Cheeseburger Macaroni Skillet

A cozy, one‑pan Cheeseburger Macaroni Skillet with ground beef, stewed tomatoes, macaroni, and melty sharp cheddar. Hearty, comforting, and weeknight‑easy.

Cheeseburger Macaroni Skillet

I know y'all are thinking by now that based on my recent posts, I've been living solely off of dips and pasta salads this summer, and you know what? You are mostly correct, I have!

But the husband, aka The Cajun, doesn't eat that kind of food, so yeah, I'm still cooking here and there because he can barely boil water y'all.

I'm always teasing him about those of you gals who tell me your husbands bring you a hot cup of coffee while you're still in bed in the morning.

"I don't know how to work that coffee thing you've got." he says.

Taco Skillet (TikTok - My Way)

A cozy, one‑pan Taco Skillet inspired by the viral TikTok trend - but made the sensible, real‑kitchen way. Seasoned beef, peppers, tomatoes, green chilies, corn, and tender rice all simmer together and finish under a blanket of melty cheese.

If you love a one‑pan dinner that’s comforting, budget‑friendly, and big on flavor, this Taco Skillet is going to be a regular in your rotation. It's another one of those recipes inspired by TikTok.

TikTok is full of fun videos, including this one‑pan taco rice, and I’ll admit, they do very often catch my eye. The idea is solid, but the execution can sometimes seem a bit, well... chaotic.

So, I took the inspiration, kept the flavors, and made it my way!

A cozy one‑pan beef tenderloin tips dinner with pan‑sauteed vegetables, a splash of white wine, and just enough broth to bring everything together. Tender, flavorful, and ready in under 30 minutes, perfect for weeknights or entertaining.

Beef Tenderloin Tips with Vegetables

This dish, inspired by Jacques Pepin's Instant Beef Tenderloin Stew, isn't like the traditional, thick stew we think of in the South. This is more of a skillet meal, but with a stew vibe.

The focus stays on the beef tenderloin that cooks quickly and stays buttery‑soft, while the vegetables help it to feel hearty like a traditional stew, but without being overly heavy.

What comes out of the pan in the end, is tender beef tips, tossed with potatoes and carrots, earthy mushrooms, sweet peas, and just enough white wine and broth to pull everything together with a glossy, savory finish.

Dad’s skillet dressing starts with classic cornbread dressing ingredients, with layers of flavor built the way Cajun cooks do best: bold seasoning, tender chicken, and a skillet that never left the stovetop. Moist, savory, and full of family memories, this dressing carries the spirit of his kitchen straight to the table.

Dad's Cajun Skillet Chicken and Cornbread Dressing

In the season of classic dressing recipes, there are so many different ways out there to make this coveted dish, but I thought I would share one with you that you likely haven't seen before or even ever thought of!

My in-laws are gone now, but when Dad wasn't traveling with the oil business, which he did a lot to all sort of places I'll never see, he did a lot of the cooking at home. He actually enjoyed it, but I think it was something that he naturally picked up as a kid growing up with folks from Cajun Country.

I'm sure my mother-in-law didn't mind one bit. Wish my husband had picked up on that!

Skillet Angel Chicken - My Way

My variation of the viral Angel Chicken recipe, made with boneless, skinless chicken breasts, wrapped in seasoned bacon, and finished on the stovetop in a sauce made of chicken stock, cream soup, cream cheese, butter and dry Italian dressing mix.

Skillet Angel Chicken

I'm sure by now you've seen some version of this Angel Chicken recipe, because it's literally all over the internet. It's usually made in a slow cooker, but if you've been around here any length of time you know I'm not a huge user of that appliance in general.

Oh, I like it just fine, especially for those tougher cuts of meat that need a longer cook time. It's not my favorite mostly because it involves advanced planning which I'm not that great at doing! Still, readers here enjoy using a slow cooker, so I've shared a few recipes here and there.

Chicken breasts in the slow cooker though? Those are my least favorite protein to cook in one.

A quick skillet meal made with seasoned, boneless, skinless chicken thighs and frozen mixed vegetables, served over rice or noodles.

