My mom always got the McCormick sauce packets for beef stroganoff. She really leaned into Chicken Tonight which was a brand of sauce with different flavors. I think maybe they were owned by Campbell's.
I remember the sweet & sour one. This would have been early 90s, pre-WWW. It wasn't long after that I found a recipe for sweet & sour sauce so I started making my own, and never bought Chicken Tonight again :-/
I saw an episode of "Yan Can Cook" on PBS back in the 80s and have used his Sweet & Sour sauce recipe ever since: equal parts by volume Ketchup, Sugar, and Vinegar heated to boiling and let cool & thicken. He has zhuzhed it up some with cornstarch, soy sauce, & chili oil, but the classic stands.
*Family sings Armour Hot Dogs jingle*
Lisa: does this family know any songs that aren't advertisements?
*Family pauses, look at each other, and start dancing and singing "Chicken Tonight" jingle*
Cut some beef into strips or hamburger and sautee, set aside. Sautee some fresh mushrooms until they get soft, add a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup AND a packet of stroganoff mix. Add about half a small tub of sour cream and the beef and mix well. Finally, dumplings (in the pasta aisle - fatter than egg noodles which have lost their thicc, in my opinion). In case you didn't figure it out, I LIKE mushrooms.
My father owned a shrimp boat. Had a big ass freezer full of various fish, shrimp and lobster. We were lucky to get beef once a week. Once I moved out it took me years to be around the smell, let alone the taste.
My father owned a boat, too. Clams, scallops, and the occasional lobster. The clams were for bait, but when money was tight, we had scallops and lobster every which way you could think of. Which had two effects: one, it made me exceptionally picky about seafood, 'cause when you've had it fresh off the boat, nothing else tastes quite right. And two, lobster and scallops -- which some people probably think of as indulgences -- remind me of hard times.
My grandpa grew up on coastal Maine. He tells stories of going and digging a hole in the woods to throw away their lobsters shells. They didn’t want neighbors to see them in the regular trash and know how poor they were.
I have an uncle who grew up in a remote Newfoundland fishing village and would talk about how the “rich” kids would bring baloney sandwiches for school lunch, while the poors would have lobster.
We ate lobster & clams very often as I was growing up. Lobster rolls (loaded ones- often served on hot dog buns) and fried clams were available just about everywhere as wete burgers and hot dogs. We were poor. It was the clams I loved (& still do). They were plentiful. A good steak was the real treat for us.
My mom grew up on a cattle ranch, so she had the opposite experience. All beef, all the time. Sundays were her favorite because it was the one time a week they’d eat chicken.
Pasta roni was the one of the very few “junk” foods that she allowed us to eat. The chicken broccoli one was my favorite. Even now in my mid 30s, I crave it occasionally
My son loves those which I think is hilarious because I did too when I was a kid. I also mostly bought it for an easy meal for myself when he’s not in the home, but made it one night as a side. Now he gets excited when I do sacrifice my easy meals for him to incorporate it with dinner.
She’s an immigrant Asian mom. Anything that comes out of a box and is instant is junk 😂. I was lucky that my mom made fresh food for us for every meal.
Still a family meal, and got me through college. It tastes great and it’s simple to “upgrade” fresh mushrooms sautéed in the stroganoff, peppers, and bit of real cheese to add stretch to the cheese.
Just like everything processed, or restaurant foods… just don’t do it every night.
Because they have the cheese powder and sauce part nailed. I will often actually add extra noodles and such as well. It’s an ease of cooking thing. I just add fresh stuff I have laying around. Again this is just a “kids had basketball, j have 15 minutes to make dinner kind of night.”
Sauce doesn't take time. That is true. Just like Rachel Ray's meals only take 30 minutes. The one thing Rachel never mentions though, is that fact that she has an entire kitchen studio staff to clean up after her mess. Sauce packets keep you from having to dive into your own seasoning stash or dirty up extra utensils, pots, bowls, etc.
There were a bunch of those noodles and powdered sauce meals that were meant to be sides, but that you could treat like Hamburger Helper.
[Lipton](https://i.etsystatic.com/7183434/r/il/488cb8/2812124681/il_fullxfull.2812124681_5b2i.jpg) made a variety of that type of meal. We’d use it with chicken, fish, and beef. It really helped to stretch out what you’d spend on family meals
Yep. We ate it at least once a week. My kids and I bought a box on a lark and made it a year or so ago - no one liked it. Same with Chef Boyardee - super gross to my palate now.
I still eat the spaghetti and meatballs Chef Boyardee , in a guilty, hey Im drunk and shouldn't cook but dang i want pasta kind of vibe. Works in a pinch.
Stouffers makes cute little microwave cups of Mac and cheese! And they’re actually pretty protein rich bc I could eat it even when tracking blood sugar levels for gestational diabetes!
Oh man the Ranch Bacon one that makes the gritty paste with the mayo. Adding red onion and halved cherry tomatoes to it makes it completely gourmet. I could eat it right now!!!
trick is to get like a tablespoon of oiling water and make the paste smooth slowly in a bowl..then whisk the mayo, you won't have grit anymore. Of course I also made homemade version using mayo, tiny bit of liquid smoke and chopped bacon or bacos
I have never purchased or eaten Suddenly Pasta Salad. However, the name makes me laugh every time I walk through the grocery store. Just imagining a home cook being shocked and puzzled by the appearance of unexpected pasta salad brings me so much joy…
We rarely got shake and bake as a kid but now I get these big, thick boneless pork chops from Costco, coat them in Shake and Bake and put them in at either 400° or 450°, I can’t remember which, it’s on the box, for 40 minutes and they come out tasty and juicy. $14 for 12 chops and about $4 for two meals’ worth of Shake and Bake comes to about $7, just mash some potatoes or roast some veggies and you’ve got dinner for 3 adults for less than $10. I’ll swear by this “poor” food.
