In Finland, we have this comfort food called makaroonilaatikko. It can be made without meat and then served as a side dish, for example, meatball sauce or different meat sauces. The other version is with minced beef. This is the favorite of many kids and adults alike. It’s nothing like American mac and cheese, but macaroni bake is good! The recipe I am used to making has a milk-egg mixture poured over maccaroni and fried minced beef and baked until solid. This is the most common way of doing makaroonilaatikko.

There are so many recipes and ways of doing this dish, and every Finnish family has their own style of making it, so there’s really no right or wrong way. Some add cheese, but bread crumbs are added to the original recipe before baking. What ever way you decide to make this,try to find elbow macaroni. That’s what we use in Finland for macaroni bakes. I used one from Barilla.

My best friend makes hers without milk or eggs, and it’s so tasty! It has become our favorite, besides the traditional egg and milk version. It’s nice to have some variation sometimes. It’s effortless. To make this vegetarian, use soya granular or something else to add proteins and change meat stock to vegetable stock.On top some parmesan maybe? I have tried chickpeas, and it was pretty good. Here’s the recipe:

Macaroni bake

500 g elbow macaroni
3 pieces beef bouillon cubes
1,5 liter water
1-2 onions
800 g ground beef
4 tablespoons sweet mustard (Finnish mustard is sweet)
8 tablespoons ketchup
1 teaspoon Cheyenne pepper or sambal olek
2 teaspoons paprika powder
2-3 tablespoons Italian herb mixture (otherwise, some basil, marjoram, oregano, thyme, garlic powder, or fresh garlic)
(½ teaspoon salt) bacon is quite salty so you might want to leave this out
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Top with bacon. Use as much as you want or leave away. In our family, we count how many bacon pieces there are available per person 🙂 Needless to say my men are meat eaters and bacon lovers.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
2. Boil macaroni in boiling water flavored with beef bouillon cubes for 5 minutes so that the macaroni is half-cooked and still absorbs some liquid in the oven. Do not drain.
3. Peel and finely chop the onion. Brown ground beef and onion lightly in oil on a hot pan. Season with paprika, salt, and pepper.
4. Grease an ovenproof dish. Mix the ground beef mixture and macaroni with their broth in the dish. Add the rest of the spices and mix once more.
5. Add bacon on top. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 45 minutes or more. Casserole is ready when the top is crispy and all fluids are gone.

NOTE: You can adjust all spices to your taste.