Baked Mac and Cheese

Guests will be coming, it’s time to impress
You won’t have them leave, feeeling hungry, depressed

When it comes to hosting in the culture of the American Midwest, food is of quite central importance. Many hosts would be offended by their own failure if one of their guests had to take the last portion to have more of something.

This mac and cheese recipe is intended both for oneself or one’s household alone, as a staple comfort food, or to make in large batches for groups of people.

Ingredients

• 1 bag cavatappi noodles
• All-purpose flour
• Irish butter
• Milk
• Large bag of Mexican shredded cheese blend
• Cheddar shredded cheese
• Panko bread crumbs
• Oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder

Items needed

• 2 large/medium pots
• 1 small frying pan
• 1 casserole dish
• A soft plastic spatula
• A measuring cup

Setup

1. Boil a pot of salted water. Add the noodles to this and cook until done, turning off the heat. Strain the water out by holding the pot’s lid slightly ajar over a sink, and set the noodles in the pot to the side.

2. Toast the breadcrumbs in the small frying pan with oil. You can add salt and pepper to this, too. If you want to taste test them, let them sit and cool off for a while! These hold their heat quite well. Also be warned they’re like potato chips on their own; pretty addicting. Set these to the side as well.

Sauce

1. To begin, make a roux.

2. No, I wasn’t just gonna leave you with that, but I’m laughing at that moment of panic there. A roux (pronounced “roo”) is a cooked mixture of flour and butter and is used as a stabilizing base for many cheese sauces. Add like, 2/3 the size of your fist of flour and a roughly equal or less amount of butter with the measuring cup. Combine these, and then cook the roux on medium-low heat for about a minute or two to remove the raw flour taste.

3. Once that’s complete, begin to add milk in very small amounts, fully combining it with the mixture each time. The consistency will stay the same for a while even though you’re adding liquid, this is normal. It’s the roux doing its good work.

4. When it starts being a sauce and not a loose blob, you can start adding butter and cheeses in small amounts at a time, too. Add a bit of cheddar for flavor, but the cheese you add should be mostly the Mexican blend.

5. Once you like the consistency of your sauce and the taste of what you’ve added so far, add a little bit of pepper and start adding the salt, garlic powder, and onion powder to taste. Start small; you can always add more, but you can’t remove what you put in.

Combining and baking

1. Pour the completed cheese sauce into the large pot holding the pasta and mix together. Add more sauce than you think it needs. Pour this mixture into the casserole dish, then fully cover the mac and cheese in a thin layer of toasted breadcrumbs and shredded Mexican cheese. Save some toasted breadcrumbs for later.

2. Place uncovered into the oven at somewhere between 400-450 degrees, dealer’s choice. Bake until the shredded cheese on the top is golden brown and you can see the cheese sauce bubbling a little through the side (if you are not using a glass dish, just watch the top).

Conclusion

Serve in bowls with extra toasted breadcrumbs to mix in for those who want it. Enjoy!

You can also add italian seasoning to this when you mix the sauce and noodles together if you like.

I’ve been told that adding velveeta cheese can fix a grainy sauce.