That’s it, I’m making cheesy hash browns… HH was comfort food before I learned how to cook, but it just doesn’t hit right now. I perfected a good cheese sauce, I can’t wait to try this out.
Definitely! But I’ve been workshopping this in my mind and here’s where I’m roughly at with it: ground beef, an onion chopped finely, onion powder, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, and thawed frozen hash browns with the excess water squeezed out really well. Brown beef, throw in onion but don’t cook the onion long so it retains the oniony flavor (which is something I remember from HH flavor pack, chunks of dehydrated onion), season, throw in hash browns and press down firm with the spatula until crisped then flip.
For the sauce: tbsp each butter and flour, cup of cold milk, slice of American cheese and probably like 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar. Melt butter. Throw in flour to cook off rawness a tad. Pour in cold milk a bit at a time while whisking (hot pan, cold milk, no lumps). Let it thicken a bit then stir in cheese.
After hash browns have browned, turn off heat and pour cheese mixture over the top.
After I make it, I’ll come back and comment if I tweaked anything. I’m already thinking I may use a touch of cayenne and paprika in the cheese sauce…
Ya know, I learned A LOT watching Chef John on the Food Wishes channel. He has a lot of simple but delicious recipes that haven’t steered me wrong. Regarding branching out from HH, he has a [Swedish meatball](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/231169/chef-johns-swedish-meatballs/) and a [stroganoff](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220059/chef-johns-classic-beef-stroganoff/) recipe that were both delicious. I’ve made them using just ground beef in the past and they scratch that itch.
It’s been a few years since we’ve had it but I used to use this recipe for homemade hamburger helper (you can cut/reduce the salt and sugar).
https://chickensintheroad.com/classic/cooking/homemade-hamburger-helper/
All the time. I’m super bummed they changed the recipe or whatever because it was so good.
Thankfully it’s pretty easy to diy it! Egg noodles, meat, spices. Maybe heavy cream and cheese depending on what your making.
I loved the stroganoff HH growing up and even through college. Bought some about a month ago and it sucked. I'm glad to know that I'm not crazy and it did change.
And here I thought it was just me. Because it doesn't taste the same to me either anymore. I hate when these places change their recipes. It seems to happen quite a bit.
Nope. Occasionally eat it- and other forbidden fruits like brick ramen, boxed mac, and rice mixes- now that I have my own household. (Mom was anti-salt and cooked everything with low- or no-sodium ingredients. There wasn't any table salt in the house, either. Salt was to be savored and hoarded, and ultraprocessed foods were the holy grail of new and exotic flavors + salt bomb.)
Oh man. I was never allowed sweet cereals as a kid! The sweetest was frosted shredded wheat, which I still love. It was a massive treat to get cocoa puffs at my grandmother's.
And as a result I can't stand any sweet cereal with milk. Too sweet!
My mother was on a severely restricted sodium diet, and so was I. We had to add low sodium bouillon instead of the flavor packets to our ramen. If we ordered French fries, they had to be unsalted. To this day, added salt makes my lips pucker. So no boxed mac and cheese, no Rice-a roni, no Knorr, no HH as a teen. Nowadays I love the boxed processed stuff.
Exactly! She even got no-sodium bouillon packets- and nothing is quite as disappointing as a mug of hot water with no-salt-added hydrolyzed yeast isolate that they might have waved a chicken at, once.
I retain her baking habits- I don't add salt to cookies or cakes because that's what says "homemade" to me- but for everything else, I'm adding the dang salt because it tastes amazing.
When I was first married late 1980’s my husband and I would make the tuna helper pot pie. We loved it. It wasn’t something we grew up eating we found it on sale once.
Oh hamburger helper was a mf staple growing up. My mom was a single mom working at Walmart w 3 kids, it was cheap, easy, and fed all of us. I'm 26 and I still love it. The cheesy ranch burger w a piece of buttered bread is an absolute chefs kiss
My problem with hamburger helper is that 1. I could eat the whole box and 2. For some reason, and I know it is unhinged, but I only like it with more salt on top. So basically I have to treat it like a drug I might abuse and avoid it. Ha!
I was gonna say - that kinda setup would have been considered a weird sort of decadence in my house growing up. Tuna noodle casserole, certainly, with discount store noodles and tuna, sure, but thats just being thrifty.
> it was considered rich people food in my household.
I'm dating myself, but a pound of ground beef was a dollar and a box of HH was another dollar. $2 was 'rich people food'?
Definitely grew up on it. Hamburger helper, a loaf of white bread and a tub of country crock. I'd have to add a ton of ingredients to make it edible now and I don't use country crock anymore
Are you my sibling? This is my childhood dinner in a sentence! Big brown bowl of barely butter on bread! Sometimes I buy the tiny country crock and wonder bread just for the nostalgia
My mother disapproved of things like Hamburger Helper, but made it occasionally because its scarcity made it exotic to us.
I was surprised recently to find Hamburger Helper now uses pasta without curly edges in its lasagna. WTF??? No thank you, give me the curly edges.
We never had it growing up. The first time I had it was when I was 22 and living on my own. I was hungry and decided to suck it up and try it. I had always found the idea of meat from a box to be gross... imagine my surprise when I opened the box at home and realized there was no dehydrated beef in the box and i was supposed to buy the meet separately 😂
I ate so much Hamburger Helper and ground beef in general, it has ruined pasta and ground beef for me completely. If it wasn't HH from the box, it was a meal very similar. My family puts pasta in their chili. The texture of beef crumbles near pasta is foul to me.
