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This Slow Cooker goulash turns ground beef, onion, tomato sauce, and elbow macaroni into a hearty, budget-friendly dinner with almost no fuss. You’re going to love how the macaroni cooks right in the sauce for an easy, comforting meal.
Why You’ll Love It
- Four main ingredients — simple, affordable staples with no specialty items needed.
- Slow Cooker convenience — the beef, onions, and tomato sauce cook low and slow for rich flavor.
- One-pot pasta — the elbow macaroni cooks right in the sauce near the end.
- Big-batch comfort food — saucy, hearty, and perfect for keeping warm.
Ingredient Notes
Use 80 to 85% lean ground beef. It has enough flavor to keep this from tasting flat, but it won’t leave you with a Slow Cooker full of grease either. If your beef gives off a lot of fat while browning, spoon most of it off—but leave a couple tablespoons behind. A little is flavor.
A large yellow onion is cheap, dependable, and doesn’t try to steal the show. Dice it fairly small so it softens into the sauce.
Plain canned tomato sauce works best. Not spaghetti sauce. Not crushed tomatoes. Tomato sauce. The unassuming little can does a lot of work here.
And elbow macaroni—regular dry elbows. Nothing fancy. Other shapes work for pantry odds and ends, but elbows really are the right little noodle for this job. They hold onto the sauce like they mean it.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds ground beef, preferably 80–85% lean
- 1 large yellow onion, diced, about 1 1/2 cups or so
- 2 cans (15 ounces each) tomato sauce
- 3 cups dry elbow macaroni
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, optional and to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, optional
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups water, as needed to cook the pasta and loosen everything up
Instructions
Brown the ground beef in a large skillet over medium-high heat, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as it cooks. Keep at it until there is no pink left, about 7 to 10 minutes. If there is a lot of grease in the pan, spoon off most of it, leaving just a couple tablespoons. Do not skip browning the beef first. The texture will be better.
Stir the diced onion into the browned beef and cook for another 3 to 5 minutes, until the onion starts to soften and looks translucent around the edges. It does not need to be completely tender yet; it will have plenty of time in the Slow Cooker. This is when the kitchen begins smelling like dinner.
Scrape the beef and onion mixture into a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker, getting all those browned bits from the skillet in there too. That little bit of caramelized stuff is not garbage. It is dinner’s personality.
Pour in both cans of tomato sauce and stir everything together. Add the kosher salt and black pepper if using them. The mixture will look very thick and rather meaty at this stage, which is exactly right. Don’t panic and start pouring water in early; adding water early can leave a thin sauce for the rest of the afternoon.
Cover the slow cooker and cook the beef, onions, and tomato sauce on LOW for 4 to 5 hours or on HIGH for 2 to 3 hours. The onions should soften completely and the sauce should take on that rich, old-fashioned meat-sauce smell.
About 30 to 40 minutes before serving, stir in 1 1/2 cups water, then add the dry elbow macaroni. Stir well so the pasta is mostly submerged in the sauce. If the mixture still seems very thick or the elbows are sitting high and dry on top, add up to another 1/2 cup water.
Cover the slow cooker and cook on HIGH for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until the macaroni is tender but not mushy. Start checking at 20 minutes because slow cookers are all temperamental in their own special way. If the sauce gets too thick before the pasta is tender, add a small splash of water and stir again.
Taste the goulash and add more salt or pepper if it needs it. Serve it hot, straight from the slow cooker, with a big spoon. It should be saucy, not soupy, with tender elbows, soft onions, and hearty bits of beef throughout.
Variations
The original version leaves room to make it stretch a little further when needed. Use 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef and add an extra 1/2 cup of dry macaroni for a bigger batch on a tighter budget.
A little shredded cheese and a few sliced pepperoncini on the side add a nice touch. The tang cuts through the richness. A small bowl of shredded cheddar on the table is never a bad idea, either.
Add a teaspoon of dried Italian seasoning or paprika for a little extra flavor, or replace some of the water with beef broth. Lean ground turkey works, but it needs extra seasoning and can taste a little like it is apologizing for itself. Brown it well if using that route.
Storage & Reheating
Leftovers keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days, stored in shallow containers once they’ve cooled down. Don’t leave the slow cooker sitting out all afternoon after serving—especially outside on a warm day. Refrigerate within 2 hours, or within 1 hour if it’s really hot out.
The macaroni will soak up more sauce overnight, so leftovers are thicker the next day. A splash of water when reheating on the stove or in the microwave is usually enough to loosen it up. Heat it until it’s steaming hot all the way through.
It can taste even better the next day. The problem is there usually isn’t much left to test that theory.
Final Notes
There’s something about a meal built from ordinary groceries that lingers. It was just dinner—warm, red-sauced, filling dinner—made with care.
This recipe isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t photograph like a layer cake, and it certainly won’t fix the folding-table situation in the backyard. But it is filling. It disappears fast.
And for a bowl of beef, tomato sauce, onion, and elbows…well. That’ll do.
Slow Cooker 4-Ingredient Poor Man Goulash
Ingredients Â
- 2 pounds ground beef preferably 80–85% lean
- 1 large yellow onion diced, about 1 1/2 cups
- 2 cans (15 ounces each) tomato sauce
- 3 cups dry elbow macaroni
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt optional and to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper optional
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups water as needed to cook the pasta and loosen the sauce
InstructionsÂ
- Brown the ground beef in a large skillet over medium-high heat, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until no pink remains, about 7 to 10 minutes; spoon off most of the grease if needed, leaving a couple tablespoons behind.
- Stir the diced onion into the browned beef and cook for another 3 to 5 minutes, until the onion begins to soften and looks translucent around the edges.
- Scrape the beef and onion mixture into a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker, including the browned bits from the skillet.
- Pour in both cans of tomato sauce and stir in the kosher salt and black pepper if using; the mixture should look thick and meaty.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 5 hours or on HIGH for 2 to 3 hours, until the onions are completely softened and the sauce is rich and fragrant.
- About 30 to 40 minutes before serving, stir in 1 1/2 cups water and the dry elbow macaroni, making sure the pasta is mostly submerged; add up to another 1/2 cup water if needed.
- Cover and cook on HIGH for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until the macaroni is tender but not mushy; add a small splash of water if the sauce thickens too much.
- Taste the goulash and add more salt or pepper if needed, then serve hot with a saucy consistency and tender elbows.