Hey everyone it's Sam here from Sugar Spun Run and today I'm showing you how to make my favorite baked mac and cheese.
Mac and cheese is the ultimate food and I'm so excited to be sharing my favorite version with you today. My
macaroni and cheese is creamy, and cheesy, and full of flavor, and I think you're
going to really love it. Now to get started, we're going to want to pre-heat
your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Next we're going to head over to the stovetop
where you will need a medium sized saucepan and you're going to want to fill this about halfway with water.
I always like to generously salt my water.
We are going to bring our water to a boil, and once it's boiling, we are going to add our macaroni
noodles. I'm actually not using macaroni noodles, I'm using cavatappi, just because
they're a little bit more fun. You can use whatever shape you want, but you are
going to want 8 ounces. Then add this to the boiling water. So we'll bring our
pasta and our water back to a boil. You're going to want to stir this
occasionally, just to keep that pasta from sticking to the bottom, and you're
going to want to actually cook your pasta for one minute less than your
packaging indicates, and the reason we want to undercook our noodles a little
bit is because, they're going to soften as we cook them in our oven. So having
them a little bit firmer is actually really good. So once our pasta has
finished cooking, we're gonna remove this from the heat we are going to drain this,
and I always return the pasta back to the pot, and I'm just gonna drizzle it with just a little bit of olive oil.
I'm going to use my spoon to just stir in those
noodles. Make sure they all get nicely coated with that olive oil that's just
gonna keep them from sticking together while we're making our cheese sauce.
Now, to make our cheese sauce, you're going to need a 10-inch cast-iron pan, or a large
pot. I actually like to use my Dutch oven. I'm going to set this on the stove over medium heat.
And we'll add four tablespoons of butter.
Once you butter has melted, we're going to add 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour. I'm just gonna whisk
this in with the butter until there no clumps and this is a nice smooth mixture.
What we're actually doing here is we're making a roux.
Alright, now our flour and our butter are nicely combined. We don't have any lumps. So we're going to
whisk in our milk. You're going to need 3 cups of whole milk. I'm just gonna whisk that in.
And here we'll also whisk in our spices which are going to give our mac
and cheese a really good flavor. Starting with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon
of ground black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon of onion
powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of ground mustard. Now stir everything together
really well, and you're going to want to stir pretty frequently while this
mixture comes to a boil. You also might notice that the milk and butter are
separating a little bit. This is mostly because the milk is colder than the
butter. Just keep stirring it. You want to stir pretty frequently until these two
are nicely combined, and you can't really see the butter pieces in the milk.
So once your mixture comes to a boil, we're going to actually reduce the heat on our
stovetop and we're going to cook this at a simmer until it's thickened. You want
to keep stirring it pretty frequently until it's a nice thick consistency. So
as you can see here this is what we're looking for, my spoon is leaving a trail
through the sauce. The mixture is coating the back of the spoon. This is the right
consistency. so we're going to drop our heat all the way down to low and now we
are going to add the most important part of mac and cheese, and that is of course
the cheese. Now you do have a little bit of freedom to play around with your
preferred cheese variety here, but I'm going to share what I like to use. We're
going to start with two cups of sharp cheddar, and I actually am using one cup
of yellow cheddar and one cup of white. Now ideally you want to shred these
right off the block, because most cheeses that you buy prepackaged from the store
have a thin coating over the shreds to keep them from sticking together and
that keeps them from melting properly in your ma and cheese. Going to add these
two in with my roux. We're also going to add one and a half cups of shredded mozzarella cheese.
Stir these into your Roux until the cheese is melted and the sauce is nice and creamy.
Once your cheese is melted we are going to add our pasta that we drained earlier.
Make sure you stir this really well until all of the noodles are completely coated with cheese. Now if you prepare
your sauce in a 10 inch cast iron, as we mentioned in the beginning you're going
to be able to cook it right in that dish. Since I put mine in my Dutch oven, I'm
actually going to transfer my mac and cheese to a casserole dish. Now this is a
1 and 1/2 quart casserole dish and I've lightly buttered the bottom and the sides.
So our mac and cheese is just about ready to bake right now, but
there's one thing I always like adding on top of mine, and that is a lightly
buttered crunchy panko topping. So to make this, we're gonna head over to our
stovetop again. You're going to need a small saucepan. We're gonna set this over
medium heat, and we'll add two tablespoons of butter,
And one tablespoon of olive oil.
Now stir this together until your butter
is completely melted, and now we are going to add our panko crumbs. So this is
one cup seasoned panko. I'm gonna add it in with
the butter and you're just going to stir this in with the butter and the olive
oil until most of the butter mixture has been absorbed by the panko and until it
turns a nice toasted golden brown color.
This is looking pretty good so we can go ahead and sprinkle this evenly over our prepared mac and cheese.
Alright, now we will transfer our macaroni and cheese to our 350 degrees Fahrenheit
preheated oven where it will need to bake uncovered for about 15 minutes.
Alright, our macaroni and cheese is finished baking and it's going to be a
little hot right now, but I don't have the patience to wait any longer so I'm going to go ahead and dig in.
And that is how you make my all-time favorite baked
macaroni and cheese. I really hope you guys enjoyed today's recipe. If you try
it out, please let me know what you think. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time.
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