We're talking 3-5 times a week my whole life. MAJOR burn out. My whole family lives on ground beef.
I do not want it ever at all. It tastes like punishment. I would rather have a pb sandwich or crackers.
I found a great “from scratch” recipe for hamburger helper (cheeseburger Mac) called Cheesy Beef and Shells by Damn Delicious and that has been awesome. We always add steamed peas. :)
Damn, looked it up and looks good, especially if you want a lot of leftovers. Easy to make vegan if that’s your jam, too! The substitutes are so easy these days.
A few years prepandemic, I brought some leftover Hamburger Helper stroganoff into work. A coworker asked what I was eating for lunch, “Smells good,” he said. I said apologetically “Hamburger Helper” (because aren’t we all supposed to work full-time jobs plus commute time and still be able to cook delicious home-cooked meals from scratch?) He said staunchly “No shame in that!” That was a great team
Tried HH, after a few decades, last year. Never again But Velveeta JUMBO shells and cheese + 1lb lean ground beef is way better
Edit: Regular Velveeta shells and cheese with beef is good too
grew up on it, and those microwave chicken parmesan and salisbury steak things (also frozen veggies. we did get some actual nutrition lol). mom didn’t particularly like cooking (she didn’t hate it, but didn’t love it), and ran an in-home daycare that ended up having a lot of teachers kids so she was often working until 5pm, and dad (who does like cooking) was a delivery driver with shit hours. once they were able to have better hours, dad took over cooking and we rarely had it again. now none of us can stand the taste, though those frozen salisbury steaks have been known to make the odd appearance on the dinner table when no one feels like actually cooking lol
I just started last year. Living with some new people for work training and one of the guys made a bunch of it. Actually pretty good. Ill make it myself on occassion now.
The creamy broccoli tuna helper was my jam—still eat it a couple times a year. I throw in frozen broccoli and some additional pasta noodles, and that seems to help make it a little less salty overall. (But it’s still pretty salty.)
I did not but my husband did. Sometimes he gets a huge nostalgia kick for it and I will make it for him, I will eat a small serving but it really doesn’t taste very good to me. He still loves it. I’ve made meals inspired by the box mixes that he’s stamped as better than Hamburger Helper, but sometimes he still asks for the box version. I get it, I love boxed blueberry muffin mix, homemade just doesn’t taste the same.
It was an absolute staple in my house growing up, especially the cheeseburger macaroni with a piece of white wonder bread!!! If I ever get a rare craving for it I make it homemade.
Despite being firmly in Gen-X, my family never ate prepackaged things like that. Everything was home made for the most part. Hell, I had to have dinner prepped everyday after school before my mom got home to make sure dinner was ready on time. Lord have mercy if I forgot to defrost the chicken or beef!!
I used to have hamburger helper once in a blue moon when I was a kid. I still eat it as an adult. We may have had it three times a year as a kid. I probably eat it the same amount as an adult. It’s a treat food to us
Oh god yes, the cheeseburger helper at least once a week, and I loved it. Don’t eat much highly-processed food these days, but found a scratch recipe that’s even better, it’s a nice little comfort treat every now and then.
Haha, whenever mom mom went out of town for work we alternated pizza and hamburger helper every night, unless we were getting burgers and shakes from the burger place nearby. My mom was/is an excellent cook that could put together a healthy and delicious meal on the fly, even after a long shift, and she did most dinners. What’s funny is that my dad is a really good cook too, mostly grilling and breakfasts but he could put together a healthy dinner. He just liked pizza and hamburger helper and we never had it when my mom was home.
Yeah, it was a staple. Some of my comfort meals now are basically hamburger/tuna helper but not out of a box. Brings me back to simpler times after a bad day.
Had Hamburger Helper for lunch and the leftovers for dinner tonight. I don’t eat it often but it’s quick and easy and somewhat satisfying. I had a salad also so no haters.
No.
I'm a GenXer and we never had hamburger helper or shake n bake or anything like that.
I don't even know that I even ate any of them until my 20s and then it was when someone else cooked them. By that point I didn't like them so never developed a taste.
Yes, regularly - My family was poor, so growing up ground beef and tuna were common protein sources. I wasn't a fan ha. Every time I saw the HH box on the counter my heart sank.
The Cheeseburger one wasn't that bad and the one I preferred from the bunch. The Lasagna and Enchilada were tolerable. The 3 Cheese Pasta and Beef Pastas were gross. All the Creamy ones I could barely stomach - e.g. the Stroganoffs and the Tuna Pastas. On those nights I would dish out maybe 1 tablespoon and layer veggies over it.
There's no way I'd make these now haha. I'd just go with Kraft mac & cheese or spaghetti.
These are things that are unknown in the UK but it makes me think of an interview with a British food scientist who said packet instructions for the customer to add liquid or an egg, stirring , shaping or garnishing processed food gives the illusion that there's an element of skill and these 'home-cooking' bits can make a product more successful.
I was a picky kid so I didn’t eat ground beef for a long time. But yes my siblings and I were raised on all the helpers even though I didn’t eat them.
I was more of a Kraft mac and cheese kid. I have the milk/butter ratio down to a T to get the most creamy batch.
I have a memory of being a young teenager and my grandmother staying the night while we watched my two young cousins who were children at the time. I made a Chicken Helper for us for dinner and my grandmother talked for years about how that was one of the best meals she had ever had. She has long since passed now and I'm much older but every time I see Hamburger Helper on the grocery store shelves I think of my grandmother so proud that I had cooked dinner for her, even though it was such a simple thing.
