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:
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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!