Our easy, best-ever macaroni and cheese recipe accomplishes three key requirements: It's extra creamy, plenty cheesy, and baked with a crunchy, golden topping.
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00:00 Hey everyone, it's Tia in the Delish Kitchen,
00:02 and I'm gonna show you how to make
00:04 the creamiest, dreamiest baked mac and cheese
00:08 you've ever tasted.
00:09 Baked mac and cheese is not like
00:11 the out-of-the-box mac and cheese.
00:14 It's rich, it's gooey, and it's got this crispy
00:18 Parmesan breadcrumb topping that's just to die for.
00:21 If you've never made a baked mac and cheese,
00:24 today is the day to start.
00:26 The key to the most flavorful cheese sauce
00:28 is not one, but three different types of cheese.
00:32 Each cheese fills a specific role in our cheese sauce.
00:36 So, you start with the base cheese.
00:38 Here we've got cheddar.
00:40 You could use sharp, you could use mild,
00:42 any variety of cheddar.
00:44 You could also maybe include a little Monterey
00:46 or Colby Jack if you wanted to.
00:48 Anything that's gonna give you a nice, subtle cheese flavor,
00:51 a nice, rich base flavor for your sauce.
00:55 Then, you have the funk cheese, as I like to call it.
00:59 This is Gruyere, but you could also use Fontina.
01:03 Anything with just a little bit of, huh, what is that,
01:07 to give your sauce some extra interest.
01:10 Then you've got Parmesan.
01:12 Parmesan is that nutty, sharp cheese.
01:15 And here you could also use Asiago,
01:17 you could use Parmigiano-Reggiano.
01:19 You're not gonna use much of this 'cause it's very strong,
01:22 but you do want it to give your cheese sauce
01:24 that little bit of zip.
01:26 Speaking of our cheeses, you may have noticed
01:29 that they are all solid blocks.
01:32 You should use a solid block.
01:33 You should not use pre-shredded cheese for this.
01:36 Pre-shredded cheese has this stuff, this preservatives,
01:40 like potato starch, some other type of starch
01:43 that coats the outside of it
01:45 so it doesn't stick together in the bag.
01:47 That does not make for a good mac and cheese sauce ever.
01:50 So, please, please, please,
01:51 if you only do one extra out-of-the-box thing for this,
01:55 please get your cheese and grate it fresh.
01:58 I'm gonna go ahead and start grating my cheese.
02:00 I like to use a box grater,
02:01 and I'm just gonna use a medium shred.
02:03 (upbeat music)
02:06 So, at this point,
02:12 you're gonna make sure to split your Parm.
02:14 You want 2/3 or about a cup of it in one bowl,
02:18 and then you want 1/2 a cup in another bowl.
02:21 You're gonna set that 1/2 a cup aside.
02:23 That's gonna go in the panko breadcrumb topping.
02:26 Before we start our cheese sauce,
02:28 we are going to cook our pasta.
02:30 Let's talk a little bit about the pasta for mac and cheese.
02:33 A lot of people think elbow macaroni.
02:36 That's fine.
02:38 However, I like a pasta
02:40 with a little bit more corkscrew action going on,
02:43 like cavatappi.
02:44 What I love about cavatappi
02:46 is that it has all of those corkscrews
02:48 that really catch and hold that cheese sauce,
02:51 and in particular, in a baked mac and cheese,
02:54 it's really what you want.
02:55 We are going to be boiling it in super salty water,
02:59 and when I say super salty,
03:01 I mean it should taste like the ocean.
03:04 You're gonna get your water to a boil.
03:05 You're gonna put your salt in.
03:07 You're gonna add your pasta,
03:08 and you're gonna cook your pasta
03:10 until it is just al dente.
03:13 Remember, this pasta is gonna go bake in the oven,
03:15 so it's gonna get more soft.
03:17 You don't want it super soft
03:18 when it comes out of the water already.
03:20 Now we're ready to make our cheese sauce.
03:24 The way to get the creamiest, dreamiest cheese sauce
03:27 for a baked mac and cheese
03:29 is to start with a bechamel.
03:31 Now let's demystify bechamel for a minute.
03:33 Bechamel is simply a milk sauce
03:37 that is thickened with a roux,
03:40 and a roux is just butter and flour whisked together
03:43 until it gets kind of blonde and bubbly, all right?
03:47 It's really not that difficult.
03:49 It's pretty simple.
03:50 It's easier to show than to tell, so let's get started.
03:54 We're gonna start by melting our butter
03:56 in our pan over medium heat,
03:58 and then we're gonna add our flour
04:00 and cook it all together
04:02 until it starts to bubble away from the pan
04:05 just a little bit.
04:06 You'll see it'll turn slightly blonde
04:09 and become less pale.
04:11 You don't want it super dark,
04:13 but you definitely don't want it as white as it was.
04:16 Then you are going to put your milk in slowly,
04:21 stirring constantly so you don't get big lumps.
04:24 If you wanna shortcut this process a little bit,
04:28 you can make sure that your milk is at room temperature
04:31 or even heat it slightly.
04:32 That will help get everything up to temp
04:36 because you're gonna cook it and continue to stir
04:38 until it becomes thick and bubbly.
04:43 Then you'll season with your mustard powder
04:46 and your salt and your pepper.
04:48 So as you can see, our sauce has thickened.
04:53 It's been bubbling for about two minutes,
04:56 and it's just slightly thicker.
04:58 It's gonna get a lot thicker when we add our cheese sauce,
05:00 so if it still looks a little loose, that's okay too.
05:03 At this point, we're gonna get it off the heat,
05:06 and then we're gonna add our cheeses.
05:07 It's very important to take it off the heat.
05:10 Do not try to add your cheese with the heat on the pot.
05:14 We're whisking in all of our cheeses
05:16 just until it's smooth and combined,
05:18 and then while it's still warm,
05:20 we are gonna fold in our pasta.
05:22 So the last thing we do
05:38 before we put our mac and cheeses in the oven
05:40 is make our crunchy, crispy bread crumb topping.
05:44 So we are gonna mix together our Parmesan and our panko,
05:47 and then we're gonna drizzle the olive oil on top
05:49 and stir it all together.
05:51 We're gonna butter our baking dish,
05:57 get our mac in,
06:01 top with our crispy bread crumb topping,
06:10 a little bit more black pepper,
06:11 and then get it into the oven.
06:13 We're gonna get this in the oven at 375
06:19 and cook it for 25 minutes,
06:21 just until it's golden brown on the top and bubbling.
06:24 (laughs)
06:36 It's rich, it's creamy, it's gooey,
06:39 it's oh so comforting.
06:41 You can really taste all of the different things
06:44 that those cheeses brought to the party,
06:46 and the fact that we started with that bechamel base
06:48 makes this that much richer and creamy and delicious.
06:53 This is the best mac and cheese I have ever tasted,
06:55 and by the way, all of the rest of the Delish team
06:58 thought so too.
06:59 For this and other recipes, stick around on delish.com.
07:04 (upbeat music)
07:07 (upbeat music)