How to Make One Pot Mac and Cheese
- Add milk, butter, and macaroni noodles to a large pot.
- Cook the noodles on medium for 15 to 18 minutes, stirring frequently, or until they are cooked.
- Add the cheese and salt, stirring until melted.
- Taste and adjust seasonings, adding more cheese if desired.
Though bow tie, fusilli, and penne pasta also work well, I personally like elbow macaroni.
Water is a substitute, but the texture of your mac & cheese will be less creamy.
Bring the mixture back to a boil and continue cooking until the desired consistency is achieved if your macaroni and cheese ends up being too liquid. To prevent the milk and cheese from burning at the bottom of the pot, stir frequently.
This is not the best stuff to use as leftovers from the blue box. The sauce gets powdery and has a weird texture. But this one-pot mac and cheese tastes SO good reheated. The flavors have an opportunity to meld together and you still get that creamy factor. I advise consuming leftovers within a day or two and keeping them refrigerated.
- You don’t need to drain the pasta in this recipe. When pasta is cooked in milk directly, it becomes exceptionally creamy and the sauce adheres to it more effectively.
- In order to obtain the entire creaminess factor, I suggest using whole milk or at least 2%
- Use either mild or sharp cheddar, and add extra cheese if necessary to get the desired level of cheesiness.
STEP 1: CHOOSE THE RIGHT PASTA FOR YOUR MAC AND CHEESE.
Talking about mac and cheese, it seems most appropriate to start with the mac Although macaroni pasta is perhaps the most well-known mac-to-the-cheese, there are other types of noodles in the sea besides macaroni (noodle in the sauce?).
When selecting your pasta for macaroni and cheese, look for shapes with plenty of texture. The best pasta for mac and cheese has deep grooves, pockets, and ridges – these features help each noodle catch as much cheese sauce as possible. Avoid long noodles like spaghetti or fettuccine, whose smooth surfaces dont hold cheese sauce all that well, and opt instead for short, ridged shapes like radiatore or shells. My favorite pasta shapes for mac and cheese are in the graphic below!
Remember that different brands of pasta with similar shapes have different names and labels. Look for short, textured pasta with lots of grooves to hold the amazing cheese sauce you’re about to make, rather than obsessing over the perfect pasta name.
Always boil pasta until it’s al dente, which is Italian for “to the tooth,” and still has a slight bite to it. The salt has a major flavoring effect on the noodles.
Cook pasta for 3 to 4 minutes LESS than al dente if you intend to bake it. Pasta should be slightly undercooked when placed in the oven to ensure that it cooks through to a perfectly al dente consistency because the pasta will continue to cook there.
STEP 4: VEGETABLE ADD-INS.
I suppose it’s time to briefly discuss veggies (along with the obnoxious fruit tomato, which I did include in the veggie graphic) because, you know, “health food” or whatever.
I genuinely adore adding fruits and veggies, like tomatoes, to macaroni and cheese. Its a simple, easy way to elevate a quick dinner. Additionally, nutrients (if you’re into that kind of thing), so you can consume more of the carbohydrates covered in cheese. Yes?.
Mix these ingredients directly into the sauce while you add the pasta, garnish each dish with a dollop of your preferred garnish, or create a homemade mac and cheese station with vegetables (and protein, below) so that visitors can create their own mac and cheese experiences.
Some of my favorite veggie-tastic additions:
Blanched veggies. Cook some broccoli florets, peas, cauliflower, or corn for a minute or two in boiling water (I like to add these vegetables to pasta when it’s just two minutes cooked).
Roasted peppers. Roast a bell pepper, jalapeño, or poblano at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until the skin is blackened. Place the hot pepper in a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap until it cools down enough to handle (carefully! with tongs!). Chop it up, remove the seeds, and peel the skin.
Chopped things. Add some roughly chopped arugula, basil, parsley, or cilantro to your cheese sauce, along with some spinach (try our havarti mac and cheese or parmesan spinach mac and cheese!). Other favorites: diced tomato, diced red bell pepper (non-roasted).
Caramelized mushrooms and onions. A lil bit of butter. Some sliced onions. A couple of sliced mushrooms (they make a killer mushroom garlic mac and cheese). Maybe a garlic clove. Salt and pepper. Add a generous dollop of the mixture to your mac and cheese after cooking everything in a hot skillet until the onions are caramelized.