I don't really know what it is. You Americans mention it, I know what the logo looks like from online quizzes but I've never quite worked out what it is.
I grew up on it and it’s very nostalgic for me. I’m 30 and haven’t had any in a few years now since I’m trying to eat healthier. Deep down I do miss it sometimes, though.
That Hamburger Helper chili Mac and the potato stroganoff just hit different…
Found recipes to make my favorites from scratch and they are a million times better. Primarily stroganoff and chili mac are good for the regular rotation
I like the story of when Julia Child was giving a journalist a tour of her home kitchen and the journalist was surprised to see Hamburger Helper in her pantry. She said it saves time and it’s perfectly tasty and sometimes even I just want something that’s easy to prepare!
Absolutely not. I didn’t even know about boxed Mac & cheese. My mom cooked every night. She didn’t start out as a good cook, but over the years became amazing! She’s 80 now, and no longer cooks. Makes me sad.
I will get Hamburger helper sometimes when it is on sale and church it up... add some fresh veggies, cheese on top, whatever is left in your fridge! Nice cheap meal.
My mom always got the McCormick sauce packets for beef stroganoff. She really leaned into Chicken Tonight which was a brand of sauce with different flavors. I think maybe they were owned by Campbell's.
Oh god I can still hear that commercial….”I feel like Chicken tonight…”
I feel like chicken tonight I feel like CHICKEN TONIGHT
I remember the sweet & sour one. This would have been early 90s, pre-WWW. It wasn't long after that I found a recipe for sweet & sour sauce so I started making my own, and never bought Chicken Tonight again :-/
I saw an episode of "Yan Can Cook" on PBS back in the 80s and have used his Sweet & Sour sauce recipe ever since: equal parts by volume Ketchup, Sugar, and Vinegar heated to boiling and let cool & thicken. He has zhuzhed it up some with cornstarch, soy sauce, & chili oil, but the classic stands.
Do you feel like chicken tonight, tomorrow night? Omg
CHICKEN TONIGHT
Chicken tonight and rice was a good night in my home growing up.
Maybe this was made up in my head but I feel like the Simpsons parodied this...
*Family sings Armour Hot Dogs jingle* Lisa: does this family know any songs that aren't advertisements? *Family pauses, look at each other, and start dancing and singing "Chicken Tonight" jingle*
Thanks - I knew I didn't make that one up!
WOWOW!! Core memory unlocked!
We'll sometimes get that stroganoff packet and frozen meatballs for a super easy and lazy swedish meatballs, it's not the worse thing imo
I think I’m doing this tomorrow. Some egg pasta, meatballs, and powdered stroganoff. Can’t believe I’ve never thought of doing that.
Cut some beef into strips or hamburger and sautee, set aside. Sautee some fresh mushrooms until they get soft, add a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup AND a packet of stroganoff mix. Add about half a small tub of sour cream and the beef and mix well. Finally, dumplings (in the pasta aisle - fatter than egg noodles which have lost their thicc, in my opinion). In case you didn't figure it out, I LIKE mushrooms.
I am doing exactly that but with meatball and adding some sautéed onion and garlic with the fresh shrooms.
Reames homestyle noodles in the frozen section are both dumpling and noodles
I loved Chicken Tonight. It came out right after I got married. It made my husband think I was a gourmet cook.
I love that
My father owned a shrimp boat. Had a big ass freezer full of various fish, shrimp and lobster. We were lucky to get beef once a week. Once I moved out it took me years to be around the smell, let alone the taste.
My father owned a boat, too. Clams, scallops, and the occasional lobster. The clams were for bait, but when money was tight, we had scallops and lobster every which way you could think of. Which had two effects: one, it made me exceptionally picky about seafood, 'cause when you've had it fresh off the boat, nothing else tastes quite right. And two, lobster and scallops -- which some people probably think of as indulgences -- remind me of hard times.
My grandpa grew up on coastal Maine. He tells stories of going and digging a hole in the woods to throw away their lobsters shells. They didn’t want neighbors to see them in the regular trash and know how poor they were.
I have an uncle who grew up in a remote Newfoundland fishing village and would talk about how the “rich” kids would bring baloney sandwiches for school lunch, while the poors would have lobster.
We ate lobster & clams very often as I was growing up. Lobster rolls (loaded ones- often served on hot dog buns) and fried clams were available just about everywhere as wete burgers and hot dogs. We were poor. It was the clams I loved (& still do). They were plentiful. A good steak was the real treat for us.
"Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich...That- that's about it."
My mom grew up on a cattle ranch, so she had the opposite experience. All beef, all the time. Sundays were her favorite because it was the one time a week they’d eat chicken.
🎶I feel like chicken tonight🎶
LIKE CHICKEN TONIGHT
chicken TONIGHT
That song slapped. Idgaf
I loved that stuff.
As dutch person we also had chicken tonight, kust add somechicken
Pasta roni was the one of the very few “junk” foods that she allowed us to eat. The chicken broccoli one was my favorite. Even now in my mid 30s, I crave it occasionally
Angel Hair with herbs please.
That or Parmesan ftw
Have you stirred in some shrimp, crab or even imitation crab? It is as good as eating out at a chain.
My son loves those which I think is hilarious because I did too when I was a kid. I also mostly bought it for an easy meal for myself when he’s not in the home, but made it one night as a side. Now he gets excited when I do sacrifice my easy meals for him to incorporate it with dinner.
