Our Homemade Mac & Cheese Recipe Will Have You Putting The Box Back On The Shelf

Delish

Our easy, best-ever macaroni and cheese recipe accomplishes three key requirements: It's extra creamy, plenty cheesy, and baked with a crunchy, golden topping.

Transcript

00:00 Hey everyone, it's Tia in the Delish Kitchen,

00:02 and I'm gonna show you how to make

00:04 the creamiest, dreamiest baked mac and cheese

00:08 you've ever tasted.

00:09 Baked mac and cheese is not like

00:11 the out-of-the-box mac and cheese.

00:14 It's rich, it's gooey, and it's got this crispy

00:18 Parmesan breadcrumb topping that's just to die for.

00:21 If you've never made a baked mac and cheese,

00:24 today is the day to start.

00:26 The key to the most flavorful cheese sauce

00:28 is not one, but three different types of cheese.

00:32 Each cheese fills a specific role in our cheese sauce.

00:36 So, you start with the base cheese.

00:38 Here we've got cheddar.

00:40 You could use sharp, you could use mild,

00:42 any variety of cheddar.

00:44 You could also maybe include a little Monterey

00:46 or Colby Jack if you wanted to.

00:48 Anything that's gonna give you a nice, subtle cheese flavor,

00:51 a nice, rich base flavor for your sauce.

00:55 Then, you have the funk cheese, as I like to call it.

00:59 This is Gruyere, but you could also use Fontina.

01:03 Anything with just a little bit of, huh, what is that,

01:07 to give your sauce some extra interest.

01:10 Then you've got Parmesan.

01:12 Parmesan is that nutty, sharp cheese.

01:15 And here you could also use Asiago,

01:17 you could use Parmigiano-Reggiano.

01:19 You're not gonna use much of this 'cause it's very strong,

01:22 but you do want it to give your cheese sauce

01:24 that little bit of zip.

01:26 Speaking of our cheeses, you may have noticed

01:29 that they are all solid blocks.

01:32 You should use a solid block.

01:33 You should not use pre-shredded cheese for this.

01:36 Pre-shredded cheese has this stuff, this preservatives,

01:40 like potato starch, some other type of starch

01:43 that coats the outside of it

01:45 so it doesn't stick together in the bag.

01:47 That does not make for a good mac and cheese sauce ever.

01:50 So, please, please, please,

01:51 if you only do one extra out-of-the-box thing for this,

01:55 please get your cheese and grate it fresh.

01:58 I'm gonna go ahead and start grating my cheese.

02:00 I like to use a box grater,

02:01 and I'm just gonna use a medium shred.

02:03 (upbeat music)

02:06 So, at this point,

02:12 you're gonna make sure to split your Parm.

02:14 You want 2/3 or about a cup of it in one bowl,

02:18 and then you want 1/2 a cup in another bowl.

02:21 You're gonna set that 1/2 a cup aside.

02:23 That's gonna go in the panko breadcrumb topping.

02:26 Before we start our cheese sauce,

02:28 we are going to cook our pasta.

02:30 Let's talk a little bit about the pasta for mac and cheese.

02:33 A lot of people think elbow macaroni.

02:36 That's fine.

02:38 However, I like a pasta

02:40 with a little bit more corkscrew action going on,

02:43 like cavatappi.

02:44 What I love about cavatappi

02:46 is that it has all of those corkscrews

02:48 that really catch and hold that cheese sauce,

02:51 and in particular, in a baked mac and cheese,

02:54 it's really what you want.

02:55 We are going to be boiling it in super salty water,

02:59 and when I say super salty,

03:01 I mean it should taste like the ocean.

03:04 You're gonna get your water to a boil.

03:05 You're gonna put your salt in.

03:07 You're gonna add your pasta,

03:08 and you're gonna cook your pasta

03:10 until it is just al dente.

03:13 Remember, this pasta is gonna go bake in the oven,

03:15 so it's gonna get more soft.

03:17 You don't want it super soft

03:18 when it comes out of the water already.

03:20 Now we're ready to make our cheese sauce.

03:24 The way to get the creamiest, dreamiest cheese sauce

03:27 for a baked mac and cheese

03:29 is to start with a bechamel.

03:31 Now let's demystify bechamel for a minute.

03:33 Bechamel is simply a milk sauce

03:37 that is thickened with a roux,

03:40 and a roux is just butter and flour whisked together

03:43 until it gets kind of blonde and bubbly, all right?

03:47 It's really not that difficult.

03:49 It's pretty simple.

03:50 It's easier to show than to tell, so let's get started.

03:54 We're gonna start by melting our butter

03:56 in our pan over medium heat,

03:58 and then we're gonna add our flour

04:00 and cook it all together

04:02 until it starts to bubble away from the pan

04:05 just a little bit.

04:06 You'll see it'll turn slightly blonde

04:09 and become less pale.

04:11 You don't want it super dark,

04:13 but you definitely don't want it as white as it was.

04:16 Then you are going to put your milk in slowly,

04:21 stirring constantly so you don't get big lumps.

04:24 If you wanna shortcut this process a little bit,

04:28 you can make sure that your milk is at room temperature

04:31 or even heat it slightly.

04:32 That will help get everything up to temp

04:36 because you're gonna cook it and continue to stir

04:38 until it becomes thick and bubbly.

04:43 Then you'll season with your mustard powder

04:46 and your salt and your pepper.

04:48 So as you can see, our sauce has thickened.

04:53 It's been bubbling for about two minutes,

04:56 and it's just slightly thicker.

04:58 It's gonna get a lot thicker when we add our cheese sauce,

05:00 so if it still looks a little loose, that's okay too.

05:03 At this point, we're gonna get it off the heat,

05:06 and then we're gonna add our cheeses.

05:07 It's very important to take it off the heat.

05:10 Do not try to add your cheese with the heat on the pot.

05:14 We're whisking in all of our cheeses

05:16 just until it's smooth and combined,

05:18 and then while it's still warm,

05:20 we are gonna fold in our pasta.

05:22 So the last thing we do

05:38 before we put our mac and cheeses in the oven

05:40 is make our crunchy, crispy bread crumb topping.

05:44 So we are gonna mix together our Parmesan and our panko,

05:47 and then we're gonna drizzle the olive oil on top

05:49 and stir it all together.

05:51 We're gonna butter our baking dish,

05:57 get our mac in,

06:01 top with our crispy bread crumb topping,

06:10 a little bit more black pepper,

06:11 and then get it into the oven.

06:13 We're gonna get this in the oven at 375

06:19 and cook it for 25 minutes,

06:21 just until it's golden brown on the top and bubbling.

06:24 (laughs)

06:36 It's rich, it's creamy, it's gooey,

06:39 it's oh so comforting.

06:41 You can really taste all of the different things

06:44 that those cheeses brought to the party,

06:46 and the fact that we started with that bechamel base

06:48 makes this that much richer and creamy and delicious.

06:53 This is the best mac and cheese I have ever tasted,

06:55 and by the way, all of the rest of the Delish team

06:58 thought so too.

06:59 For this and other recipes, stick around on delish.com.

07:04 (upbeat music)

07:07 (upbeat music)

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