Cheeseburger pasta doesn’t get enough love, in my opinion. It’s like a mash up of a cheeseburger with burger sauce and macaroni ‘n’ cheese. What’s not to love about that?
Even better, my version of cheeseburger pasta with ground chicken and protein pasta has 25 grams of protein and only 19 grams of carbs and 275 calories per serving. You can make it all in one pan in about 25 minutes, too. If you’re reluctant to hop on the cheeseburger pasta hype train after reading all that, I don’t know what to tell you!
You’ll find a printable recipe card at the bottom of the post. But first, I’ve included a quick visual recipe walkthrough with a few extra ingredient notes and cooking tips. If you have any questions I missed, drop a comment below the recipe card.
How to Make One-Pan Cheeseburger Pasta
Ground Chicken and Pasta
The recipe calls for ground chicken and Banza chickpea pasta shells. You’re welcome to use ground beef or turkey in place of ground chicken, just aim for a leaner cut.
For the pasta shells, other pasta options should work fine. Though you may need to adjust the amount of chicken broth or water used and extend the cook time for something like classic wheat pasta. You want the pasta nearly cooked or al dente before adding in the burger sauce and cheese.
Check out my creamy turkey and broccoli pasta and creamy chicken pasta soup recipes for examples of other one pot pastas.
Burger Sauce
The burger sauce is a rendition of the sauce I used for my low carb cheeseburger skillet. It’s a blend of light mayo, sugar free ketchup, mustard, and relish.
You can get creative here and mix things up. Don’t like relish? Leave it out or swap it for chopped pickles or peppers like in my healthy chicken burger bowls. Only have yellow mustard on hand and not stone ground? Just use yellow mustard. It’s all good!
Cheese
For the cheese, I typically aim for freshly grated cheese in pasta dishes, but I’ve found Tillamook shredded cheese melts really well. So if you’re looking for a quick route to cheeseburger pasta, that’s the move.
You do have the option in the recipe to either mix all the cheese straight in or to save some for broiling on top. I think the latter is the best way to make your cheeseburger pasta a little more aesthetic, and it adds some nice texture as well. You could add some chopped pickles or peppers to the top before broiling as well.
Serving Your Cheeseburger Pasta
For pasta main dishes like this, I always reference this guide on the best side dishes to serve with mac and cheese. Your best bet will be side salads and colorful veggie sides like green beans and broccoli. If you have an air fryer, you could prep some of my air fryer brussels sprouts or air fryer balsamic carrots while your pasta is under the broiler.
Be sure to let me know what you come up with for rounding out your meal. And if you love this ground chicken cheeseburger pasta, I’d greatly appreciate you leaving a recipe review!
Ground Chicken Cheeseburger Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp 16g Olive Oil
- 1 lb Ground Chicken, 97/3
- 8 oz Banza Pasta Shells
- 2 1/2 C Chicken Broth
- 2 Tbsp Pickle Juice
- 2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
- 2 tsp Onion Powder
- 1/2 tsp Black Pepper
For the Sauce & Cheese
- 1/4 C Sugar Free Ketchup
- 2 Tbsp Stone Ground Mustard
- 1 Tbsp Yellow Mustard
- 2 Tbsp Light Mayo
- 2 Tbsp Relish
- 6 oz Shredded Cheddar Fresh Parsley, for garnish
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat before browning both sides of the chicken and fully cooking.
- Add the onion powder and black pepper to the cooked ground chicken, followed by the pickle juice, Worcestershire, broth, and pasta. Stir to fully combine and submerge the pasta.
- Cover and cook for 6-8 minutes until the pasta is almost fully cooked before removing from the heat and uncovering.
- Mix all the sauce ingredients except the cheese together while the pasta cooks. Fold the sauce into the pasta before doing the same with the cheese. You can either add all 6 oz of cheese or fold in 4 and save 2 oz for adding on top and broiling for 5 minutes.
- Garnish with freshly chopped parsley and enjoy!
Would light thousand island be the same?
I’ve never tried light thousand island, but I know others swap out thousand island for burger sauce all the time. It would probably get the job done.
After the pasta cooked, I had so much liquid left in the skillet. I ended up pouring it out. Did I miss a step for draining?
You didn’t miss a step. Did you use a different type of pasta or liquid?
Just made this for meal prep for my lunches! Tastes like a bomb ass cheeseburger. I had to sub for lean ground beef because my store was out of chicken, but sooooooo good!
Hey, I’m never mad at a ground beef swap. Glad you enjoyed this one!
I have a huge bag of powdered cheese I bought for another one of your recipes. Could I use that here?
That’s actually a great idea! You could mix the cheddar powder in with the burger sauce before folding everything in. Let me know if you try this out and how it goes.
I made this as instructed (even though I don’t like relish, crazy, I know) because I like to make as intended the first time and it was so good! Definitely recommend!
The flavors in this are SOOO good! It’s the perfect combination of everything. I added some jalapenos because we like spicy burgers. Another winner, Mason!
I made this and it was bomb!! So good. Next time I’m going to add some veggies in, maybe broccoli or cauliflower like the cheeseburger soup recipe.
Great idea. Let me know how it turns out!
I’m not usually a ground chicken recipe kind of person but this recipe changed that! Super flavorful and reheated well. Definitely a staple in our house now!
Glad I could convert you to the light side!
Tastes just like a cheeseburger in a cozy fall casserole package.
Made a ton of this awesome recipe – can i freeze it?
I’m always reluctant to suggest freezing chickpea pasta, but other readers prep and freeze lots of my chickpea pasta recipes. I figure this one would work all the same. Good luck!