One Pot Cajun Beef Pasta with lots-of-veg

One Pot Cajun Beef Pasta is a big, bubbly pasta made with beef and a surprising amount of hidden vegetables in a Cajun flavoured tomato pasta sauce, topped with oozy cheese. Serves 7 to 8 and makes for excellent leftovers!

A complete one-pot meal with lots of hidden vegetables

Here today with a sparkling new recipe I created with mid-week cooking in mind: a big, bubbling Cajun pasta made with beef and a surprising amount of hidden vegetables, so you can serve this as a complete meal. It’s really economical (500g/1lb beef -> 7 to 8 servings), with bold beefy Cajun flavours and smothered with oozy cheese.

The good amount of Cajun spices used in this recipe lets us pack in vegetables without disappointingly diluting the flavour of the dish. You know exactly where I’m coming from, I know you do!!

In this recipe, we’ve got a carrot, zucchini, and capsicum (bell pepper) with 500g/1 lb of beef, plus there’s also 800g/28 oz canned tomato and an onion (these count as vegetables too!) All these vegetables not only boosts nutrition but also stretches the dish to serve 7-8 people instead of the usual 4-5.

So much veg. But try to tell me you don’t want to eat this!! ⬇️

Cajun pasta – not authentic, and that’s ok!

In case you are wondering, no, Cajun pasta isn’t authentically Cajun. In fact, Cajuns typically use rice. However, combining Cajun spices with pasta is popular in America and makes for a super tasty dish. So I’m totally on board with it!

Ingredients in this One Pot Cajun Beef Pasta

I’ve chosen to use grated carrot and zucchini which blends in seamlessly into the pasta sauce, plus a chopped capsicum (bell pepper) which is on theme for the Cajun flavours in this dish.

The pasta add-ins

Beef – I’ve designed this recipe around beef and I did find I had the tweak the volume of the Cajun spice blend to get the right balance of flavour. So while you could substitute with chicken, turkey or pork, you might find the seasoning a little on the light side so I’d increase the Cajun seasoning a bit. And probably add a bit more fat too, else the mince might seem a little dried out.

Lamb doesn’t get a mention here because I feel like the combination with Cajun spices in a pasta sounds a bit odd? I could be wrong.
Vegetables – Zucchini and carrot, grated with a box grater so it disappears into the pasta sauce. Plus a red capsicum (bell pepper), chopped rather than grating because it would turn into watery mush.
Onion – This absolutely counts towards your vegetable quota! Plus it forms an important part of the flavour base for this pasta.
Garlic – Where there is onion, there is almost always garlic. Actually, there is almost always garlic even when onion is not present!
Kidney beans – This bulks out the recipe with more nutritional value than using more pasta, as well as adding a different texture to the dish. It’s also on theme as kidney beans are used in Cajun dishes – like red beans and rice. 🙂

cajun pasta sauce

The key to success with this One Pot Cajun Beef Pasta for perfectly cooked pasta and enough sauce so it’s bubbly and saucy rather than dry and stodgy is to use enough liquid (stock, canned tomato and water). You will be surprised how much the pasta absorbs!

Crushed canned tomato – For the pasta sauce. We use 800g/28 oz which makes this pasta nice and saucy!
Chicken stock/broth and water – The liquid for cooking the pasta. We need a fair amount (1 litre / 1 quart) because pasta absorbs a surprising amount of liquid! I use a combination because using just water makes the sauce a little bland, but using all chicken stock rather than equal parts water and stock didn’t improve the flavour. So why incur the extra cost of using all chicken stock when water is free? 🙂
Tomato paste – Just 2 tablespoons gives the sauce a tomato flavour boost, and thickens it slightly. Without, the sauce is just a little on the light side of tomato-flavour, but I’d still make this if I was out.
Homemade Cajun Spice blend – I like to use a homemade Cajun spice blend because the quality of Cajun spice blends varies so much from brand to brand. Though if you have a good one, like Slap Ya Mama, feel free to substitute with that.