Skillet Chicken and Vegetables

I love a quick skillet meal!

Even though I run this recipe website, I'm still like many of you. In between recipe development and getting things in a form where y'all can recreate it in your own kitchen, I have some days where I'm just not super inspired about what I want to eat, or even whether or not I even feel like cooking!

A favorite dish of pasta with ground beef, tomatoes and chili seasonings, made easy using the Instant Pot!

Instant Pot Chili Mac

I love sauce and pasta dishes like this chili mac. It's so easy to throw together and gives you such a tasty dish that really most everyone loves and it's good any time of the year.

Besides a multitude of variations within the recipe itself that you can make by increasing and decreasing the chili seasonings and yes, even the cheese (or even leaving the cheese out), there are other ways to vary it too, just to give it a different flavor. Taco seasoned comes to mind as does a more mildly seasoned ground beef "helper" style of pasta and everything in between.

A fried bologna sandwich with mayonnaise and Colman's mustard sauce piled with thick sliced bologna, caramelized onion, cheese, shredded lettuce and vinegar potato chips.

Fried Bologna Sandwich

Y'all. This is hands-down the best fried bologna sandwich I have ever had in my entire life, and I've eaten a lot of fried bologna sandwiches.

Most of mine aren't anywhere close to this - just a slice, or two of bologna fried in a skillet, then sandwiched in two slices of white bread with some mustard. Delish!

The melding of the flavors here though, is just fried bologna perfection.

A quick skillet version of barbecue chicken made with boneless, skinless chicken breasts and shown here with my Green Bean Supreme Casserole and Fiesta Confetti Corn.

Skillet Barbecue Chicken

The inspiration for this began with the BBQ Glazed Chicken in Pioneer Woman's most recent cookbook Dinner's Ready (#ad).

As soon as I saw the picture, my mouth watered so I thought that I would try it with some boneless, skinless chicken breasts I had and my own rub.

I loved the way this turned out y'all!

Oven roasted, well-seasoned jumbo shrimp tossed in a tomato-based pasta sauce and rotini pasta.

Roasted Shrimp and Pasta Sauce

Pasta, pasta sauce and shrimp. How can you go wrong with that?!

Some of y'all may know about one of my favorite pasta sauces that I typically make in the summer with those super delicious, fresh from the garden tomatoes. It's simple, light and so flavorful.

An easy skillet meal, made with shrimp, sautéed peppers and onion, tossed with small shell pasta and finished with a cheesy cream sauce.

Seagrove Shrimp with Pasta and Peppers

I ran across a recipe for this Seagrove Shrimp in the cookbook Best of the Best from the Deep South (#ad), a compilation of regional recipes drawn from various cookbooks from Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. These are the same folks who published my cookbook actually! (#ad)

I don't know how the name Seagrove Shrimp came about, but if I was to venture a guess, I'd say it probably was named after a dish at a local restaurant in the Seagrove Beach, Florida area, or perhaps even invented in a beach condo by someone vacationing there.

I sure do love my Gulf Coast y'all and these beach communities along the Florida coast are my favorite get aways!

A quick skillet pasta meal of thin spaghetti noodles with chicken, diced tomatoes with green chilies, the trinity with garlic, shredded cheese and cream soup, prepared stovetop.

Stovetop Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti

When we talk about spaghetti, most everyone first thinks about spaghetti noodles in a tomato-based sauce that has either a ground beef base or meatballs. Delish!

But, there is a whole world of spaghetti to be had out there y'all!

Down here along the Gulf Coast, shrimp spaghetti is a top favorite, as is a Creole daube made from a roast, along with an andouille based spaghetti but, there's also veggie spaghetti, cowboy bacon spaghetti and many others to be had also.

The flavors of a shrimp gumbo with smoked sausage, in a light roux with the trinity of vegetables and okra, tossed with a short cut pasta.

Shrimp Gumbo Pasta

Gotta love a one pot pasta meal that doesn't include having to precook the pasta!

