Baked Mac And Cheese Recipe is an all time favourite of mine, especially at family gatherings! It goes down an absolute treat, with usually not to no leftovers and an incredible food coma that always follows!
TIPS For Baked Mac And Cheese Recipe
- Use a mix of cheeses: for the ultimate Mac and Cheese I always recommend using a mix of cheeses. The ones I went for were Red Leicester, Extra mature Cheddar, Mozzarella and Mexicana’s Chilli Cheddar with jalapeños. You could also add Parmesan and or Grana Padano if you liked! The best thing about this recipe is that you can really add whatever you like and make it your own.
- Add your grated cheese gradually : this is SUPER important, fi you don’t add your cheese in, in stages then you’ll end up with a cheese sauce that is lumpy and grainy!
- Salted butter for the cheese sauce: using salted butter is the way to go in this recipe, it really enhances the flavour of the cheese, the salt in the butter alone won’t be enough to season the pasta so don’t be shy with your seasonings!
- Thinning out the sauce: once you’ve added all the cheese you may find that your sauce has become a little thick, don’t be afraid to add one xtra milk to thin out the sauce to achiever your desired consistency.
Now for the Mac and cheese you can really use whatever kind of pasta you like, traditionally you would use macaroni. However I actually went for Spirali! It’s sort of a cross between macaroni and fusilli. Personally I prefer it to macaroni as I find that it’s larger and is the kind of pasta that clings onto sauce much better.
Time for the recipe!
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Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
- 250 g mature cheddar
- 200 g mozzarella
- 100 g Red Leicester
- 100 g mexican cheddar
- 500 g pasta spiral or macaroni
- 75 g flour
- 75 g butter
- 700-800 ml milk
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- ½ black pepper
- ½ salt
- ½ paprika
- 1 tsp Oregano
- dried parsley optional for garnish
Instructions
- Begin by grating all the cheese and setting it aside.
- Cook your pasta according to the package instructions and season the pasta water with salt, be generous!
- In a large saucepan, melt the butter and once melted add in the flour and whisk until a paste-like consistency forms and the butter and flour have fully combined.
- Gradually whisk in ¾ of the milk, keep whisking until the sauce begins to thicken. You may or may not need all the milk. Reserve a splash or two of milk to add into the sauce later.
- Gradually stir in the grated cheese. Make sure that this is done in stages and do not add all the cheese at once. Reserve a handful and a half of each cheese to use to sprinkle on top of the Mac and cheese before baking.
- Add your seasonings to your cheese sauce and stir well keeping the heat on low. Once combined turn off the heat.
- Preheat the oven to 200° on the oven and grill setting.
- Drain your cooked pasta and transfer it into your oven proof dish.
- Add the cheese sauce to your cooked pasta and stir well. Top with the remaining grated cheese and bake in the oven until golden brown. This can take anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes make sure you check the Mac and cheese at the halfway point.
- Remove from the oven and top with dried parsley, allow to stand for a minute or two before serving.