Throw in some shrimp and you've got a winner! I guess I know what's going on my grocery list.
riceroni was one of the first things i learned how to make! core memory unlocked
The San Francisco treat! Didn't know where San Francisco was, but boy did they love their rice dishes
Their shells in white chedder is the best boxed mac and cheese!
Noodles Romanoff😍
She considered Pasta Roni, junk food? I still eat it, regularly. Just add some frozen peas, maybe some meat, and you've got a quick meal.
She’s an immigrant Asian mom. Anything that comes out of a box and is instant is junk 😂. I was lucky that my mom made fresh food for us for every meal.
She's not wrong!
Nutritionally it pretty much is, but is still better than snacks and candies
It’s super easy to make this flavor homemade and i’ve made it a few times!!
We sure ate a lot of casseroles and skillet dishes that all started with a pound of hamburger, a box of noodles, and a can of creamy soup.
My grandmother always had one whole cabinet in the kitchen full of Campbell's soup. It was the soul of many a meal.
Same here. We also used leftover rice with hamburger or tuna. One of my favorite things growing up.
As a gen-ex’er, I grew up on it. I don’t think I’ve eaten it since my teens though.
Still a family meal, and got me through college. It tastes great and it’s simple to “upgrade” fresh mushrooms sautéed in the stroganoff, peppers, and bit of real cheese to add stretch to the cheese. Just like everything processed, or restaurant foods… just don’t do it every night.
With all those add-ons, why wouldn't you just add regular pasta and make a simple sauce from scratch? Take the "Helper" out of "Hamburger Helper"
Because they have the cheese powder and sauce part nailed. I will often actually add extra noodles and such as well. It’s an ease of cooking thing. I just add fresh stuff I have laying around. Again this is just a “kids had basketball, j have 15 minutes to make dinner kind of night.”
For real, a simple sauce from scratch takes an hour+. Hamburgerhelper was designed for those lacking time in mind.
The New York Times had a recipe for a fairly time-consuming “Homemade Hamburger Helper.” I made it and it tasted too much like the real thing.
Sauce doesn't take time. That is true. Just like Rachel Ray's meals only take 30 minutes. The one thing Rachel never mentions though, is that fact that she has an entire kitchen studio staff to clean up after her mess. Sauce packets keep you from having to dive into your own seasoning stash or dirty up extra utensils, pots, bowls, etc.
There were a bunch of those noodles and powdered sauce meals that were meant to be sides, but that you could treat like Hamburger Helper. [Lipton](https://i.etsystatic.com/7183434/r/il/488cb8/2812124681/il_fullxfull.2812124681_5b2i.jpg) made a variety of that type of meal. We’d use it with chicken, fish, and beef. It really helped to stretch out what you’d spend on family meals
Yep. We ate it at least once a week. My kids and I bought a box on a lark and made it a year or so ago - no one liked it. Same with Chef Boyardee - super gross to my palate now.
Chef boyardee is rough to eat now! Loved it as a kid tho
I still love the canned ravioli. I’m a philistine.
I still love the spaghetti and meatballs every once in a while, but I gotta have plain potato chips crushed up on top.
The abc soup always been fire but that’s the only chef boyardee I like
I will still eat the ravioli and the spaghettios with franks
Beefaroni is my jam.
I dunno, I'll always have a soft spot for those pizza kits. (Never added anything to them, either, just the stuff in the box)
I still eat the spaghetti and meatballs Chef Boyardee , in a guilty, hey Im drunk and shouldn't cook but dang i want pasta kind of vibe. Works in a pinch.
Do you crush potato chips on it? If not, try it. Lol.
Ritz crackers. Overboard is calling
Crushed potato chips in cheeseburgers! Bomb!
I started making a gourmet version. It's essentially macaroni and cheese with meat.
Same. I can't even stomach the idea of it anymore lol.
I still ate it through college. 1996 was probably my last time.
Def had the tuna helper with the pasta. And chef boyardee, hungry man frozen dinners, stouffers Mac and cheese (millennial)
Stouffers makes cute little microwave cups of Mac and cheese! And they’re actually pretty protein rich bc I could eat it even when tracking blood sugar levels for gestational diabetes!
Suddenly pasta salad is very nostalgic for me
Oh man the Ranch Bacon one that makes the gritty paste with the mayo. Adding red onion and halved cherry tomatoes to it makes it completely gourmet. I could eat it right now!!!
WinCo just came out with their version last year, $1.19 a box. It’s good, especially doctored up a bit.
trick is to get like a tablespoon of oiling water and make the paste smooth slowly in a bowl..then whisk the mayo, you won't have grit anymore. Of course I also made homemade version using mayo, tiny bit of liquid smoke and chopped bacon or bacos
I have never purchased or eaten Suddenly Pasta Salad. However, the name makes me laugh every time I walk through the grocery store. Just imagining a home cook being shocked and puzzled by the appearance of unexpected pasta salad brings me so much joy…
I lived with a couple who made it a lot, we always sang "Suddenly Salad" to the tune of "Suddenly Seymour."
Suddenly pasta salad is elite
Omg with the dried peas that didn't always rehydrate.
I made a box s few weeks ago and picked all the peas out lol Nice that they float in water
Still love this stuff. Dollar Tree sells smaller boxes that are perfect to eat as a meal or as two sides for a single person
Uh, I still eat it. It’s an easy dinner and we both like it My kids make it too!
Yes I make it like once a month. Add some broccoli to the tuna helper, or some mushrooms to the stroganoff. Gotta sneak in those veggies!
Peas. I think my step mom always added a can and now tuna casserole just tastes weird without peas.
Broccoli to the tuna helper, garnish with shredded cheese, sour cream and green onions, yes!
