Million Dollar Casserole: Recipe Review

This is a recipe that I make when I am desperate to get the ENTIRE family to eat one meal.  You know, mainly so the little one isn't scavenging the fridge and pantry an hour after supper claiming he is starving because he wouldn't eat his supper.  I digress.  Initially, this was intended to be a freezer meal.  One of those recipes you can make huge batches up and freeze and have lovely dinners for the next 8 months without any effort.  I have never gotten that far.  I make it one night and maybe have a bit of leftovers the next day.

I have seen several variations of this recipe around Pinterest, including Million Dollar Spaghetti.  This recipe uses penne pasta.  One day, I had no penne left, so I used shells.  My youngest son started shrieking and thanking me because he LOVES the shells and thought I did it to be extra nice.  Fat chance.  Use whatever pasta you want - it will all taste good.

Here is the original recipe I used:
Million Dollar Casserole
As usual, I have tweaked it and come up with what works perfectly.  I use more beef for one.  One pound doesn't seem like near enough.  I upped it to two and that seems to work better.  I also don't use the butter.  I haven't from day one because I honestly didn't see the need.  There is enough fat with all the cream cheese and cheese that it just didn't seem necessary.  Anyway, my tweaked version is below.

Million Dollar Casserole

• 2 lbs lean ground beef
• 640 ml jar of spaghetti/pasta sauce
• 1/4 cup cream cheese (works better if it is room temperature)
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 5 cups of penne pasta
• 1/2 - 1 cup cheddar cheese

1. Cook ground beef and drain the fat.  While the beef is cooking, cook the pasta.  You may want to use more than the 5 cups, but that is what I used with shells. Drain the pasta.
2. Combine the cream cheese, sour cream and ricotta in a small bowl.
3. In a 9x13 glass pan, spread out half the pasta.
4. Top the pasta with your cream cheese mixture.  Spread it out as best you can, but don't worry about covering every little piece.
5. Top the cream cheese mixture with the rest of the pasta.
6. Top the pasta with the beef.
7. Top the beef with your jar of pasta sauce and spread evenly around.
8. Sprinkle the cheese on the top.  I like to have mine covered completely.
9. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

When I say I like to have mine covered in cheese, that is all but the strip my 7 year old eats, because he doesn't like his topped with cheese.  See what I'm dealing with here?

There really aren't THAT many ingredients to this in addition to the beef and pasta.  The only one I don't typically have on hand is the ricotta.

It is fairly simple to throw together once your beef and pasta is cooked.

See how early it was when I started this? I love recipes like this.  You get all your "precooking" and clean up done, and all you have to do is throw it in the oven when the time comes.  Everything is done before the kids get home from school.

From there, you just assemble everything.  One thing I want to mention is that it is important to get a good "base" of pasta.  You want to have something for your cream cheese mixture to sit on.

There she is.  All thrown together, with one strip void of cheese.  

Viola! The final product ready to eat.  I guess I should have thought this through and cheesed up the whole thing.  Nah.  That's what my blog is about - real life.  Everything may not be picture perfect, but it's all true, and it's a real reviews for what works for my family.

Pinner Approved!

What to search for on Pinterest: Million Dollar Casserole (or see link above)

Pros: make it in advance, easy and cheesy, most ingredients are on hand

Cons: lots of dishes to wash (seriously, I HATE that)

Will I make this recipe again: You bet!