Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the month of October has been christened Rocktober, thanks to the many birthdays during the month: myself, my husband Eric, and my best friend/guest blogger Molly, among others. Last weekend, Eric and I roadtripped from New Jersey back to my hometown in Connecticut for a mass birthday celebration (we let my uncle, an early November birthday, join in).  Per family tradition, the birthday boy/girl gets to choose their dinner, and I invariably opt for homemade macaroni & cheese. Mac 'n cheese is, without a doubt, my all-time favorite food.  I am a sucker for it in any form - homemade, Kraft blue box, Kraft squeezy cheese, Easy Mac, you name it.  I even liked the crap they served in the dining halls in college.  I have no shame in making this admission, even though it speaks rather poorly of my palate.  Anyways, this recipe is the way my family has been making this my whole life, but this marks the first time it's ever actually been written down.  The method is fairly standard and is likely what you'd find in a cookbook, but I was very excited to finally have the amounts of spices used accurately measured and written down!

Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese
What You'll Need:
1 1/2 lb macaroni elbows
2 lb extremely sharp white cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded Italian cheese blend
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup white flour
3 cloves minced garlic OR 1 tsp crushed garlic
5-6 cups milk
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground mustard
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp salt

What To Do:
We typically buy the cheddar cheese as a giant block, which then needs to get roughly grated into an enormous pile that just begs for periodic "taste tests".

Start out by precooking the macaroni.  I generally cook the pasta for slightly less time than suggested since it will be baked for quite some time, and I don't want it to get mushy.  After the pasta is cooked, drain it and leave it to the side until the sauce is ready. Turn on the oven to preheat at 350F.

To make the sauce, start out by melting the stick of butter over medium heat. Also, add your minced/crushed garlic so that it will gently saute while the butter is melting.

Try not to think about how much butter this calls for.  IT IS WORTH IT.

After the butter is melted and the garlic has been mixed in, add 2-3 tablespoons of the flour to the pot. 

Immediately begin whisking the flour and butter together so that they form a thick paste, which becomes the basis for the roux sauce.

 Slowly whisk in 1 cup of milk, stirring constantly until it is completely smooth.  The most important part of making this recipe is that you NEVER EVER under any circumstances stop stirring.  Not stirring leads to a burnt, scorched sauce, and that is bad news bears.

A nice, creamy roux sauce.

Keep your heat on low/medium, depending on your stove, so that the sauce is only lightly simmering.  It will continually thicken, so keep adding the remainder of the milk until you reach the volume of sauce that you need.  For this recipe we ended up using between 5 and 6 cups, but this will also depend on whether you are using skim, low-fat, or whole milk.

Add the mustard, pepper, onion powder, and salt to the sauce, and then mix well.  Gradually add one handful of cheese to the pot at a time, waiting to add more cheese until the previous bunch has melted.  Like Dory from Finding Nemo said, "Just keep swimming stirring, just keep stirring..."  Add the remaining cheese except for one handful, which is reserved for the topping.

Taste the sauce to see if the flavor is to your liking.  I realize this is hard to do if it's your first time making it, but it should be sufficiently cheesy (who am I kidding, there's never enough cheese) and should have a sharp tang, thanks to the mustard and pepper.  If necessary, add more of the various spices to your preference.


Spray 2 casserole dishes or oven-safe bowls with non-stick cooking spray and place them on a large cookie sheet (to catch overflow of the sauce while cooking).

Fill each bowl about halfway with the macaroni, then generously cover the pasta with your cheese sauce.

Mix the sauce into the pasta, then add another spoonful or two to each bowl.  It is amazing how much sauce the pasta will suck up.  After it's nice and gooey, add more pasta to each bowl so that they are filled almost to the top level.  Add more sauce to each bowl to the point that it almost looks soupy; while these bake, the pasta will absorb the sauce, and if you don't have enough at the outset, this will come out dry.

Yummmmm.

Lightly cover the tops of each dish with Italian seasoned bread crumbs, then sprinkle the leftover cheddar cheese on top of each.

Bake these for approximately 45 minutes, or until the top is a crispy golden brown.

Full disclosure: this picture was not taken immediately after coming out of the oven.  I actually forgot because I was in such a frenzy to eat and I COULD NOT WAIT.  You'll understand they torture of smelling this cook for almost an hour and the pleasant torture of anticipating hot, melty, gooey, cheesy goodness in your belly.  Thankfully, this recipe makes so much macaroni that we never touched the second dish, so I was able to sneak a picture of this the next day.  We had 7 people for dinner, and each of us had a, shall we say, "healthy" serving, so you can imagine how much food this makes.  You can easily scale this down for 2-4 people but cutting back on the amount of pasta you cook, and using less butter/flour/milk to make your cheese sauce.  I would say that you could use the same amount of cheese no matter what, but that might actually cause a lactose overload. This is an incredibly rich, decadent meal, but as Molly said in her previous birthday cake post, what's the fun in having a birthday if you can't indulge? That being said, when I make this I usually use skim milk, light cheese, and margarine instead of butter.  Feel free to experiment with the cheeses you use and the spices you add - no matter what, nothing beats macaroni & cheese!