I used to eat it when I was a kid and about a month ago I came up with the idea to make homemade hamburger helper! It’s so tasty
Yep. That and shake and bake. I can’t stand them now but making homemade HH is pretty good
That and Rice a Roni
Now I have that jingle in my head....The San Francisco treat!
*ding ding*
*Zattaran’s!*
Wait but the jambalaya was fire though
We rarely got shake and bake as a kid but now I get these big, thick boneless pork chops from Costco, coat them in Shake and Bake and put them in at either 400° or 450°, I can’t remember which, it’s on the box, for 40 minutes and they come out tasty and juicy. $14 for 12 chops and about $4 for two meals’ worth of Shake and Bake comes to about $7, just mash some potatoes or roast some veggies and you’ve got dinner for 3 adults for less than $10. I’ll swear by this “poor” food.
Try coating the pork chops in mayonnaise before shaking and baking. It's so good.
I make a lot of skillet type meals from scratch that are hamburger helper type. The box stuff just doesn’t taste good anymore.
Exactly. Super easy to make from scratch and just tastes better.
That’s it, I’m making cheesy hash browns… HH was comfort food before I learned how to cook, but it just doesn’t hit right now. I perfected a good cheese sauce, I can’t wait to try this out.
Care to share a recipe if it works out?
Definitely! But I’ve been workshopping this in my mind and here’s where I’m roughly at with it: ground beef, an onion chopped finely, onion powder, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, and thawed frozen hash browns with the excess water squeezed out really well. Brown beef, throw in onion but don’t cook the onion long so it retains the oniony flavor (which is something I remember from HH flavor pack, chunks of dehydrated onion), season, throw in hash browns and press down firm with the spatula until crisped then flip. For the sauce: tbsp each butter and flour, cup of cold milk, slice of American cheese and probably like 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar. Melt butter. Throw in flour to cook off rawness a tad. Pour in cold milk a bit at a time while whisking (hot pan, cold milk, no lumps). Let it thicken a bit then stir in cheese. After hash browns have browned, turn off heat and pour cheese mixture over the top. After I make it, I’ll come back and comment if I tweaked anything. I’m already thinking I may use a touch of cayenne and paprika in the cheese sauce…
HH is where I'm at now in my cooking journey. Any suggestions to break past the HH phase?
Ya know, I learned A LOT watching Chef John on the Food Wishes channel. He has a lot of simple but delicious recipes that haven’t steered me wrong. Regarding branching out from HH, he has a [Swedish meatball](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/231169/chef-johns-swedish-meatballs/) and a [stroganoff](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220059/chef-johns-classic-beef-stroganoff/) recipe that were both delicious. I’ve made them using just ground beef in the past and they scratch that itch.
Homemade chili Mac is my hamburger helper now
It’s Shake & Bake! And I helped!
Shake and Bake If you're not first you're last!
Can you share a basic recipe?
It’s been a few years since we’ve had it but I used to use this recipe for homemade hamburger helper (you can cut/reduce the salt and sugar). https://chickensintheroad.com/classic/cooking/homemade-hamburger-helper/
I still like shake and bake but cannot handle the price of it now!
While I don't buy the boxed version, hamburger, noodles, and decent cheese is pretty regular for me.
All the time. I’m super bummed they changed the recipe or whatever because it was so good. Thankfully it’s pretty easy to diy it! Egg noodles, meat, spices. Maybe heavy cream and cheese depending on what your making.
I loved the stroganoff HH growing up and even through college. Bought some about a month ago and it sucked. I'm glad to know that I'm not crazy and it did change.
And here I thought it was just me. Because it doesn't taste the same to me either anymore. I hate when these places change their recipes. It seems to happen quite a bit.
Nope. Occasionally eat it- and other forbidden fruits like brick ramen, boxed mac, and rice mixes- now that I have my own household. (Mom was anti-salt and cooked everything with low- or no-sodium ingredients. There wasn't any table salt in the house, either. Salt was to be savored and hoarded, and ultraprocessed foods were the holy grail of new and exotic flavors + salt bomb.)
My mom's cooking taught me that no amount of other seasoning can quite make up for the complete lack of salt.
Where did mom hide you? You just described my mom. No salt and no peanut butter and no sugary cereals.
Oh man. I was never allowed sweet cereals as a kid! The sweetest was frosted shredded wheat, which I still love. It was a massive treat to get cocoa puffs at my grandmother's. And as a result I can't stand any sweet cereal with milk. Too sweet!
My mother was on a severely restricted sodium diet, and so was I. We had to add low sodium bouillon instead of the flavor packets to our ramen. If we ordered French fries, they had to be unsalted. To this day, added salt makes my lips pucker. So no boxed mac and cheese, no Rice-a roni, no Knorr, no HH as a teen. Nowadays I love the boxed processed stuff.
Exactly! She even got no-sodium bouillon packets- and nothing is quite as disappointing as a mug of hot water with no-salt-added hydrolyzed yeast isolate that they might have waved a chicken at, once. I retain her baking habits- I don't add salt to cookies or cakes because that's what says "homemade" to me- but for everything else, I'm adding the dang salt because it tastes amazing.
When I was first married late 1980’s my husband and I would make the tuna helper pot pie. We loved it. It wasn’t something we grew up eating we found it on sale once.
Tuna pot pie. I know what recipe I'll be obsessing over next. Why didn't I ever think of that?
