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Homemade Hamburger Helper
by Nikki Willhite - Willhite@aol.com

Description: Recipe for making homemade Hamburger Helper.

Hamburger helper can be a convenience, but unless you only have a couple kids with small appetites, it isn't going to feed your family. How much time are you really going to save? You still have to brown the meat and cook the noodles. The only thing that really saves you time is having the flavoring/spices pre-mixed, and the ingredients pre-measured.

It doesn't take a lot of time to mix your spices up beforehand to have on hand. Store them in an airtight jar, and they will easily keep for 6 months.

You will find many combinations in the "Make-a-Mix" books. I also like to keep dry onion soup mix on hand. You can make that or buy it in the packets. It adds a lot of flavor to anything you mix it with, and added to sour cream makes a great dip.

Here is a fast and easy recipe using a packet of onion mix. This is basically all that hamburger helper consists of. The different flavors just use additional spices.

Ingredients

Hamburger (1 lb)
4 cups noodles
1 can tomato sauce
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
1 1/2 cups water

Just make this the same way you make hamburger helper, all in the skillet. Brown the meat, drain the fat, add the liquids and seasoning, and the add the noodles and cook until tender.

If you wanted a Mexican dish, you would add spices like cumin, and instead of adding noodles to the mixture, you could add some Fritos or Tortilla chips.

If you really want to get organized, pre-measure your noodles and spices and put them in a large baggie. If time is short, or you want to make things easier for other family members to cook, this may work well for you. Either way, you save money.

Reprinted with permission from:
All Things Frugal
http://www.allthingsfrugal.com