Hi, all! I’m back with yet another edition of great food (although this time not very healthy)! Today I wanted to share the recipe for my husband’s all-time favorite meal ever… Homemade Baked Mac ‘n Cheese. Before trying this dish, he had only tried the boxed stuff and had long since written off macaroni and cheese as unappealing. Little did he know that a whole world of cheesiness was waiting for him! That is, until my Mom made this recipe for dinner, and he ate it to be polite, and a new love for mac ‘n cheese was awakened. It’s really only fair that you all have the recipe, so that you can share in this mac ‘n cheese goodness. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients;

• 1/2 box elbow macaroni (or large elbows)
• 3 tbsp butter or margarine
• 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk
• 1- 8oz block of sharp cheddar cheese
• Parmesan cheese to taste
• Italian breadcrumbs to taste

First, cube a whole 8 oz block of cheese. This is the step that takes a couple minutes, and once this recipe gets going you have to be ready to add the cheese right away. I tend to cut the cheese length-wise into quarters, and then width-wise into about 1″ cubes. This makes the cubes small enough to melt quickly.

Now, bring a medium saucepan of water to boil. Boil the macaroni in the water for 5 minutes. Drain the pasta in a colander and set it aside.

Now starts the part of the recipe that is super simple, but makes you feel like a restaurant quality chef. We’re going to make a basic French white sauce known as a bechamel. It starts with a roux (which is a fancy way of saying cook flour and butter together until they start bubbling and form a starchy paste).

To make the roux, melt the 3 tbsp of butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat (you can use the same one you used for the pasta). Once it’s melted, add the 3 tbsp flour and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula. The flour will eventually dissolve and combine with the flour to form a bubbly paste. For this recipe, you want to have what is known as a “blonde roux”, so you only want it to be golden brown in color before adding the next ingredients.

Once you have your roux, add the 2 cups milk and stir continuously. At first, the roux will be clumpy in the milk, but after a few minutes the ingredients will combine and start to thicken into a great white sauce (aka the bechamel). Once it starts to bubble slightly and really thicken, it’s time to add the cheese.

Add the cubed cheese to the sauce and stir until it melts. After several trials of different cheeses, my husband and I have decided we like either New York Extra-Sharp Cheddar or “Seriously Sharp” cheese by Cabot. I also like to add 1/8 cup Parmesan cheese to this, with some in the sauce and some sprinkled over the top.

When the cheese is melted, turn off the heat and add the macaroni to the saucepan, stirring until all the macaroni is drenched in sauce.

Pour the mixture into a casserole dish (~1 qt or so). Sprinkle the top with Italian breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese to taste.

Bake it for 30 minutes at 375°F. Serve it immediately.

A fair warning: there are rarely leftovers of this dish. My husband can put away an entire casserole dish worth of this stuff, so make sure you get a big spoonful of it before it’s gone! Enjoy!