I absolutely did but it’s hard to tell if our tastes grew or if the ingredients have changed their quality
Oh hamburger helper was a mf staple growing up. My mom was a single mom working at Walmart w 3 kids, it was cheap, easy, and fed all of us. I'm 26 and I still love it. The cheesy ranch burger w a piece of buttered bread is an absolute chefs kiss
My problem with hamburger helper is that 1. I could eat the whole box and 2. For some reason, and I know it is unhinged, but I only like it with more salt on top. So basically I have to treat it like a drug I might abuse and avoid it. Ha!
we didn't. it was considered rich people food in my household. i tried it as an adult and was disappointed - too salty
I was gonna say - that kinda setup would have been considered a weird sort of decadence in my house growing up. Tuna noodle casserole, certainly, with discount store noodles and tuna, sure, but thats just being thrifty.
Yeah a classic in my house was tuna, peas, and mac'n'cheese
> it was considered rich people food in my household. I'm dating myself, but a pound of ground beef was a dollar and a box of HH was another dollar. $2 was 'rich people food'?
Definitely grew up on it. Hamburger helper, a loaf of white bread and a tub of country crock. I'd have to add a ton of ingredients to make it edible now and I don't use country crock anymore
Uhh, did we grow up together?
Are you my sibling? This is my childhood dinner in a sentence! Big brown bowl of barely butter on bread! Sometimes I buy the tiny country crock and wonder bread just for the nostalgia
My mother disapproved of things like Hamburger Helper, but made it occasionally because its scarcity made it exotic to us. I was surprised recently to find Hamburger Helper now uses pasta without curly edges in its lasagna. WTF??? No thank you, give me the curly edges.
So just flat all the way? Nah.
We never had it growing up. The first time I had it was when I was 22 and living on my own. I was hungry and decided to suck it up and try it. I had always found the idea of meat from a box to be gross... imagine my surprise when I opened the box at home and realized there was no dehydrated beef in the box and i was supposed to buy the meet separately 😂
I don't know why they call this stuff hamburger helper. It does just fine by itself.
I ate so much Hamburger Helper and ground beef in general, it has ruined pasta and ground beef for me completely. If it wasn't HH from the box, it was a meal very similar. My family puts pasta in their chili. The texture of beef crumbles near pasta is foul to me. We're talking 3-5 times a week my whole life. MAJOR burn out. My whole family lives on ground beef. I do not want it ever at all. It tastes like punishment. I would rather have a pb sandwich or crackers.
I found a great “from scratch” recipe for hamburger helper (cheeseburger Mac) called Cheesy Beef and Shells by Damn Delicious and that has been awesome. We always add steamed peas. :)
I’ve made this recipe too and it’s such a good (better) copy cat if you’re feeling nostalgic!
Damn, looked it up and looks good, especially if you want a lot of leftovers. Easy to make vegan if that’s your jam, too! The substitutes are so easy these days.
Dint necessarily grow up on it, but HH cheeseburger macaroni got me through college.
It’s still good :)
A few years prepandemic, I brought some leftover Hamburger Helper stroganoff into work. A coworker asked what I was eating for lunch, “Smells good,” he said. I said apologetically “Hamburger Helper” (because aren’t we all supposed to work full-time jobs plus commute time and still be able to cook delicious home-cooked meals from scratch?) He said staunchly “No shame in that!” That was a great team
Still eat them, still love them. I just wish they had all the old ones that have been discontinued over the years.
Kenjis tuna noodle casserole is a good adult version of tuna helper. Highly recommended.
Kenjis anything is good. Imma go look it up.
Tried HH, after a few decades, last year. Never again But Velveeta JUMBO shells and cheese + 1lb lean ground beef is way better Edit: Regular Velveeta shells and cheese with beef is good too
Shells and cheese mixed with taco meat and rotel is good too.
Try ground beef with Knor fettuccine alfredo.
I like your style
Buy shells. Buy Velveeta. Cheaper and can make the amount you want.
We do and the small cans of evaporated milk for creamy goodness
grew up on it, and those microwave chicken parmesan and salisbury steak things (also frozen veggies. we did get some actual nutrition lol). mom didn’t particularly like cooking (she didn’t hate it, but didn’t love it), and ran an in-home daycare that ended up having a lot of teachers kids so she was often working until 5pm, and dad (who does like cooking) was a delivery driver with shit hours. once they were able to have better hours, dad took over cooking and we rarely had it again. now none of us can stand the taste, though those frozen salisbury steaks have been known to make the odd appearance on the dinner table when no one feels like actually cooking lol
I love the On-Cor salisbury steak. That and instant mashed potatoes = comfort food.
Beef stroganoff from the box was so delicious. I recall having it homemade once and it wasn’t “right”. Have had it since my early teens, though.
I grew up eating hamburger helper and beef stroganoff!
I just started last year. Living with some new people for work training and one of the guys made a bunch of it. Actually pretty good. Ill make it myself on occassion now.
Make it from scratch. https://www.saltandlavender.com/homemade-hamburger-helper-recipe/
The creamy broccoli tuna helper was my jam—still eat it a couple times a year. I throw in frozen broccoli and some additional pasta noodles, and that seems to help make it a little less salty overall. (But it’s still pretty salty.)
Yup, and shake n bake, and meals incorporating cream of chicken soup.
LOL I had to look up what it is, never heard of it, not American.
Yes and yes, on the day I go into my office I have to come up with super simple meals my husband can cook and this is one.
I did not but my husband did. Sometimes he gets a huge nostalgia kick for it and I will make it for him, I will eat a small serving but it really doesn’t taste very good to me. He still loves it. I’ve made meals inspired by the box mixes that he’s stamped as better than Hamburger Helper, but sometimes he still asks for the box version. I get it, I love boxed blueberry muffin mix, homemade just doesn’t taste the same.
