American Chop Suey

4.99 from 170 votes

American Chop Suey is a delicious and easy dinner recipe made with ground beef, tomato, onion, green pepper, macaroni, and spices. Pure comfort food made on the stovetop in just 30 minutes and makes a great weeknight dinner!

Prep Time10 mins

Cook Time20 mins

Total Time30 mins

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: American

Servings: people

Calories: 438kcal

Author: Rebecca Hubbell

Ingredients

16 ounces elbow macaroni
2 tablespoons butter
1 large white onion diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 lb ground beef
1 green bell pepper diced
14 ounce diced tomatoes
5.5 ounces 100% tomato juice
15 ounces tomato sauce
6 ounces tomato paste
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce optional

Instructions

Fill a large pot with water, salt the water and bring to a boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions. *You can either finish cooking the pasta and leave it in a colander and use the same pot for the sauce or you can start making the rest of the recipe in a separate pot while the pasta is cooking.
In a separate pot or the one from the pasta (see note above), add the butter and onion to the pot and saute, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent, about 4 minutes.
Add the garlic to the onions and cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently.
Add ground beef and cook until browned, you can cook this in a separate pan if you'd like less fat and add it to the onions after cooking.
Add green pepper and cook until soft, about 5 minutes.
Add the diced tomatoes, sauce, juice, paste, sugar, spices, and Worcestershire Sauce. Cook until evenly heated.
Stir in the cooked pasta and stir to coat and add salt and pepper to taste.

Video

Notes

Serve immediately or package up and keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.
I would not recommend freezing this dish. Once thawed and reheated, the pasta will be mushy.
Recipe Variations:
- Ground Turkey – If you’re looking to lighten things up? You can try swapping ground beef for ground turkey.
- Cheese – If you’re used to cheese in your chop suey, you can simply stir in some mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, about 2 cups or so should do just fine.
- Peppers – Green bell peppers are a staple in this classic recipe, therefore I wouldn’t remove them completely, but feel free to try out red, orange, or yellow instead.
- Mushrooms – So you’re a mushroom lover, are ya? Well, you can easily add them in. You can use either a small can or 1 cup of fresh chopped mushrooms, just add and saute them with the green peppers because you’ll want them to be nice and soft.

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