So good, so cheesy and creamy. This recipe was heavily modified from a recipe that I will try to link below- but I’ve changed it so much that I feel like it needs to be recorded.

Ingredients:

– 1/2 lb elbow macaroni

– 5 oz cream cheese

– 4 oz Velveeta cheese

-4 oz shredded smoked cheddar cheese (Divided)

– 1 (10 oz) can condensed tomato soup

– 10 oz (roughly 1 soup can) milk

-1 lb bacon, smoked sausage- whatever meat you prefer

-chopped sun dried tomatoes (optional, but soooo yummy!)

Directions:

– Cook your meat- we prefer to smoke our bacon, but cook it up however you like and have it chopped/ crumbled into bite sized pieces

– Cook your noodles until just less than al dente (about 1/2 the normal cooking time) – you don’t want to cook the pasta too much, or it will be mushy after stirring

– Drain pasta and return to saucepan. Add cream cheese, velveeta, and 2 oz of the shredded cheddar – stir into the hot pasta until melted.

– Stir in the tomato soup and milk

-Stir in your meat, and sun dried tomatoes

– Pour into a baking dish (8×8 ish) and bake at 350 for 25 minutes

– After 25 minutes, you can pour the remaining 2 oz cheddar on top, bake for another 5 minutes, then broil on high for 2-3 minutes- watching carefully to make sure it doesn’t burn.

**You can also put Italian bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese on with the cheddar. I did the bread crumbs and Parmesan first with the cheddar on top. It was good, but I think I need to play with this one a bit more – maybe breadcrumbs on sooner?

– Once the cheddar is melted and bubbling, take the pan out of the oven and let rest for 5ish minutes – then serve!

Notes

– This probably serves about 6ish people, with good sized portions. Maybe 8 with smaller portions.

– Your meat choice is really your preference. We used to do chicken sausage that had jalapenos in it, but the kids didn’t like that so we switched to bacon. Just make sure as much grease is removed from the meat as possible. My husband smoked the bacon the day before so it was just chewy- then I chopped it and threw it back in the skillet to render off more grease before putting it in the dish.

– Sun dried tomatoes are good in this, but not necessary. The kids don’t like them, so we often go with out and it’s still amazing!

To give credit to the original recipe, here is where you can find my inspiration:

http://alocalchoice.blogspot.com/2012/03/say-local-cheeeessee.html