MetaChat - Make Mine Mac & Cheese:

Here's mine:

2 cups macaroni (measured uncooked, cooked according to directions)
1 lb cheese
1/2 stick butter
2 eggs
1 can evaporated milk
Dash of salt

Mix all ingredients (set aside some cheese for top of dish). Pour into square baking dish. Top with cheese and bread crumbs (if you like). Bake for 30-45 minutes at 375 F.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 19 June | 16:38

Forget it. I will cook just about anything else in the world, but Mac & Cheese? Kraft, out of the box.

posted by Ardiril 19 June | 16:41

Cook from scratch, that is.

posted by Ardiril 19 June | 16:42

If you're going for boxed, there is no other but Velveeta!!!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 19 June | 16:46

You're all high - a friend of mine here in Portsmouth makes THE MOST AMAZING MAC AND CHEESE PLUS BACON MUFFINS ever to travel the length of my digestive system.

No recipe, yet, though. I'll see if I can cadge it out of her next time I see her.

seriously, people: mac plus cheese plus bacon in muffin form. This is a food you find yourself craving a cartoon mega-mouth for.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 19 June | 16:53

... but with the Kraft, you can save back about 20% of the powder to sprinkle over popcorn.

posted by Ardiril 19 June | 17:02

If I was high I would describe my crispy-on-the-outside-gooey-in-the-inside 3-cheese bacon tetrazini with garlic topped with chives.

posted by The Whelk 19 June | 17:05

I think MuddDude has this complicated recipe that involves a roux (although he uses regular butter instead of clarified butter). It is delicious and cheesy but it takes like 2 hours! I am usually very hungry by the time it is done!

Basically make a roux, add 1% milk until warm, add the grated cheese, cook the noodles, then pour cheese over noodles and top with breadcrumbs and more cheese.

posted by muddgirl 19 June | 17:13

Muddgirl, sounds similar to my Tet, except you add bacon (and some quickly cooked mushrooms) and garlic and paprika to slightly undercooked noodles (also use broad flat noodles) and then bake it at 450 for another 2 hours. Crispy, heavy, gooey, and hot. Making a single bowl of it can last for a week cause even a small slice sits like a lead rock.

posted by The Whelk 19 June | 17:20

≡ Click to see image ≡

I follow muddgirl's formula: roux, slowly whisk in milk, slowly add whatever cheese I have to hot milk, pour over noodles, add more cheese, bake. I eyeball everything because I can make housewifey foods in my sleep.

My secrets: don't use cheddar, it's too fatty and the fat tends to separate from the milk solids leaving an orange oil slick. Add a ton of garlic powder and homemade chili powder, lest it be bland. Make the cassarole ahead of time and pop it in the oven when ready to eat.

posted by Juliet Banana 19 June | 17:21

These are all fine sounding recipes, but the perfect mac & cheese should include chopped ham or li'l smokies, and minced onion. It should also include several varieties of cheese, including fontina and sharp cheddar.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 19 June | 17:24

don't use cheddar

Heretic!

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 19 June | 17:25

li'l smokies

Oh, oh, or chopped summer sausage! It's the only thing I've ever actually liked those rubbery logs in, though to be fair I used a nice brand I got as a gift rather than Hickory Farms.

I used chorizo once but it was a little too greasy.

posted by Juliet Banana 19 June | 17:28

I used chorizo once but it was a little too greasy.

You could get away with a hard, smoked Spanish chorizo, though. Just not the raw Mexican chorizo.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 19 June | 17:33

Mine is essentially that of Muddgirl's dude, but usually I:
- use whole wheat penne, not macaroni
- make the roux with sherry, garlic, oregano, and nutmeg
- use more than one cheese, whatever's kicking around the fridge: white cheddar, parmesan, swiss, muenster. If there's ricotta, I use it to replace a quantity of roux.

I'd say it takes an hour, but much of that is passive cooking time: waiting for water to boil, for pasta to cook, for sauce to thicken. If the pasta and sauce are hot when I put 'em in the casserole, they just need to get crispy on top in the oven. I butter or oil the breadcrumbs, or mix them with cheese, or mix them with almond meal and salt.

It's usually a winter dish for us, and I typically serve it with roasted vegetables. Sometimes I blanch some broccoli and add it, or mix in other vegetables; the version of this made with leftover penne with garlicky chard and mushrooms is fantastic.

