Enchilada Pasta

Enchilada Perfection Pasta

On our Snow-day without snow, Kyle and I opted for OUR FAVORITE things: 12+ hours of Harry Potter & comfort food casserole, Enchilada Pasta aka Enchilada fatty-perfection.  Of course, it was a pinterest find.  It's a delicious noodle-y, beef-y, cheese-y and SPICY casserole that is every part satisfying, comforting and delicious.  It is also every part fattening from its sour cream, to cream cheese, two different cheeses & ground beef, YIKES.  When I first entered this into WW it came out as 13 points per serving (eesh), HOWEVER I made a few changes that brought it down, pretty significantly, AND I have a few suggestions on how I can take down the points in the future.  The taste was still wonderful.

*Special note: Kyle LOVES to talk, especially during dinner. I always finish my dinner before him, when he has taken two bites (because he TALKSSS even though I love it).  Enchilada pasta, is the only dish Kyle finishes before I do. No talking allowed.

I can only hope you choose to make this delicious, wonderful casserole.  The original, yummy recipe, I found on Pinterest, which led me to tablefortwoblog.com .
Here is the recipe with my modifications:

What you need:

1 lb lean ground beef 

(or lean ground turkey OR lean ground chicken)

12 ounces egg noodles

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chili powder

6 ounces fat free cream cheese

1/4 cup fat free greek yogurt

1 cup reduced fat mexican cheese

1 cup reduced fat mild cheddar cheese

1 cup frozen kernel corn

1 10oz can enchilada sauce

1 4oz can green chiles

How to:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat a large casserole pan with cooking spray.

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook egg noodles according to package and drain.

Meanwhile, brown ground beef in a large skillet over medium heat.  Drain the grease.  Add cumin, cayenne pepper and chili powder over medium-low heat.  Add all cream cheese, melt and mix with ground beef.

Combine greek yogurt, 1/2 mexican cheese, 1/2 cheddar cheese, corn, enchilada sauce & green chiles together to make a sauce.  Once the cream cheese is melted, pour this sauce mixture into the skillet with the beef.  Stir and let sit for about 5 minutes.

Stir in the noodles.  Make sure that the whole mixture is covered with the sauce.  Pour the whole mixture into the large casserole dish.  Top with the remainder of the cheese.  Bake in the oven until all of the cheese is melted and casserole is heated through (approximately 15 minutes).

PER-FEC-TION.

Yields approximately 6 servings.

WW Friends: As I said, this yields 6 generous servings.  Each serving is 10 (compared to the previous 13!) Points Plus points. 

*If you would like to cut back on the points even more, lean ground turkey will yield 9 points plus per serving.  I did not calculate it, but lean ground chicken would also bring the points plus value down probably another point.

ENJOY! - Jack

PS. A wonderful boyfriend who does the dishes is a necessity for this dish ;)

you missed a spot!