This buffalo chicken mac and cheese combines ground chicken with healthier chickpea pasta, a low fat buffalo cheese sauce, and bubbly monterey jack cheese. Each serving has 34 grams of protein with just 31 grams of carbs, and you should be able to have dinner on the table in about 30 minutes.
I’ll walk you through the full recipe below and cover ingredient substitutions and tips for cooking as we go. You can find a printable recipe card at the bottom of the post if you’re familiar with my recipes and ready to get cracking!
Cook your choice of macaroni in salted water.
Any type of pasta will work here, but I’m a fan of Banza’s chickpea pasta. It’s higher in protein and fiber, gluten free, and has great texture and flavor. I’ve used it in everything from my chicken fajita pasta bake to queso mac and cheese with chipotle ground beef.
The only tip I have for this step would be to avoid cooking your pasta too early. The recipe calls for cooking it just shy of al dente, about 5 minutes. If you need to prep ingredients or work slowly, maybe hold off adding the pasta to the water until you have the ground chicken cooked.
Cook ground chicken with diced onion and minced garlic.
Speaking of cooking ground chicken, this step is straightforward enough. You can omit the onion if you have picky eaters around, but the serving sizes may be slightly affected. And since the onion will release some moisture as it cooks, you may need to use a bit of olive oil for cooking the chicken.
If you’d rather use chicken breast, you could make the chicken from my shredded buffalo chicken nachos recipe.
(Optional) Add ranch seasoning.
Since you already have two major flavor components of ranch—garlic and onion—in the mix, I’ve listed this ingredient as optional. It adds a hints of buttermilk, dill, and saltiness. But the buffalo sauce is plenty salty, so you can just salt to taste before topping with shredded cheese at the end.
Add buffalo sauce.
I used the same Frank’s RedHot sauce that I used for my buffalo air fryer tuna cakes and 45-calorie buffalo chicken bites. If you wanted to make your own, here’s a recipe for homemade buffalo sauce from Mike at Chili Pepper Madness.
Since the recipe doesn’t call for any oil, you may have some sticky bits depending on the cookware you use. The buffalo sauce should help deglaze the pan to get those off before reducing the heat.
Mix fat free Greek yogurt with cheddar powder and add to the cooked buffalo chicken.
What is cheddar powder?
If you’re unfamiliar with recipes like my 30-minute cheeseburger soup or air fried cheesy potatoes, cheddar powder is essentially dehydrated cheddar cheese. Think: powdered peanut butter.
You can use cheddar powder as a dry ingredient or seasoning, but my favorite way to use it is reconstituting in some kind of liquid for sauces like the cheese sauce for this buffalo chicken mac and cheese. It makes a creamy cheese sauce with a fraction of the fat and calories of traditional cheese sauces.
Where to buy cheddar powder
Your best bet is to order some on Amazon (I’ve included it on my recommended ingredients Amazon list). Some specialty stores may carry it but if you’re in a pinch, you can steal a package from other boxed mac and cheese.
Don’t want to use cheddar powder? Check out the blended cottage cheese sauce in my high protein mac n cheese.
Add the cooked pasta and fold everything together.
If you’re using chickpea pasta, you’ll want to go straight from draining to the pan as it can stick together a bit as it cools to room temp. You can toss drained pasta in a little olive oil to help prevent this if your timing is off.
And if you love this buffalo ground chicken and wanted something else to use it for, you could plug it into my buffalo chicken stuffed peppers recipe.
Top with freshly grated cheese and broil ’til bubbly.
The recipe calls for monterey jack, but you can use mozzarella or any softer melting cheese. I’ve honestly never broiled blue cheese, but I’m guessing that’d be a fine substitute.
Top with some green onion and you’re ready to rock!
If you have any questions about this buffalo chicken mac and cheese, feel free to leave a comment or join my Facebook group. There are more than 14,000 healthy home cooks in the group to help out!
Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
- 8 oz Banza Pasta Elbows
- 1 lb Ground Chicken*
- 1 medium, 250g Yellow Onion, diced
- 3 cloves 15g Garlic, minced
- 1 Tbsp Ranch Seasoning, optional
- 1/3 C 80g Buffalo Sauce
- 1 C 227g Fat Free Greek Yogurt
- 1/2 C 56g Cheddar Powder
- 3/4 C 84g Shredded Monterey Jack
Instructions
- Cook the pasta in a pot of salted water for 5 minutes.
- Add the ground chicken, onion, and garlic to a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook until no pink remains, about 8 minutes. Add the optional ranch seasoning towards and cook for 1-2 more minutes.
- Add the buffalo sauce and cook for 2-3 minutes until the mixture begins to thicken.
- Reduce the heat to low. Mix the Greek yogurt and cheddar powder in a separate bowl and add to the skillet. Stir everything together before folding in the cooked pasta.
- Top with the shredded cheese and broil on high for 5 minutes. Serve with fresh green onions, if desired.
This hits the spot. Protein. Buffalo. Yum. Pair it with a salad and you have a great and balanced meal. Mason, you did it again!!
⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We made this tonight and HOLY TASTE BUD PARRRRTAY! It’s delicious! We didn’t have ground chicken so we used lean ground turkey. We also had to cut the hot sauce down to 1/4 cup not the 3/4 so I wouldn’t break into a cold sweat 😆.
One of my favorites and we make nearly every meal you post!!!!!!
Ya’ll need to try this one!!!!
I hate to say it, but this one was a rare miss for me. Just way too much hot sauce called for in the recipe as written – the vinegary sauce overpowers everything else. I’m going to give it another shot and try knocking down the hot sauce to a quarter cup like the other reviewer did. I have a hunch it will be much better that way.
Update: made this again for dinner last night, knocking the hot sauce down from 3/4 cup down to 1/4. Much, MUCH better! It was as good as I hoped it would be, and better. I’ll be adding the modified version to my dinner rotation from here on. My advice: if you’re gonna make this, go light on the hot sauce – you can always put more on top when you’re eating.
I retested the recipe with 1/3 C buffalo sauce, and I agree with you. I’ve updated the recipe accordingly. Thanks for the feedback, Joe. I can only test so many variables in the initial testing. You guys help me out!
This one is great but too spicy for a spice wimp like me. I knew this based on other reviews so I decreased the buffalo sauce quite a bit and let people add more at time of serving. Perfect!
So so good! I did cut the buffalo sauce in half after reading previous reviews. And I only had reduced fat mozzarella. But so so good. Will definitely make it again!!!
So.. I was nervous about it coming out right because I didn’t have cheddar powder and could not order any from Amazon that would get here anytime in the next month #coronavirus BUT I improvised with some cheese seasoning I found in the spices aisle for popcorn. The label said it was made of actual cheese so I figured it would work out okay.. low and behold, it was DELICIOUS!
@Alea, I was wondering if that would work! Great to know!
This is definitely one of my favorite pasta dishes!! I substituted with chicken breast that I had cut into cubes and precooked on the stove top before adding to the rest. Topped mine with OPA ranch dressing and it hit the spot!
I am loving this recipe. Cannot wait for cheddar powder to get back in stock on Amazon so I can make it again. I never would have thought to make pasta sauce out of greek yogurt but I am so thankful Mason showed me how!
I knew Banza was delicate so I prepped the pasta last and everything worked out fine. This recipe will hit the spot if you are craving buffalo chicken. And who doesn’t love mac and cheese?
Wow….this dish is amazing! So full of flavor and one serving is very filling. I used Frank’s red hot instead of buffalo sauce. I did reduce the amount by a little but but didn’t notice it being too spicy. I love this recipe and will be putting this on the rotation!