Chili Mac

Nothing special about this dish.  It was easy and quick to make.  Makes for a nice weeknight meal.

Sadly this was nothing like I hoped it would be, when made exactly according to recipe. Others have commented on its odd flavor or lack of flavor. I found it had flavor, just the wrong kind. It's the smoked paprika that really throws things off. If you want to try it I suggest halving the recipe, as it makes two casseroles. If you like it, go for it and make the whole thing next time. I'll go back to my Steak-N-Shake chili 5-way recipe, which is how chili mac should taste. 

I only subbed 2 ingredients. I ran out of cumin, so I replaced with chili powder. I didn't have ancho chili powder, so I used chipotle chili powder. Turned out very flavorful. I also mixed the beans into the mix, not the pasta and let it simmer for about 15-20min. The aldente pasta absorbed all the yummy juices while it baked. I will be saving this recipe for the future. I was very liberal with the cheese and layered it between the scoops of the pasta/chili mixture. 

The final product will render a very bland meal, however, if you're not on a strict diet and not calorie counting, the ways to kick it up a notch are endless. Try hot sauce, grated Parmesan cheese, hot sauce, BBQ sauce, etc!!!  

I agree with the last reviewer. Good, but for the amount of prep involved, not spectacular. Though it does make a bunch so if you need to feed a crowd, this would work perfectly.

This was not what I usually expect from Cooking Light. It wasn't bad but I wouldn't make it again. Neither of my kids liked it and my husband and I thought it was just okay. There are too many other good recipes here to bother with this one.

This was really good. I was quite surprised. I didn't have smoky paprika but substituted half-sharp; also substituted medium hot chili powder for ancho chili. It was great and will make it again.

Made as is, froze half, not great, but decent

i made this tonight and was super impressed. We had been making the Weight Watchers Chili Mac for awhile and this one was better. great mixture. I found prepping the night before and doing three containers (kidney beans, mushrooms/onion/garlic and the pepper with spices) a good blueprint for coming home for a weeknight and being ready to cook! plus you get portions out of this that you can freeze!

Whole family really liked this - Hamburger Helper without all the salt and preservatives!

This is the best chili mac I have ever had. I love recipes like this that are healthy, but you wouldn't know unless you were the one making it. It's very satisfying and the left-overs are even better. I followed the recipe exactly (except I used gluten free pasta) and absolutely loved the flavor. My husband loved this dish so much that he went back for seconds.

My family really liked this recipe. For the beans I used half kidney and half white beans. I also ran short of the marinara sauce to used some leftover TJ's tomato with roasted red pepper soup and it tasted fabulous. Also subbed red bell pepper for green as most in my family don't care for green bells and also threw in some roasted and skinned pablano pepper that I had leftover in the fridge. I will definitely be making this again.

Just OK. Found cumin to be overwhelming, would reduce if made again. Would also add green peppers earlier as they were too crunchy.

This was ok. It tasted good, but I found it labor-intensive. I did make my own sauce because I prefer it to store-bought, so that did add to the time of it a little bit. With finely chopping the pound of mushrooms and all the other chopping, the whole endeavor took a long time. I'm not sure I'd make it again.

This was a good, standard recipe. I used black beans as that's all I had on hand and they were fine. My only suggestion would be to add the the green peppers earlier in the recipe as they were still pretty crunchy in the end.

I love this recipe. It's very tasty. I had to cut down the cayenne pepper and the chipotle pepper as I wanted to make sure that my daughter could eat it without it being too hot. I made it with whole wheat rotini and I shredded the sharp cheddar myself (already had the food processor out for all the chopping). I can see this being good for a potluck as well.

really good, simple, cheap & easy to put together. We'll be putting this in the rotation regularly

Tasted great. Froze 1/2 the batch without the pasta (I'll cook pasta and toss with defrosted meat/bean mix, then top with cheese and bake). Will definitely be in our rotation, and I can see other meat substitutes working well with this (crumbles, crumbled tofu, or even possibly no meat at all and more beans). This will remain in our winter rotation of go to easy freezer meals!