That's the case with this meal, a one pot meal that is somewhat in line with the Pastalaya recipe I've shared before. That recipe has the classic flavors of a chicken and sausage jambalaya, in a quick and easy skillet pasta dinner.

A quick one-pot, skillet meal of chicken, seasoning veggies, diced tomatoes, yellow rice and cheese.

Cheesy Chicken And Yellow Rice Skillet

I don't buy a lot of rotisserie chickens.

Not that I don't love them, because I do, and not that they aren't convenient, because they sure are. It's just now that I'm finally seeing whole chickens showing up on sale again here lately, I always pick up a couple of them.

Sometimes I bake my own rotisserie style version in the oven, or I grill one or smoke cook it on the Traeger (#ad). Other times I use the Instant Pot (#ad), and I'm loving the way that the air fryer works for a whole chicken too.

A quick skillet meal of shrimp and smoked sausage with wide egg noodles in a creamy sauce.

Creamy Cajun Shrimp and Sausage with Noodles

We are so blessed with fresh seafood and Gulf shrimp is available year round, very often fresh off the boat which is my preferred method of purchase. 

I'm always fooling around with different shrimp and pasta combinations to try different things and this is one of those instances. As a recipe writer and owner of a food-related website, there's a lot of experimenting and often it takes multiple tries to get a recipe just right.

At least that's my philosophy as a food blogger, because one thing I can guarantee and that is when a recipe appears on my website, it has been well-tested to meet my approval.

Seasoned ground beef patties, dredged lightly in flour, then pan fried, onions caramelized in the drippings in which a tomato-based gravy is created, and the patties returned to finish.

Hamburger Steaks in Tomato Gravy

Hamburger Steaks and Gravy is a go to for me and a favorite meal for my meat and potatoes hubby. 

It's super easy to make, tastes great and is a filling, belly warmin', delicious meal. 

As much as we love tomato gravy here in the South, trading the classic brown gravy for a tomato-based version is a natural transition.

A skillet meal of yellow squash and zucchini, corn, onion and tomatoes with garlic, that can be used as a side dish or served stuffed into warmed corn tortillas for a vegetable taco.

Skillet Squash and Zucchini with Corn - Calabacitas con Elote

I think it may have been when I shared the recipe for my Southern-Style Skillet Ratatouille on the Facebook page recently when a reader, Austin, mentioned calabacitas, a Southwest/Mexican-style dish that also uses some of the summer bounty of fresh vegetables that many of us love.

Summer is coming to an end soon so let's get them in while we can y'all!

A quick skillet meal of sweet or hot Italian sausage with seasoning vegetables, pasta noodles and a southwestern-seasoned tomato and sour cream sauce.

Italian Sausage and Pasta Skillet

Oh my goodness y'all... is this summer heat ever gonna end?? And it's not even August yet.

I know that I whine about it every summer but it's not getting any easier as the birthdays come on, that's for sure! The boys came by with their Dad for a swim and while PawPaw hung out in the pool with them, I had to go in and out of the house, alternating between visiting and cooling off. It was awful.

It's really been hard to get motivated to cook too.

Cuban-Style Creole Fried Chicken - Pollo Frito a la Criolla

Bone-in chicken thighs, marinated in a classic sour orange with onions, and a paste of garlic, oregano, and cumin, then pan seared and gently simmered on the stovetop.

Cuban-Style Creole Fried Chicken

If you're from the south, when you first saw the words "Creole" and "fried chicken" in the title to this recipe, you may have had certain expectations.

A southerner would likely expect any chicken that claims to be "fried chicken" to be one that has been dredged in seasoned flour and deep fried.

A southerner from the Deep South would expect a recipe claiming to be "Creole" to have the typical influences of tomato along with the trinity of onion, bell pepper and celery.

You'll find that neither of those elements apply to this Cuban-Style Creole Fried Chicken!

Seasoned pork chops, seared in a skillet and smothered in gravy with caramelized vegetables.

Pork Chop Étouffée

We do so love to "smother" our food here in the Deep South!

I mean, what's not to love about food simmered in gravy or sauce? Good stuff! I mean, check these out y'all.