Creamy Baked Mac & Cheese
Recipe: #37564
October 24, 2021
Categories: Side Dishes, Cheese No Eggs, Vegetarian, Kosher Dairy, more
"My friend was looking for a creamy mac & cheese recipe. I was intrigued because I had never made M&C from scratch. I found a bunch of recipes that sounded good and did some adjusting. This is what I came up with."
Ingredients
Nutritional
- Serving Size: 1 (290.9 g)
- Calories 697.1
- Total Fat - 38.2 g
- Saturated Fat - 22 g
- Cholesterol - 99.4 mg
- Sodium - 1265 mg
- Total Carbohydrate - 58.5 g
- Dietary Fiber - 7.3 g
- Sugars - 5.1 g
- Protein - 32.4 g
- Calcium - 917.9 mg
- Iron - 1.1 mg
- Vitamin C - 0.3 mg
- Thiamin - 0.3 mg
Step by Step Method
Step 1
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and grease a 1 1/2 qt baking dish (8x8 or round).
Step 2
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When boiling, add dried pasta and cook 1 minute less than the package directs for al dente. Drain and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil to keep from sticking.
Step 3
While water is coming up to a boil, grate cheeses and toss together to mix, then divide into three piles. Approximately 1 1/2 cups for the sauce, 3/4 cups for the inner layer, and 3/4 cups for the topping.
Step 4
Melt butter in a large saucepan over MED heat. Sprinkle in flour and whisk to combine. Mixture may look like very wet sand. Cook for approximately 1 minute, whisking often. Slowly pour in about 1 cup or so of the milk/half and half, while whisking constantly, until smooth. Slowly pour in the remaining milk/half and half, while whisking constantly, until combined and smooth.
Step 5
Continue to heat over MED heat, whisking very often, until thickened to a very thick consistency. It should almost be the consistency of a semi thinned out condensed soup.
Step 6
Remove from the heat and stir in spices and 3/4 cups of the cheeses, stirring to melt and combine. Stir in another 3/4 cups of cheese, and stir until completely melted and smooth.
Step 7
Add the drained pasta to the cheese sauce, stirring to combine fully. Pour half of the pasta mixture into the prepared baking dish. Top with 3/4 cups of grated cheeses, then top that with the remaining pasta mixture.
Step 8
Sprinkle the top with the last 3/4 cups of cheese. Sprinkle the panko crumbs on top of cheese and bake for 30 minutes, until cheesy is bubbly and lightly golden brown.
Step 9
Turn on broiler and broil for 2-3 minutes until top is starting to brown in spots. Check after 2 minutes that it isn't burning.
NOTE 1: Grate your own cheese - the packaged kind has added ingredients to keep it from clumping and it won't melt as well
NOTE 2: You can adjust the types of cheese, as long as you have a total of 3 cups
NOTE 3: You can alter the the amounts and kinds of milk/cream to your preference with total of 2 cups
Tips
No special items needed.