Here are the spices you need for the homemade Cajun spice blend:
- Dried thyme – substitute with fresh leaves, chopped
- Paprika – sweet/regular, not smoked or spicy
- Garlic powder – has an earthier flavour than fresh garlic. Substitute with more onion powder, or 2 extra garlic cloves.
- Onion powder – has an earthier flavour than fresh onion, Substitute with more garlic powder.
- Cayenne pepper – optional, for subtle warmth. Feel free to leave it out, or substitute with chilli powder (ie pure chilli, not the US non-spicy chili blend) or a dash of your favourite hot sauce.
- Salt and pepper
Cheese – For melting on the surface. I like to use Colby because it melts easily (useful for recipes where we use residual heat to melt the cheese) and doesn’t go greasy. But any melting cheese will be fine here. Personally I don’t use mozzarella because it doesn’t have quite enough flavour. Or, if I did, I’d add a good sprinkle of parmesan on top.

How to make this One Pot Cajun Beef Pasta

Using the one-pot method of cooking pasta where uncooked pasta is cooked in the pasta sauce does not work for all recipes. But it works extremely well for some – like this one!

The bonus, other than less washing up, is that the pasta absorbs the flavour of the sauce. Extra yum factor!

Shred the carrot and zucchini using a standard box grater. I like to grate them so the strands are shorter rather than longer (they hide better!). I don’t peel the carrot (free nutrition).
Cook – Use a large heavy based pot with a lid. I use a 24cm / 9.45″ cast iron pot which gets very full!

Heat the oil over high heat, and cook the onion and garlic first to flavour the oil. Then cook the beef, breaking it up as you go, until it changes from red to brown.

Vegetables and spices – Next, cook the carrot and zucchini. They will release water at first, but then the water will evaporate. After 2 minutes when they are partially cooked, add the capsicum and cook for another 2 minutes until the carrot and zucchinis wilted.

Then add the tomato paste and all the Cajun spices. Cook for another 1 minute to take the sour raw edge off the tomato paste and get the spices all through the vegetables and beef.
Sauce and pasta – Add the canned tomato, water (I use the water to swill out the tomato cans), chicken stock and beans. Give it a good stir and bring it up to the simmer before adding the pasta.

Cook 15 minutes – Once the liquid comes back up to the simmer, cover with the lid and then lower the heat to medium. We want the liquid simmering, but not bubbling madly (too strong, base will catch) nor still which means it isn’t hot enough (the pasta will just be sitting there bloating in hot liquid rather than cooking).
Stir every few minutes to ensure the base doesn’t catch. As it cooks, the liquid will get absorbed by the pasta.

The pasta is ready when it’s just about cooked (ie centre is still a bit firmer than you want). It will be rather watery still which is what we want. The pasta will finish cooking and the excess liquid will be absorbed in the next step! **Stop here if making ahead, see box below for tips.**

Cheese it! Working quickly (so we don’t lose heat), give the pasta one big stir, smooth the surface, then sprinkle the surface with cheese.
3 minutes – Cover with the lid and turn the stove off. Leave the pot on the stove for 3 minutes to let the residual heat melt the cheese. Then lift the lid and be greeted with THIS DELERIOUSLY DELICIOUS SIGHT! ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Serve immediately, while the pasta is at its peak, hot and oozy. Because as with all pastas, the longer this sits around, the less saucy it becomes as the pasta will continue to absorb liquid.

Though truthfully, it doesn’t bother me even when it’s not as saucy as freshly made. I was happily warming up leftovers and eating this for breakfast four days later, then I made another couple of batches “just to check it one more time” and froze them to donate through RecipeTin Meals (my food bank).

I think this is One Pot Cajun Beef Pasta is another recipe ideal to add to our RTM rotation – nutritious, economical, easy to scale up, keeps well and damn tasty! – Nagi x

PS The token green onion sprinkle is not at all mandatory, just my attempt to add a splash of green to the molten blanket of yellow.

PPS For those interested, I did a post on the Top 10 meals we make at RTM -> Top 10 recipes we make at RecipeTin Meals. It’s a useful list for recipes that are ideal for making ahead, freezing, wholesome, economical and the sort of food everybody loves. We tend to stay away from things like bold-flavoured spicy Vindaloo curry at RTM! 🙂