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 cousin. 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 breadcrumbs, 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.”