- Today I'm gonna show you how to make this
creamy, delicious mac and cheese with butternut squash.
[John Kanell] Yes, there's cheese in it still,
but it's so much healthier than regular mac and cheese
and you're not sacrificing any of the taste.
Okay, let's get started.
Starting out by prepping all of our vegetables
which means the butternut squash,
the onion, and the garlic, that's it.
This guy is super easy to clean and cut
but you can buy the pre chopped ones on the market,
be totally fine, and a time saver.
[John Kanell] Cut the head off, the bottom.
I love the color, so beautiful.
And now just clean the edges off.
Remove that tough skin that nobody wants to eat.
All right the skin's off, now it's time to get to chopping.
I'll separate the neck from the body where the seeds are,
[John Kanell] and then just start cutting them up.
You want small pieces that'll cook quickly,
that's the only rule.
Otherwise we would just roast it
and take all the time in the world.
If there's a butternut squash recipe
that you want me to make, let me know in the comments
and I'd be happy to get to it.
I'll add it to my production calendar.
So I want about a pound of butternut squash,
[John Kanell] let's see what we have so far.
Oh good, I have a pound and change.
Time for that onion, okay we're
gonna give it a real quick chop.
[John Kanell] No, I'll give it a dice.
Okay, set that aside, and now let's get our garlic cloves.
I only need two garlic cloves for this,
if you want to add more, be my guest.
I could add a whole head in but
I know not everyone loves garlic as much as I do.
Give it a smash.
[John Kanell] This'll help release the oils in the garlic
and make it even more aromatic.
Now mince it up.
Now we are ready to get cooking, let's go.
[John Kanell] We're gonna add about
a tablespoon of butter in, little bit of olive oil,
and let that warm up, also gonna add in
about a teaspoon of salt right now.
All right once that's warm we're gonna add in the onions,
I'll just move them around the pan.
We're gonna sweat the onions out,
get them nice and translucent,
a little caramelized, and then we'll add in our garlic.
All right the onions are nice and translucent,
time for some garlic.
You don't wanna add the garlic right away
because it burns really easily.
All righ my onions are all sweated out
and now it's time for that squash.
As well as about 4 cups of chicken broth.
Stir it up, lid on, and we're gonna let this cook
for about 20 minutes.
The butternut squash needs to be nice and soft.
Bay leaves have like the most intoxicating aroma.
I had a tree growing up and these went into so many sauces,
I love them.
If you haven't tried them out, give them a try,
they are amazing.
We're gonna add these into the onion garlic mixture
and let them cook through all the way until the very end.
[John Kanell] They'll infuse a beautiful
delicate flavor in there.
Now we're gonna toast some bread crumbs.
Let them brown a bit
(upbeat music)
- [John Kanell] and sprinkle them with some salt too.
You're gonna let them toast up.
They'll be crunchy and flavorful.
This delicious mixture cooked down for about 30 minutes.
I let it simmer, simmer, simmer
so that all those flavors could
really intensify and concentrate.
I'm gonna pour this into a colander over a bowl.
Now we're gonna carefully add this into our blender,
you can use a food processor too for this.
Into the mixture we're gonna add in like
3/4 cup of milk, mm.
I think that's good, if it looks like it needs more liquid
we'll use some of our reserved broth mixture.
(blending)
- So I'll take a few tablespoons at a time
of the broth and add that in.
(pouring broth)
- [John Kanell] There we go.
(blending)
- Okay so here's the deal,
this is taking the place of a bechamel sauce.
In a normal mac and cheese you're gonna cook down
that butter, the flour, add the milk,
maybe some cream in, and then the cheeses.
But right now, I want you to take a look at this.
[John Kanell] Look how creamy and delicious that is.
All it needs is a little bit of cheese.
You can't have mac and cheese without cheese,
we will be adding in a delicious aged Gruyere.
Mm (sniffs cheese) I love it.
[John Kanell] So shred it out, we're using 1 cup.
All right, let's see how much we have.
That looks like about a cup to me.
Okay I'm adding it into a bowl
and now for the Pecorino Romano.
You could use Parmesan too but I love Pecorino
it's something about it it's like kind of nutty.
[John Kanell] A quarter of a cup will go a long way too.
That's a quarter of a cup.
I'm adding in a little bit extra too.
[John Kanell] And now I'm adding in
a whole package, or about a pound, of Conchiglie.
These will cook for about eight minutes
and then they're ready to use.
Mm pasta's fresh, can you tell?
[John Kanell] All right, it's all done.
I'm gonna dump it into a large bowl.
This heat is gonna work in my favor.
[John Kanell] I'll start spooning in
my butternut squash mixture.
You don't have to add all of it in,
you could reserve some for later.
It depends on how saucy you want your pasta.
[John Kanell] All right, give it a mix,
and now I'm adding half a teaspoon of nutmeg to my cheese,
sprinkle it out, and now let's add the cheese to that pasta.
Ooh!
Okay mix it up oo it looks luscious already.
The cheese is melting because the pasta's so hot.
I'm gonna sprinkle in about
half a teaspoon of salt right now.
The butternut squash is really sweet.
I'm also sneaking in a little white pepper.
Oof, okay!.
All right, now we're gonna transfer this
delicious mixture into a casserole dish to bake.
[John Kanell] Get all that cheese and sauce.
If you want to you can grate a
little bit more cheese on top.
And now, I'm gonna add on some toasted breadcrumbs.
Oooh, so crunchy and buttery.
These pack so much flavor that they give you
like an instant like, oh!
Like a rush to the mouth.
Into the oven at 350F for about 20 minutes
just to warm it up and let it congeal.
So I've been doing take after take
of this outro and just taking a bite each time,
I think I might be sabotaging the process
because this is really delicious.
So much more flavorful than regular mac and cheese,
which often can be kind of just really rich
and heavy, but not very flavorful.
And you can eat tons and tons and tons of it
an not feel sick.
I know this from recipe testing
and doing multiple takes of this outro (laughs).
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below.
Oh wait, mmm, mmm!
Thanks so much for watching,
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