Combine A Pound Of Ground Beef With Canned Soup For An Easy Stroganoff-Inspired Dinner

Not every dinner can be a boundary-pushing creative masterpiece. Sometimes, you just need to get a meal on the table. A that dinner can be ready in less than 30 minutes and is easy on the wallet, so much the better. Enter a hearty beef stroganoff-inspired main that comes together in rapid fire with just a pound of ground beef and a can of cream of mushroom soup, all served over a bed of soft egg noodles.

This weeknight-friendly dinner is easy to pull off with even the most limited kitchen set-up — or for those who are new (or old) to the kitchen. All it takes is browning the ground beef in a pan and then pouring off the excess fat before adding the cream of mushroom soup. From there, you can thin out the "sauce" with milk or water and then ladle generously over cooked egg noodles. This dish feels comforting and homemade, but is so simple that you could practically make it in your sleep.

Classic stroganoff — the inspiration for this dish — is an elevated Russian hallmark centered around tender beef and gently cooked mushrooms, and finished with a silky cream sauce. The aristocratic showpiece calls for pricey cuts of beef like sirloin or tenderloin, along with plenty of time and technique, from velveting the meat with cornstarch to deglazing the pan and tempering the sour cream so that the aforementioned sauce doesn't curdle. Instead of laboring over this kitchen challenge, you can easily harness its signature meat and mushroom-forward flavors with a speedy approximation.

While the cream of mushroom soup in the weeknight-friendly version eliminates the need for fiddling with a temperamental sauce, you can easily adjust the flavor profile to your liking. Traditional stroganoff ingredients like a dollop of mustard for piquancy or a few dashes of Worcestershire for depth will make the canned soup taste more homemade. For a final flourish, don't forget to garnish with chopped parsley for vibrancy so that it both reads and tastes like stroganoff.

If you find yourself with extra cream of mushroom soup, you can stretch it to create yet another weeknight wonder in the form of a quick and meat-free mushroom Alfredo dish. Just make sure to stock back up so you're ready at the drop of a hat for another stroganoff night once it has earned a place in your regular dinner rotation.