It’s incredibly simple to create this homemade chicken rotini soup. Boneless chicken is cooked in bite-sized pieces with rotini pasta, mixed veggies, and chicken broth; straining your own stock is not necessary.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 40 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 6 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef (80% lean)
- 2 cups fresh salsa
- 1 teaspoon taco seasoning mix
- ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 ½ cups hot water
- 1 ½ cups elbow macaroni
- 1 cup milk
- 1 (8 ounce) package processed cheese food (such as Velveeta®), cut into cubes
- 4 ounces shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Heat a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir beef in the hot skillet until browned and crumbly, 5 to 7 minutes; drain and discard grease.
- Return skillet to heat. Stir salsa, taco seasoning mix, and black pepper into the beef; simmer the mixture until hot, about 5 minutes.
- Stir water, macaroni, and milk into the beef mixture; bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, place a cover on the skillet, and simmer the mixture until the pasta is tender, about 10 minutes.
- Stir cheese food and Cheddar cheese into the pasta mixture; cook until the cheese melts completely, 5 to 7 minutes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 487 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 30 g |
| Cholesterol | 103 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 32 g |
| Saturated Fat | 14 g |
| Sodium | 1210 mg |
| Sugars | 8 g |
| Fat | 26 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I accidentally bought half-beef half-pork meant for Italian foods, but persevered with the “wrong” meat. Still works! Should I make this dish again, I would use a longer simmer time (15-20 minutes) or less water because the sauce came out watery and thin. I also need to get a larger saucepan because this recipe nearly overflowed my 3qt. Educated guess: stirring in a little chopped parsley at the end might work well.
Very delicious and cheesy. I used hot and spicy taco seasoning, gave it that extra kick. Will make again
I definitely liked the flavors. The salsa gave it a nice kick. I will reduce the “cheese food” by about a third next time.
I had to use store-bought salsa, and chose to use extra shredded cheese instead of the processed cheese food that I don’t like and it still turned out awesome! I would definitely make this again!!!
Pretty good! Not great but I’ll try to make again for my son and I. Followed this recipe and it makes a ton! I didn’t add as much cheese though, cause I don’t like a lot of cheese. Can’t believe I didn’t have veggies in my house while I cooked this cause mixing can of corn, onions, and or bell peppers is a good idea!!
This was really good! Husband also loved it! I made mine own salsa from this site “D’s Famous Salsa” which we also love. I cooked my noodles according to the directions on the package and didn’t add the water from the recipe….just cook’s error, but still worked out. Only added a half cup of milk plus a little more, maybe an additional 1/8 of a cup….because my salsa is a bit runny, the way we like it, so only added milk to what I needed to make the consistency I wanted.
I used salsa verde instead and the flavor was great!
Needs a little more “kick”… I’ll add some hot sauce next time I make it. I’m not a fan of “cheese food,” so I used a Mexican mix shredded cheese to replace it. That worked great! I’m feeding 5 and a few of them have pretty big appetites (weight lifters and martial artists), so I always have to double these recipes. It can be a challenge to find a pot big enough for these one pot meals. But this one fits just great in my Ninja Cooker!
I did not have the salsa so I used 1 can Rotel and 1 can petite diced tomatoes. Also, I chopped up one small onion and 1/2 green pepper and cooked them after the beef. Added a dash of crushed red peppers when cooking the mixture. And, like someone else, I added 1 1/2 cups cooked corn just before serving – about 2 min. We loved it!
We really liked this recipe but it’s pretty cheesy. I made corn for the side and we ended up mixing it in with the mac and salsa to lighten some of the cheese taste. Next time I will mix in some black beans and corn before serving. Good as a stand alone, as a dip or on tostadas.
Love it! It’s like nacho cheese dip with pasta.
Easy one pot comfort dish! My husband is learning to cook so this was a good start. We added an onion and instead of the velveeta we added 1/2 jar of cheez whiz. We skipped the milk as the cheez whiz was creamy enough and also the recipe has no quantity listed. Comfort food for sure!
Delicious gooey comfort food with a spicy kick. I used homemade salsa/pico de gallo and substituted Nacho Cheese Sauce (found here on Allrecipes) in place of the Velveeta only because I’m not a fan of the taste. Please excuse me while I go and have another bowl.
This was yummy, quick, and easy. I would have given it 5 stars but I couldn’t since I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. I just used 1 cup of salsa, which was plenty for us, and I didn’t have Velveeta, so I just used about 2 C. shredded cheddar cheese. Since there was no milk measurement, so I left it out. It looked the Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Macaroni (i think that was the name of it) we used to eat as kids, but this tastes way better since we used fresh ingredients. Thank you for the recipe!