning Mix

My husband has been asking for spaghetti and meatballs for a while now and while I've never actually made meatballs I figured they would make a good mix.

My first test run included pepper and WAY TOO MUCH garlic. This overpowered the rest of the meatball and even though my husband said they were really good I wasn't satisfied. A second test run made for much better results (he said they were both equally good).

Meatball Mix (single use)

1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 tablespoons parmesan
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
2 1/2 teaspoons dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon dried garlic flakes
1/4 teaspoon salt

What else you'll need

oil for frying
1 pound ground meat
1 jar of pasta sauce
1 pound of spaghetti noodles, cooked

Combine mix with ground meat and mix well. I used ground turkey because we had some in the freezer. Finish mixing it with your hands and form it into golf ball sized balls.

Fry the meatballs in a frying pan until they looked fully cooked.

Add the meatballs to the sauce and let it simmer for a bit while your noodles are cooking. If you don't have spaghetti sauce you can make some easily by adding spaghetti seasoning mix to a can or jar of crushed tomatoes.

Add the cooked spaghetti noodles to the sauce and toss it, then let it cook for another couple minutes. This will infuse the noodle with sauce and make it taste like it's from a really good restaurant.

Enjoy your meal! If there is any left over (and there might be, because it makes a lot) it tastes great for lunch the next day.

Chili Seasoning Mix

We've been trying to buy organic for the dirty dozen lately but it's just IMPOSSIBLE to find organic bell peppers, and I need them to make tasty foods like fajitas, spaghetti sauce and chili.

This summer I grew bell peppers in my garden so I could have some 'organic' ones to cook with and this week a squirrel knocked a semi ripe one loose (those stupid squirrels) and forced me to use it a little early. So I made... Chili!

Chili Seasoning Mix (single use)

2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon crushed oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
pinch cloves

What else you'll need

1 pound ground beef, browned or vegetarian alternative
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
3 cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 bell pepper, diced

Brown the beef and then throw all ingredients into a stock pot or slow cooker and simmer until peppers are tender.

It was very delicious and my daughter especially loved it. She kept yelling 'It's a chili!' all night.

Faux Hamburger Helper Mix

I grew up a bit of a food snob. We turned out noses down at ground beef dishes like sloppy joes and shepherd's pie. When it came to processed and semi-processed food- forget it! Which is why until last night I had never eaten anything resembling hamburger helper in my entire life.

Mixing it up has made me open to new things and I'm glad it has. Unless it's got eggs, I'm determined to try anything I can think of a mix for. I noticed some tempting looking boxes of hamburger helper on sale in the grocery store last week, but they all had MSG, which doesn't sit well with me. So....

Faux Hamburger Helper Mix (single use)

1/4 cup powdered milk
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
pinch basil
pinch oregano
pinch celery seed
pinch cayenne

What else you'll need

1 pound ground beef
375 grams (about 12 ounces) of uncooked pasta noodles
6 cups water

Brown the beef until fully cooked. Combine mix with 1 cup of the water and stir until smooth and pour into pot with beef, then add other water and noodles. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until noodles are fully tender and sauce is thick.

I've never eaten the 'real stuff' to compare it to, but my husband said and he says it's similar only better- like comparing fresh baked Mac and Cheese to Kraft Dinner. Whatever the case, I liked it quite a bit and my 2 year old daughter ate 3 plates of it. I am no longer a hamburger helper snob!

Spaghetti Seasoning Mix

My daughter is almost two and like most kids her age she LOVES pasta with tomato sauce. I used to just buy ragu, but then I read the ingredients (milk? in pasta sauce?) so now I make spaghetti seasoning mix and combine it with a can of crushed tomatoes instead and get that same ragu taste without any added dairy.

Spaghetti Seasoning Mix

1 tablespoon corn starch
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon parsley
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon rosemary
1/4 teaspoon sage

What else you'll need

1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes (or about 2 pounds fresh tomatoes)
1 pound of ground beef, browned (optional)

Combine tomatoes, beef and mix in a slow cooker and cook on low for a few hours until hot. I served mine with bow tie pasta because fun shapes taste better.

This summer when my garden starts producing too many tomatoes I plan to use this mix to make sauce out of them for the freezer instead of letting them rot on the vines like I did last year.

Gluten Free Meatloaf Mix

My husband likes classic 'comfort foods' like meatloaf, so while I've always despised such things I thought I would give it another try for his sake.

Meatloaf Mix

1 cup quick cook oats (for those with Gluten allergy use the 'safe' brands)
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
1 tablespoon mustard powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

What else you'll need

1 pound of ground beef
1 cup water

Combine mix, water and beef and stir until smooth. Shape mixture into a loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

I tried making this two ways- one with bread crumbs, milk and egg replacer (the classic way) and the other with oats, which allows you to omit the wheat, milk and egg, making it not only cheaper but hypoallergenic for those with allergies and intolerances.

Both kinds tasted exactly the same, and my husband and daughter LOVED them. I thought they were ok but I'm still not won over by meatloaf. I'll just make it once in a while when I want to butter him up.