Chef John's American Goulash

The formula

Every ingredient resolved to grams, expressed against the recipe's own base — next to the median of all 109.

	this recipe	typical
liquid	117%	63%
fat	1%	1%
aromatics	16%	33%
salt	1%	1%
vegetables and beans	108%	107%
collagen idx	0.8	0.8
marbling idx	0.6	0.6

Adapts cleanly: egg-free, nut-free (documented swaps, applied on the dish page)

Ingredients

Weights computed by us.

14 g	1 tablespoon olive oil
907 g	2 pounds ground beef
150 g	1 large onion, diced
12 g	4 cloves garlic, minced
2 g	2 large bay leaves
14 g	2 tablespoons paprika
4 g	2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
8 g	2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 g	0.5 teaspoon ground black pepper
15 g	1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
960 g	1 quart chicken broth
680 g	1 (24 ounce) jar marinara sauce
425 g	1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes
237 g	1 cup water
32 g	2 tablespoons soy sauce
210 g	2 cups elbow macaroni
25 g	0.25 cup chopped Italian parsley
113 g	1 cup shredded white Cheddar cheese

Method: 5 steps, published by www.allrecipes.com — open the original ↗ or use bake mode for a follow-along with a screen that stays on.

“Cooked this up today. ONE MAJOR PROBLEM with otherwise easy, nice-flavored recipe. Reading the directions for the first read-through, I realized that the recipe ratios are wrong. Others have figured this out, too, from reading other reviews. Recipe is for TWO ” — a cook, 3★

“We made this as a softer meal after my SO had a dental procedure a few weeks ago, and we are making it again tonight! We don't repeat often, so 5++ stars! We've been using romas from the garden, peeled, seeded and chopped, instead of canned. This time we did 1” — a cook, 5★