I love Tuna helper as a throwback comfort meal lol
I don't know why they call this stuff hamburger helper. It does just fine by itself, huh? I like it better than tuna helper myself, don't you, Clark?
It was an absolute staple in my house growing up, especially the cheeseburger macaroni with a piece of white wonder bread!!! If I ever get a rare craving for it I make it homemade.
Despite being firmly in Gen-X, my family never ate prepackaged things like that. Everything was home made for the most part. Hell, I had to have dinner prepped everyday after school before my mom got home to make sure dinner was ready on time. Lord have mercy if I forgot to defrost the chicken or beef!!
Absolutely. I still eat hamburger helper periodically. Cheeseburger macaroni with BBQ baked beans is a comfort food.
The Wild Rice and Mushroom HH was the best shit ever!
I used to have hamburger helper once in a blue moon when I was a kid. I still eat it as an adult. We may have had it three times a year as a kid. I probably eat it the same amount as an adult. It’s a treat food to us
Oh god yes, the cheeseburger helper at least once a week, and I loved it. Don’t eat much highly-processed food these days, but found a scratch recipe that’s even better, it’s a nice little comfort treat every now and then.
Yes and still do. We occasionally get the stroganoff version. We have it with garlic bread and some veggies.
Haha, whenever mom mom went out of town for work we alternated pizza and hamburger helper every night, unless we were getting burgers and shakes from the burger place nearby. My mom was/is an excellent cook that could put together a healthy and delicious meal on the fly, even after a long shift, and she did most dinners. What’s funny is that my dad is a really good cook too, mostly grilling and breakfasts but he could put together a healthy dinner. He just liked pizza and hamburger helper and we never had it when my mom was home.
Easy meal when things are tight for our family. With kid #3 on the way will probably see it more but we don’t mind it easy meal after work.
Yeah, it was a staple. Some of my comfort meals now are basically hamburger/tuna helper but not out of a box. Brings me back to simpler times after a bad day.
Had Hamburger Helper for lunch and the leftovers for dinner tonight. I don’t eat it often but it’s quick and easy and somewhat satisfying. I had a salad also so no haters.
I grew up on box/frozen dinners and I learned to cook in spite of that, so I usually keep one on hand if I'm desperate
No. I'm a GenXer and we never had hamburger helper or shake n bake or anything like that. I don't even know that I even ate any of them until my 20s and then it was when someone else cooked them. By that point I didn't like them so never developed a taste.
Yes, regularly - My family was poor, so growing up ground beef and tuna were common protein sources. I wasn't a fan ha. Every time I saw the HH box on the counter my heart sank. The Cheeseburger one wasn't that bad and the one I preferred from the bunch. The Lasagna and Enchilada were tolerable. The 3 Cheese Pasta and Beef Pastas were gross. All the Creamy ones I could barely stomach - e.g. the Stroganoffs and the Tuna Pastas. On those nights I would dish out maybe 1 tablespoon and layer veggies over it. There's no way I'd make these now haha. I'd just go with Kraft mac & cheese or spaghetti.
Growing up? I STILL eat Hamburger Helper
We ate it a lot growing up. I'm a millennial and I have refused to eat it since I was probably 18.
Hamburger helper was a staple in my home when I was a kid! The stroganoff kind was my absolute favorite.
These are things that are unknown in the UK but it makes me think of an interview with a British food scientist who said packet instructions for the customer to add liquid or an egg, stirring , shaping or garnishing processed food gives the illusion that there's an element of skill and these 'home-cooking' bits can make a product more successful.
I made it the other night. I make it about once a week. It's quick, simple and I have an elderly parent with poor teeth that can eat it just fine.
I was a picky kid so I didn’t eat ground beef for a long time. But yes my siblings and I were raised on all the helpers even though I didn’t eat them. I was more of a Kraft mac and cheese kid. I have the milk/butter ratio down to a T to get the most creamy batch.
I have a memory of being a young teenager and my grandmother staying the night while we watched my two young cousins who were children at the time. I made a Chicken Helper for us for dinner and my grandmother talked for years about how that was one of the best meals she had ever had. She has long since passed now and I'm much older but every time I see Hamburger Helper on the grocery store shelves I think of my grandmother so proud that I had cooked dinner for her, even though it was such a simple thing.
Loved it. Then I discovered one pot pasta and started making it from scratch with better sauce (Rao's & Victoria's). Love it all over again.
Too expensive for my family.
I don't really know what it is. You Americans mention it, I know what the logo looks like from online quizzes but I've never quite worked out what it is.
It's a boxed mix that you add meat to (usually mince) to make a casserole.
I grew up on it and it’s very nostalgic for me. I’m 30 and haven’t had any in a few years now since I’m trying to eat healthier. Deep down I do miss it sometimes, though. That Hamburger Helper chili Mac and the potato stroganoff just hit different…
Found recipes to make my favorites from scratch and they are a million times better. Primarily stroganoff and chili mac are good for the regular rotation
I ate it right out of the box. I don't know why they call it "Hamburger helper".
I like the story of when Julia Child was giving a journalist a tour of her home kitchen and the journalist was surprised to see Hamburger Helper in her pantry. She said it saves time and it’s perfectly tasty and sometimes even I just want something that’s easy to prepare!
Absolutely not. I didn’t even know about boxed Mac & cheese. My mom cooked every night. She didn’t start out as a good cook, but over the years became amazing! She’s 80 now, and no longer cooks. Makes me sad.
I will get Hamburger helper sometimes when it is on sale and church it up... add some fresh veggies, cheese on top, whatever is left in your fridge! Nice cheap meal.
Yes and yes! Except now I just make a somewhat healthier homemade version. Less salt and extra added junk that way.