Fast & Easy Low Fat Microwave Macaroni Cheese With Caramelised Onions

Everybody loves a tasty mac cheese – and this is an amazingly really fast and easy low fat microwave meal that combines the great taste of mac cheese with a nice twist in flavour with caramelised onions, yet keeps the whole dish as low in fat as you like!  A popular and classic cheats recipe!

Firstly, if you want this to be, it can be a one-pot meal.  It’s also a meal you can take to work and microwave if you’ve got access to a microwave in the kitchen. It’s so few ingredients you won’t believe it!

Ingredients:

• Macaroni, 60-100 grams, you choose how much
• 1 teaspoon oil, optional
• 2-3 Low fat cheese slices, or any cheese or cheese slices (25 grams each, so 50 grams of cheese)
• 2-3 teaspoons dried, fried onions, or you can use the jars of ready sliced onions or even frozen ones.

Method:

1. Firstly make your pasta – you can do this by any method you usually use.  I make my pasta in the microwave by adding 60-100 grams of elbow macaroni into a microwave safe bowl with one teaspoon of oil and enough boiling water to cover the macaroni with 1″ of water on top.  I then microwave the pasta for 4-6 minutes, watching/stirring it to ensure the bowl doesn’t spill over.  You can, alternatively, use cold/pre-prepared pasta and simply microwave it hot again (2 minutes on high).
2. Drain the pasta and add the 2-3 teaspoons of dried/fried onions.  I like to use dried caramelised onions as they really deliver a punch to many meals and they need no re-hydrating for most dishes.
3. Break up the cheese slices and add those to the microwave bowl.  You can choose either a tasty/flavoured cheese, cheese slices, or low calorie/low fat cheese slices.  This is where part of the low-fat macaroni cheese becomes healthier as you’re not drenching the macaroni is a gut-busting thick cheese sauce.
4. Microwave the pasta/cheese/onions together for 1 minute on high.  Stir.  Microwave again for 1 minute on high. Serve!

It’s that simple.  By now making a full cheese sauce – and by using low fat cheese/slices, you can cut right back on your fat intake, while enjoying a tasty treat.

Take to Work Lunches:

If you’ve pre-cooked your pasta, you can simply take cold pasta, cheese slices and the onion to work with you (all in one microwave-safe lidded pot) and just microwave it for 2-3 minutes, stirring every minute, when it’s lunchtime!

Menu Cost:

This was a really frugal lunch, I only used 60 grams of macaroni, costing about £0.08.  Two cheese slices cost about £0.20 and the onions about £0.02, so this cost about £0.30 for my lunch!

In the photo I’ve used just 60 grams of elbow macaroni, some tasty CoOp Cheddar & Caramelised Onion slices and 3 teaspoons of the dried onions (because I like them so much).  It was really tasty!