The latest signature dish in ‘The Bear’? Hamburger Helper with a twist.

Gorgeous food — silky braised short ribs and tender ravioli and flawless chocolate cake — has been a mainstay of “The Bear,” the TV dramedy centered on the doings of the chef and staff of a fine-dining restaurant in Chicago.

But in the FX show’s fourth season, released last week, the food itself is relegated to a bit player. Of course there are pastas and pastries being prepared on-screen, but the dishes themselves don’t seem to matter much compared with past seasons.

One dish, though, that earned a supporting role was a surprising choice: a skillet-ful of Hamburger Helper. In Episode 4, classically trained chef Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) prepares the shelf-stable 1970s staple for TJ (Arion King), the young daughter of her friend. Their shopping for and preparation of the meal — and the conversations that Sydney and TJ have while they stroll the grocery aisles and stir the pan — make up most of the episode’s action.

The humble commercial product might seem out of place in a show in which the characters obsess over technique and culinary innovation. Then again, “The Bear” has always played with the contrast between fussy and familiar foods. The Bear might serve tweezer-garnished culinary creations to its moneyed diners, but the restaurant began as an Italian beef sandwich shop, and the show has always recognized the way far less elevated dishes can be soul-satisfying, even if they don’t garner Michelin stars.

In one scene from the second season, front-of-the-house manager Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) aims to please a dining party that had hoped to sample Chicago’s deep-dish pizza but didn’t have time on their trip. So, he makes a run to one of the city’s iconic pizzerias and has the chefs cut the pie into artful rounds and decorate it with cheffy touches.

Another of the series’ standout dishes was an omelet Sydney made for restaurant manager Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto (Abby Elliott), who was pregnant and exhausted. The egg dish was beautifully executed — after all, a fluffy omelet can be a test of culinary prowess — but it also contained a few extra ingredients that one could procure at the most pedestrian of grocery stores: sour-cream-and-onion potato chips and Boursin cheese.

When it comes to this Hamburger Helper (then-parent company General Mills shortened the name to just Helper in 2013, as there are also boxes to boost other proteins), because Sydney is Sydney, she doesn’t just adhere to the directions printed on the package. She adds sautéed onion and squeezes in double-concentrated tomato paste “to deepen the flavors and make it taste basically like it did not come out of a box,” she explains. She toasts panko bread crumbs, presumably to serve as a crunchy topping offering a textural contrast to the soft pasta. She enlists TJ’s help in grating cheese (another addition, since the off-the-shelf version relies only on a package of powdered cheese and other seasonings) and stirring.

The pan burbling on the stove drives home several of the show’s themes, one of which is food as a tangible expression of love and tenderness. Restaurants, as chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) says at the opening of the new season, are places people go “to be taken care of and feel less lonely.”

It also shows Sydney in a mentoring role that has defined her growth as a chef and leader at the Bear. She guides her young charge as she grates the cheese, showing her how to avoid cutting herself. She instructs her how to stir to “make sure everything is incorporated.” And so the end product is something more than a mere lunch — it’s a collaborative effort, one that in a small way, feeds more than the young girl’s hunger.

For those who know the show, there’s a telling detail about the home kitchen where this scene is set. The oven’s clock function seems to not be working, offering a stark contrast to the relentlessly ticking clocks in the restaurant kitchen, where the mantra “every second counts” drives the chefs to be methodical and single-minded. Here, there is space and time to talk, to connect.

And Sydney’s ministrations made me wonder, could Hamburger Helper, with a few strategic flavor-boosting ingredients, actually taste homemade? I didn’t grow up eating it, so I didn’t have a real baseline. But I bought the box she used — after multiple replays I determined that the Cheeseburger Macaroni flavor is what she pulled off the shelf — and followed her additions, starting with a diced half onion (I spotted a half onion left on her cutting board), which I cooked until it was soft. I used high-quality, grass-fed beef, because that’s what it looked like Sydney took out of the case at the upscale grocery where she and TJ went after procuring the Helper at a bodega-style shop.

I stirred in a ribbon of tomato paste from a tube once the meat browned. I then followed the instructions on the box, adding the contents of the seasoning packet, plus pasta, water and milk — though I substituted some of the latter with cream, because in the scene, I noted a small carton of it on Sydney’s friend’s counter. I considered swapping cream for all two cups, but that seemed excessive.

I added a generous handful of freshly grated cheese. (I went with an aged Irish cheddar, whose flavors I figured would complement the cheeseburger theme.) I also guessed at another possible addition: I spotted a fresh green herb on her cutting board, and figured it might be flat-leaf parsley. Though the camera didn’t depict her using it, I finely minced it (Sydney would definitely do a fine mince, I decided), and added it into the mix as I took it off the stove and saved a bit for the garnish.

I toasted panko crumbs in butter until they were nut-brown and spread them on paper towels, just like Sydney did, before sprinkling them on top of the dish, then added a shower of green flecks.

It certainly looked like something I’d see in a restaurant, or a dinner I’d gladly serve guests. And when I dug in, I found it deeply savory and beefy, creamy and comforting. The tomato paste added umami and also tamed the orange of the powdered cheese, giving the dish a more natural color. The real cheddar added a bit of tang. The parsley and panko might have been my favorite additions, though, lending a bit of contrast — the herb offering a vegetal note and the bread crumbs a lovely crunch.

It was good enough to make me forget the Yellow Nos. 5 and 6 and the gum arabic listed as ingredients on the Helper box. And then, just as I’d finished making it, my husband wandered downstairs. He had worked through lunch and was hungry, but he was skeptical when I offered him a bowl. Two bites in, he declared it “pretty freaking delicious,” and after finishing it, he went back upstairs to his office, sated and feeling like he had been tended to — which, as Sydney clearly knows, is really the point.