The Best Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Try this recipe for The Best Baked Macaroni and Cheese, or contribute your own.
Try this recipe for The Best Baked Macaroni and Cheese, or contribute your own.
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 cups milk
- 2 cups half and half
- 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper white or black
- 12 cups grated cheese (a mixture of extra-sharp white ched sharp cheddar, and extra-sharp cheddar or gruyere--if using the kraft cracker barrel blocks that i highly recommend, you will need six 8 oz. blocks. i use two of each.)
- 1 pound macaroni cooked and drained
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- Carbohydrate 10.9881966570968 g
- Cholesterol 64.9110000343348 mg
- Fat 21.9185915524731 g
- Fiber 0.173111461528585 g
- Protein 5.12685719201635 g
- Saturated Fat 13.6385142982931 g
- Serving Size 1 1 -12 (208g)
- Sodium 139.513241817587 mg
- Sugar 10.8150851955682 g
- Trans Fat 1.4180690423316 g
- Calories 258 calories
Step-by-step
- Preheat oven to 375.
- Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish, and spread foil inside a large cookie sheet for the dish to sit in. Or you could just plan to clean your oven.
- Grate all the cheese into a large bowl.
- Remove six cups of cheese to another bowl and set aside. This is for the sauce.
- Melt butter completely in a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. (I use the same stockpot in which I cooked the noodles.)
- Slowly whisk in flour until smooth.
- Cook, whisking continuously, for about two minutes.
- Slowly whisk in half-and-half and milk and whisk continuously for about 8 minutes until thickened.
- Remove pot from heat.
- Stir in salt and pepper.
- Stir in 6 cups of grated cheese and continue stirring until cheese is completely melted and sauce is creamy.
- Add cooked macaroni noodles to the cheese sauce and mix well, until noodles are incorporated into sauce.
- Slowly mix 3 cups grated cheese into the noodles.
- Pour noodles and cheese sauce into the prepared baking dish.
- Sprinkle the remaining 3 cups of grated cheese on top of the noodles.
- Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes to develop a nice, browned, crusty top.
Whisking the flour and dairy together requires unwavering attention during the eight-minute thickening phase, because starch molecules burn easily on the bottom of a hot Dutch oven if left unattended.
- To adapt this dish for gluten-free diets, replace the half cup of all-purpose wheat flour with an equal weight of certified gluten-free measure-for-measure flour blend, ensuring the roux still cooks for the full two minutes to eliminate raw starch flavors.
- Dairy constituents behave predictably under heat, meaning whole milk and half-and-half supply enough water and protein to emulsify twelve cups of melted cheese without splitting into an oily slick.
- Setting the greased 9x13 inch baking dish on a foil-lined cookie sheet before putting it in the 375 degree oven captures bubbling cheese overflow that would otherwise carbonize on the heating element.
- Extending the bake time to the outer limit of forty minutes guarantees the development of a dark, rigid, crusty top layer formed through the Maillard reaction between milk solids and protein amino acids.
- Leftovers must be sealed in airtight containers and consumed within three days to prevent the starch retrogradation that makes leftover pasta unpleasantly firm.
