The Bear-Inspired Elevated Hamburger Helper Recipe

Watching season 4, episode 4 of "The Bear," many of us probably had a nostalgic moment watching Sydney put her own touches on a box of Hamburger Helper. Adding some flair to a boxed dinner isn't just a technique to make a good meal out of what would otherwise be just a simple solution — it's also the way that many of us first start learning to cook. Half-prepared meals like Hamburger Helper are inexpensive and simple enough that anyone can make them, but as one starts to grow in confidence in the kitchen, they are also an easy place to start experimenting.

The first step for you might have been adding onions, tomato paste, and cheese to a box of Hamburger Helper — like on "The Bear" — or maybe it was mixing broccoli and ham cubes into a box of macaroni and cheese to turn it into a complete meal. Whatever the first stop on your personal culinary journey, it was probably reflected in that moment of Sydney explaining some basic principles of the kitchen to her cousin's daughter, TJ, while she prepared them an elevated comfort meal.

In this "The Bear"-inspired elevated Hamburger Helper recipe, from developer A.J. Forget, we tried not to stray too far from what Sydney showed us. The base is good old Hamburger Helper, gussied up with onions, garlic, tomato paste, and a bit of cheddar cheese, and a sprinkling of crunchy toasted panko to finish it off. And while we didn't see Sydney garnish her work on the show, you can't argue with a bit of aromatic scallion and the pop of color it provides.

For this recipe you will need butter, panko breadcrumbs, ground beef, onion, garlic, double-concentrated tomato paste, a box of Hamburger Helper (we use the chili macaroni flavor), water, white cheddar cheese, and scallions. Once you have these ingredients together, you are ready to begin.

Bring a skillet to medium heat and melt the butter.

Add the panko breadcrumbs to the pan and cook, tossing regularly, until golden brown. Remove to a bowl and set aside.

Bring a skillet to medium-high heat, add the ground beef, and cook, breaking apart, for 4 minutes.

Add the onion and garlic to the pan and cook for 3 minutes.

Stir in the tomato paste and cook for another 2 minutes.

Pour in the water, Hamburger Helper seasoning packet, and pasta.

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium. Simmer for 10 minutes, or until the pasta is tender, stirring regularly.

Remove pasta from heat and stir in the cheese.

Garnish the Hamburger Helper with toasted panko and scallions, and serve immediately.

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Standing in front of a wall of packaged ground beef at the grocery store can be a challenging conundrum. Really, they all look pretty much the same. Sure, they are labeled with the ratio of meat to fat, but is there really a difference between the meat that comes vacuum packed in plastic versus what you get on a styrofoam tray, in a tube, or straight from the meat counter? Fortunately, we have a list of everything you need to consider when buying ground beef, and with a recipe like this, it doesn't matter too much.

Hamburger Helper is not a fancy meal. It is simple comfort food. Sure, this recipe is about elevating it, but at its core, it is still just a bowl of creamy, delicious comfort. So, yes, you can shell out the extra money for grass-fed beef if you want — it definitely isn't going to hurt anything. But the regular old 85/15 or 90/10 beef in the styrofoam tray will do just fine too. The biggest concern is that you don't want things getting too greasy, so a leaner ground beef ratio is your best bet for browning here.

There are a few different flavors of Hamburger Helper out there, and fortunately, most of them would work great with this preparation. In this recipe, we opted for the Chili Macaroni variety, a flavor profile that is well complemented by the addition of onion, garlic, tomato paste, and cheddar cheese. But these same flavors would also work well with much of the Hamburger Helper lineup. You could easily swap in flavors like Cheeseburger Macaroni, Spicy BBQ Heat, Cheddar Cheese Melt — you get the idea. Just about any variety whose primary flavors are meant to be beefy and cheesy will jibe beautifully with these simple additions.

But there are some you'd be better off avoiding. Hamburger Helper flavors like Deluxe Beef Stroganoff, Salisbury, or Ranch & Bacon won't benefit in the same way from these additions, since they're more cream-based as opposed to tomato-based. But don't worry, if those are the boxes you have on hand, most of the other additions will work just fine. You can't go wrong with a bit of extra onion and garlic, and a touch of cheddar cheese rarely hurts anything either. No matter what flavor you're making, crunchy panko will add a lovely textural contrast. And we have a long list of the best ingredients to add to Hamburger Helper, so you can also fill in the gaps with your own experiments.

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