I'm not sure I'm getting this, LT: is the muffin a mac&cheese&bacon muffin, or is it a serving of mac & cheese with a bacon muffin on the side? Either way, it sounds great!

I've never made the stovetop kind with egg and evap milk, but I think I'll give it a try next time!

posted by Elsa 19 June | 17:35

issa mackacheeseanbaconmuffin! it's delicious! and funny-looking! and delicious! plus there's cinnamon in!

posted by Lipstick Thespian 19 June | 17:41

I'm sorry, macaroni does not belong in a muffin.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 19 June | 17:44

Oh, I don't know. There could be some entertainment value watching someone suck macaroni out of a muffin.

posted by Ardiril 19 June | 17:47

mine is mostly like thepink's recipe except it also has about a half cup of sour creme. Sometimes I add broccoli just so I can sing Dana Carvey's "Choppin Broccoli!!!"" (slyt)

posted by meeshell 19 June | 17:54

I'm picturing fairly standard macaroni baked in a muffin tin (ala individual mac'n'cheeses in ramekins, but with crispier edges), but I could be wrong. Is there a binder? Maybe eggs, tempered and then whisked in the roux?

posted by Juliet Banana 19 June | 17:54

plus there's cinnamon in!

Argh. Ya had me, and then that.

I don't know why, cinnamon in savory custards or purees triggers some nausea reflex for me. The Fella looooooooooves it, and often includes it when he's cooking dinner. I often cannot eat it.

I do love miniaturized food, though, so the mac&cheese muffin sounds very appealing, right up there with the meatloaf muffin a friend accidentally discovered when she was running late making dinner one night. Mmm, meatloaf muffin.

posted by Elsa 19 June | 18:05

Martha Stewart has a good recipe. I follow her process, if not the recipe.

I've found that the perfect combination of cheese is smoked mozzarella (or gouda or cheddar) and pepper jack. (I've started buying a habanero jack that would be OMG awesome in mac/cheese.)

posted by mudpuppie 19 June | 18:07

I've had one of those mac and cheese and bacon muffins, and it's awfully hard to describe. It sounds gross, but it's delicious, but at the same time you're thinking "What I'm eating should not exist."

It's basically a recipe's worth of homemade mac'n'cheese with crumbled bacon in it. Instead of baking the mixture in a casserole dish, it's divided into muffin pans, topped with spicy breadcrumbs, and cooked. It's not a muffin with mac and cheese in it, it's a muffin made of mac and cheese - mac and cheese mini-casseroles, if you will, that hold their shape. There has to be some egg involved

It's trailer food, it's stoner food, you like it, but you berate yourself.

posted by Miko 19 June | 18:17

the perfect combination of cheese is smoked mozzarella (or AND gouda or AND cheddar) and pepper jack AND...

Fixed that for me.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 19 June | 18:21

I wouldn't turn my nose up at a mac&cheese muffin. Sounds good.

It's trailer food, it's stoner food, you like it, but you berate yourself.

I really only feel this way about that revolting Velveeta-salsa microwave dip that scores the inside of my mouth with tiny cuts and reduces my palate to tiny fleshhangs as it scorches me and makes me wake in the night to drink a quart of water from the tap.

But I still like it. Mmmm. Yes, I do.

I usually make the hot Velveeta goo for the all-night trivia contest party we have in the summer. It tastes fiiiiiiiine right about midnight.

posted by Elsa 19 June | 19:08

I never berate myself for eating those muffins. NEVER. Not even when I ate an entire plateful at the radio station.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 19 June | 19:16

I think I know what I'm making for breakfast next week.

(I am a heathen and while mac and cheese is my favorite dish of all time--I still haven't made it by myself.)

posted by sperose 19 June | 19:30

My grandmother used to make that Velveeta dip, with Ro-Tel tomatoes. Damn on a stick, is that good.

posted by Miko 19 June | 19:50

I go the bechamel route. And then bake it. With croutons. My sister makes it with cream cheese, cause it's faster than bechamel. I'd rather not eat than eat kraft or velveeta mac n cheese. Even with a hot dog. MMmmm. hot dogs.

posted by crush-onastick 19 June | 20:06

I go the bechamel route. And then bake it. With croutons. My sister makes it with cream cheese, cause it's faster than bechamel. I'd rather not eat than eat kraft or velveeta mac n cheese. Even with a hot dog. MMmmm. hot dogs.

posted by crush-onastick 19 June | 20:07

Every time I make mac-and-cheese, it's a little bit of an experiment, dependent on what's around the kitchen, how drunk I am, etc.

