best homemade creamy macaroni and cheese recipe

#Best homemade creamy macaroni and cheese recipe how to
#Best homemade creamy macaroni and cheese recipe free
#Best homemade creamy macaroni and cheese recipe mac

Pour mixture into baking dish and top with more shredded cheese.Add in the cooked pasta and mix completely.Reduce the heat to low and allow the cheese to melt down into a sauce for about 3 mins.Fold in cheese, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika and sour cream.Continue to stir periodically while on medium high heat. Whisk flour into the butter and cook for about 1 min. Boil macaroni noodles in about 5-6 cups of water until al dente. I used heavy cream but you can substitute it for half and half if you want to cut down the fat content.

#Best homemade creamy macaroni and cheese recipe free

This is not meant to be a low fat or fat free recipe. However, nothing delights my family as much when I make this creamy macaroni and cheese recipe from scratch. My kids also love it when I make this dish from a box if I am short on time.

#Best homemade creamy macaroni and cheese recipe mac

Perhaps it’s the mix of pasta and creamy melted cheese or maybe it’s just the memories I associate with mac ‘n cheese. Serve immediately.There are few comfort foods I love as much as homemade macaroni and cheese. Transfer to a 9- by 13-inch baking pan or dish and bake until bubbling at the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Add the drained pasta, breaking up any clumps, and stir until evenly coated in the cheese sauce. Whisk until the cheese is melted and smooth like nacho cheese. Whisk in flour and cook, whisking constantly, until smooth, 3 to 4 minutes. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Shred Cheddar cheese by hand or in a food processor set aside. To the pot, add the cheddar, Velveeta, Pecorino Romano, mustard powder, onion powder and cayenne, and season generously with salt and black pepper. Add macaroni and 2 ½ teaspoons salt and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 to 6 minutes. At this stage, the sauce should be smooth but relatively loose. Raise the heat to high and bring to a simmer, whisking constantly, then immediately reduce the heat to low and continue simmering until the sauce lightly coats the back of a spoon, 2 to 5 minutes. Add the flour and cook, whisking, until smooth like gravy, about 1 minute. Melt the butter and simmer, whisking occasionally, until the butter stops spurting and quiets down, 2 to 3 minutes. Return the empty pot to the stove (no need to clean it) and set over medium heat. Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until just pasta al dente. This recipe was reprinted with permission from NYT Cooking.īring a large pot of water to a boil and season generously with salt. Jesse told me that food stylists use sodium citrate to stabilize mixtures like that, so the key to keeping this sauce creamy, gooey and together is Velveeta, which has sodium citrate in it. The texture was grainy and watery, or the noodles had soaked up all the moisture, which tends to happen with many baked macaroni and cheeses that don't have stabilizing agents in them. I was testing the recipe and had baked off maybe 10 pans of macaroni and cheese that day and was going a little crazy, and the cheese kept separating. I have to give some credit to my food stylist friend Jesse Szewczyk.

#Best homemade creamy macaroni and cheese recipe how to

Technique tip: The biggest lesson I learned has to be how to get that perfect cheese sauce texture, almost like nacho cheese. You get the best of both worlds, I think. It's creamy, but it's also a little set with those baked edges, which you can take as far as you like. I think what makes a Stouffer's mac and cheese special from a regular stovetop or baked mac and cheese is that it exists somewhere between the two. I grew up eating Stouffer's mac and cheese and it was always my idea of what a mac and cheese should be: heftier than a stovetop mac and more voluptuous than a classic Southern baked mac (which is also so, so delicious and very important to many people, but I didn't grow up with that). Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. For me, it does come from an emotional and personal place. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and season generously with salt. It stays voluptuous and molten as a result of a higher ratio of sauce to noodles, which are cooked completely so they don't soak up as much liquid. This recipe is inspired by Stouffer's macaroni and cheese and delivers the best of all worlds: creamy, saucy, comfort, with a consistency that's slightly more set than a stovetop version, thanks to a final bake in the oven.