Southwest Pasta Dinner in a Hurry

With my life changing in the next few weeks when my guy and his little ladies move in with me, I decided I needed to create more meals in a hurry. I typically eat later at night after I wind down from the work day, but the little ladies eat pretty much right when they get home. So with my guy and I both working full time, I needed to find meals that work in a hurry that are yummy.

I have had a recipe for Southwest Pasta pinned to my The Main Event board on Pinterest. I used this as a base for my meal, but made a lot of adjustments to make the dish go farther and add more flavor.

I doubled the recipe to start and boiled an entire bag of tricolor noodles. Then I browned an entire pound of meat with 1/2 a purple onion. Then I mixed in 3/4 of a can of sloppy joe mix, a can of black beans (drained and rinsed) and a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies. I added some garlic powder and cumin.

Then I added the noodles with the rest of the sloppy joe sauce. This helps break the nood
les apart after they are sitting for a bit. And I added in 1 cup of shredded cheese.

At this point, I served myself up a bit to try. The flavor was amazing but soon the green chilies overpowered my tender taste buds and I wished I had some sour cream in the house.

Alas, I was out, but I found a package of 1/3 less fat cream cheese. I chopped up the block and mixed it into the entire dish. I knew that letting it sit would only increase the flavors so I didn’t worry if this was too much.

I added a small bit to my plateful and it turned out perfectly. I am very happy with this dish and maybe using regular diced tomatoes will help bring the heat lower for the little ladies too! But I think this dish will be something they will like. 

This entire meal took about 20 minutes to put together. Boiling the noodles and browning the meat takes the longest, the rest is just opening cans and mixing things together.