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Cheesy Sloppy Joe Noodle Bake

Creamy delicious pasta, meat and cheese make this a wonderful feel-good meal!
Servings: 2 9x13 pans PLUS 1 square pan
Author: Kelly the Kitchen Kop

Ingredients

  • 32 ounces of whatever noodles you like – my favorites are einkorn pasta or spelt pasta. Some like this gluten-free pasta, or see the low-carb options above.
  • 16 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 2 cups sour cream-- I've seen some recipes call for cottage cheese instead.
  • 1 Tablespoon chives or green onion, chopped
  • Sea salt & pepper to your taste
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder or more to your taste
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 2.5 pounds ground beef-- we get it from our local farmer with 1/4# ground heart mixed with 3/4# ground beef, if you don't have a good local source you trust for grassfed meat, you could get it online here.
  • 1 onion chopped, or 3 Tablespoons dried
  • More sea salt and pepper for this meat mixture. amount to your taste
  • 2 cans tomato paste
  • 1/2 cup ketchup or tomato sauce
  • 1 Tablespoon mustard
  • 4 Tablespoons maple syrup (omit for low-carb)
  • 3-4 cups shredded cheese, whichever kind you prefer — we like cheddar or mozzarella

Instructions

  • Brown the ground beef with onions.
  • Stir in the ketchup or tomato sauce, tomato paste, mustard, maple syrup, and some salt and pepper.  This should be thick, but not dry.  If it seems dry, add a little water.  Set aside.
  • Cook pasta according to directions, drain.
  • Meanwhile, use your handheld blender to mix together the sour cream, cream cheese, milk, chives or green onion, garlic powder, and a few shakes of salt and pepper.
  • Toss the cream mixture with the pasta, add milk so that it's creamy; not runny, but not dry.  Taste one.  If it tastes blah, add more salt and pepper until it's dreamy—this is very important to make the whole thing taste really good.

Start assembling:

  • Spoon a layer of the pasta mixture into your buttered or parchment paper-lined pans, dollop half the meat mixture around the top.
  • Spread the rest of the pasta around the top of the meat
  • Now the other half of the meat mixture on that.
  • Sprinkle with cheese.
  • Now either cover well and label it for the freezer, put it into the fridge to bake later, or bake now.
  • 350* until hot, about 20-30 minutes.