Supercharged KD

You can make a healthy, complete meal with protein, vegetables and great flavour by adding 3 ingredients to a package of Kraft Dinner.

Step 1: Assemble Ingredients

Start with a package of Kraft Dinner (KD) or similar instant mac and cheese product.

For the basic KD, you add milk and butter.

For supercharged KD, you will also add:

• broccoli
• a can of tuna
• some grated parmesan or cheddar cheese, or nutritional yeast which has a delicious cheese like flavour

Step 2: Prepare Ingredients

Wash and chop broccoli into bite sized flowerets.

Open can of tuna and drain off excess liquid.

Step 3: Cook Pasta and Add Broccoli Near End of Boil Time

Cook pasta in plenty of boiling water.

3 minutes before the end of pasta cooking time, add broccoli. For example, if KD instructions are to boil the pasta for 7 minutes, add the broccoli after 4 minutes. Once the pot returns to a boil, cook the broccoli and pasta mixture for another 3 minutes.

Step 4: Drain Pasta and Add Remaining Ingredients

1. Drain pasta and broccoli.
2. Melt butter in the same pot you boiled pasta in (follow directions on box - usually 1 or 2 tablespoons of butter)
3. Add the drained pasta and broccoli to pot.
4. Add the packet of cheese powder from the KD box, the tuna, the grated cheese and the milk (about 1/3 cup).
5. Stir together on stove until mixed and heated through.

Step 5: Enjoy!

This recipe makes 2 large or 3 average servings.

Garnish with parsley if desired and serve with a glass of red or white wine.

Enjoy your supercharged KD, feeling virtuous knowing that you are getting both protein and vegetables!

Comments

[JBMake]

my mom always added extra grated cheddar too.

[Solyra]

Fast and easy way to add lots of nutrition and a bunch of flavour to a popular quick-cook convenience food. Too bad I didn't figure this out for myself when I was in college and devouring crates of kraft dinner.

[grannyjones]

I like to heat the milk and butter in the microwave, and mix in the powder before adding to the pasta. I also add a nice, big glop of sour cream with the other additions.

[YukonJulie]

That sounds good! The nice thing about this recipe is that you can vary it to suit your own taste. I'm lactose intolerant (hence the lactose free milk in the photo) so I generally avoid sour cream, but I can imagine that adding sour cream, and premixing the powder with the milk and butter would give it a creamier texture and nice flavour.