Here is a post/recipe from my friend Heather. This is yummy!
I love macaroni and cheese. I love the crappy yellow crappity-crap in the blue box. I love my aunt’s homemade mac and cheese. I love the stuff you get at the school cafeteria that’s 1 part glue and 2 parts gum. I love the magnificent baked mac and cheese at Cleburne’s Cafeteria in Houston (mecca for the comfort food lover). But I have never really liked the stuff I make.
The challenge for me in the mac and cheese department is that the stuff may be creamy and fantastic, but it tastes very bland. I’d prefer to keep the salt low, but I don’t want to sacrifice flavor.
This recipe may have solved that problem.
1 lb macaroni (I use Barilla elbows or Mueller’s corkscrews. Both have ridges that seem to hold the sauce better.)
1/2 cup butter
1 chopped onion
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground mustard
1 tsp paprika
4 cups milk
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put generously salted water on to boil for macaroni. Cook pasta according to package directions for al dente.
2. Sautée onions in butter over medium heat until translucent. Add spices and continue to sautée for another minute or two.
3. Add flour and stir together until clumpy. I’m a firm believer in letting roux cook for at least a minute or so after it clumps so you can cook the wheat and get rid of the flour taste. Just keep stirring it around the pan and letting it golden.
4. Add milk gradually until all four cups is incorporated. This means adding probably 1/4 cup at a time and stirring until that bit is incorporated, then adding 1/4 cup more. Once all the milk has been added, keep stirring until the sauce begins to bubble.
5. Add grated cheese and stir until melted.
6. Mix pasta and sauce in large bowl. Pour into greased 9X13 pan. Sprinkle bread crumbs and Parmesan on top. Bake for 30-40 minutes until top is golden and contents are bubbly.
This was pretty great at dinner, all crusty and chewy and cheesy, but it was even better lukewarm 3 hours later.-Heather
4 Comments
Maybe it goes along with our name but I love mac n cheese, too. I remember loving the mac n cheese they served at our cafeteria at Northern.
Questions – can I use wheat flour? And ground mustard – what is that?
I love mac and cheese and so do my kids, of course. We’ll have to try out this recipe.
Ground mustard is simple ground mustard seed. You can buy it ground or whole in the spice aisle. If you used wheat flour, either use less flour, or use the 1/2 cup and use more milk.
I always find wheat flour needs more liquid than white in my recipes.
And you can always add more cheese. The recipe I based this on originally called for an additional two cups of cheese on top.
This sounds delicious-can’t wait to try it!