My library has this. It's worth looking at, anyway.

I'm probably not going to eat the Kraft/Velveeta stuff either, having eaten enough of it as a kid for several lifetimes.

posted by box 19 June | 20:41

I can't wait for the Tuna Surprise thread.

posted by Ardiril 19 June | 20:52

You could get away with a hard, smoked Spanish chorizo, though. Just not the raw Mexican chorizo.

That sounds simultaneously racist and sexy. And like something I will try.

I use Mark Bittman's recipe, which is pretty much the roux-based recipes above. It's wonderful.

posted by middleclasstool 19 June | 22:06

I'm not about to start slamming Kraft. The thing is, it's not the same thing as mac and cheese. Mac and cheese is the homemade dish we are all trading recipes for. Kraft M & C is a processed convenience comfort food that has basically nothing in common with the aforementioned dish aside from a pasta base. They are both delicious in their own right and their own context; you don't choose between the two - each has its separate place. On a night I'm going to pout my lower lip because it's rainy and I'm sick and I'm cold and I want nothing a big bowl of Kraft dinner with black pepper on top as my main meal, that's definitely not the same night I'm going to be humming over the stovetop, carefully toasting my roux to the perfect degree of tawny brownness and creating my 90-minute homemade casserole masterpiece. These are different foods!

posted by Miko 19 June | 23:32

Oh, I agree completely, miko. One is a big bowl of empty carbohydrates and processed milk fat, and the other is glop from a box.

posted by Ardiril 19 June | 23:39

The surprise in my tuna surprise is that it's actually mac 'n cheese.

It's cold and wet and utterly miserably weather here right now and you guys are making me HUNGRY!!

posted by ninazer0 19 June | 23:43

As for the cheddar debate - we use the sharpest cheddar we can find (usually generic aged 18 months or Cabot private reserve if it's in our fridge) - which seems to have a crumblier, less fatty texture.

posted by muddgirl 20 June | 00:08

1 lb. elbow macaroni (cooked al dente according to package directions)
1 lb. Velveeta cheese (cut into cubes)
1/2 stick of butter (cut into cubes)
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 lb. diced ham (pre-packaged, whatever's on sale)
1/4 cup diced onion
pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients until melty and wonderful. Add a few dashes of parmesan on top. Yum!

posted by amyms 20 June | 01:37

On closer review of the other answers, I can vouch for Miko's assessment of the dip with the Ro-Tel tomatoes... My uncle used to have a New Years Eve party every year when I was a kid, and he made the Velveeta and Ro-Tel dip in a giant crockpot. My cousins and I used to hover over that thing and claim it for our own, shooing away all the drunken relatives all night.

posted by amyms 20 June | 02:32

Shopsins has macaroni and cheese pancakes. I have yet to make my own, but I prefer custardy rather than soupy....and I'm EXTREMELY picky about cheese: no Swiss oR Parmesan!

posted by brujita 20 June | 04:06

In all seriousness, when it comes to cheesy pasta I only eat bunny pasta, with the Rabbit of Approval.

posted by D.C. 20 June | 04:47

It may have already been mentioned but you must try Pam Anderson's mac and cheese. It's the best ever! I don't make it that often because it has eggs (son is allergic) but it's awesome! The creamiest and the dreamiest.

Pam Anderson also has a recipe without eggs on allrecipes.com. The egg one is the best.

posted by LoriFLA 20 June | 09:12

TPS's recipe looks very similar.

posted by LoriFLA 20 June | 09:12

For a while back in the 90s I was a real Kraft Mac & Cheese and Spam guy. Yes, Spam.

I do NOT prefer the deluxe Kraft dinner. At all.

posted by dhartung 20 June | 14:27

I'm not a big mac and cheese fan. Mum made it while I was growing up. My memory says it was bland. And I've never had the boxed stuff. However, I must say that the mac 'n' cheese muffin sounds mighty tasty as do some of the other recipes. I'm going to forward this thread to the mister.

posted by deborah 20 June | 22:06

19 June 2009