My Favorite Baked Mac and Cheese Recipe

A classic baked mac and cheese that’s dangerously easy to make and is topped off with a buttery, crisp toasted panko topping!

Print the Recipe: https://sugarspunrun.com/baked-mac-and-cheese/

Ingredients
8 oz (226 g) dry macaroni noodles
4 Tablespoons (55 g) salted butter
¼ cup (31 g) all-purpose flour
3 cups (710 ml) whole milk (see note)
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon ground mustard
2 cups (226 g) shredded sharp cheddar cheese see note
1 cup (113 g) shredded mozzarella cheese
Panko Topping
2 Tablespoons salted butter
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 cup (60 g) seasoned panko crumbs

Shop my Amazon store: https://www.amazon.com/shop/sugarspunrun
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases from the links below.
Cast Iron Skillet (Affiliate Link): https://amzn.to/2yZPFMh

Instructions
00:00 Introduction
00:10 Preheat oven to 350F (175C)
00:15 Begin cooking your pasta according to package instructions in well-salted water. Do not over-cook, in fact, for best results cook one minute less than indicated time. Once finished, drain, drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil (about ½ teaspoon) and toss to coat so the noodles don’t stick together while sitting.
00:55 Meanwhile, melt butter in a 10″ cast iron pan² over medium heat. Once it has melted, add flour and whisk until smooth and no lumps remain.
02:25 Add milk and spices (salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and ground mustard), stir well and bring to a boil. You may notice that the milk and butter will separate — continue to heat, stirring frequently, until the milk is heated and they combine.
03:29 Once mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat, bring to a simmer, and stir frequently until mixture is thickened.
04:02 Reduce heat to low and add cheddar and mozzarella cheese. Stir until cheeses are melted and mixture is smooth.
05:59 Add cooked, drained pasta noodles and stir until well coated by the sauce.
06:31 Set aside while you prepare your Panko topping.
Panko Topping
06:42 Combine butter and olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Heat, stirring occasionally, until melted.
06:58 Add panko and stir well until the butter and oil has been mostly absorbed. Continue to stir until panko is lightly toasted and turns a light-medium brown color.
07:15 Sprinkle toasted panko evenly over mac and cheese.
07:28 Transfer to oven and bake uncovered on 350F (175C) for 15 minutes.
07:48 Garnish with parsley, if desired, and serve.

Notes
Milk
For a richer, creamier mac & cheese swap 1 cup of milk for 1 cup of heavy cream. SO good!
Cheese
You may substitute another type of shredded cheese for all or part of the cheese — Colby, Monterey Jack, and Gruyere, would all work well. I also recommend buying your own block of cheese and grating it yourself to ensure that the cheese melts properly, please see my post for more information on pre-shredded vs block cheese.
I originally wrote this recipe with 1 ½ cups of mozzarella cheese but found this actually diminished the other flavors in the dish, so I have reduced it to 1 cup.
²Pan
If you don’t have a 10″ cast iron pot, then prepare your macaroni and cheese according to these instructions and then transfer to a lightly buttered 9×9 square pan or 1.5qt baking dish before topping with panko and baking.

I’d love to see what you’re making! Tag me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sugarspun_sam
Sign up for my Email List: https://sugarspunrun.com/subscribe/

Hey, Sam here from Sugar Spun Run! Today, I want to show you how to make my all-time favorite baked mac and cheese. Creamy, stretchy cheese, just so good. Let’s get to it. This is a bakedmac and cheese, so get your oven preheating to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, let’s start with our pasta. You’ll need a pot of water. We’re going to salt this generously. There’s my salt. And we are going to take this over to the stove top and bring it to a nice, rolling boil. Once that water’s nice and boiling, we’ll add our pasta. You’ll need 8 ounces of dry, elbow macaroni, so that’s half a box. Of course, you could double this. You are just going to need a much bigger dish for baking your macaroni. So we’ll add the pasta, and we’re going to cook it according to package instructions— I actually like to shave a minute off, so the pasta doesn’t become overdone, especially since we’ll be baking it in the oven. I find it usually needs to cook for like six or seven minutes. Alright, once our pasta is cooked, we are going to drain this. And then, I just return it to the pot and drizzle it with a teeny, tiny bit of olive oil to keep the noodles from sticking together. While the macaroni is cooking, let’s prep our sauce— our nice, cheesy sauce. So I am going to bake this whole macaroni in a 10 inch, cast iron pan. You can use a different size dish, like a 9×9 baking dish, or like a one and a half quart casserole dish, but I like to prep everything in here, cook it in here, saves me a dish. So we’re going to turn our stove top to medium heat, and, once it’s nice and hot, we will add our butter. You’ll need 4 tablespoons of salted butter. We’re going to let that butter melt, and then we’re going to add some flour, so I have a fourth cup of all-purpose flour here. I’m not going to add it just yet, but we’re doing is we’re basically building or making a simple roux, and this this is going to give the mac and cheese like a really nice depth of flavor. It’s going to give it body. It’s going to make it creamy, and it’s just a really important step for a baked mac and cheese. Alright, once that’s melted, I’m just going to sprinkle in fourth cup. And we’re going to whisk this until it’s completely absorbed and there are no lumps. Again, this is the base for our cheese sauce. Alright, once it’s well combined, I like to keep whisking it, keep it moving, so it doesn’t burn, but we want to just slightly toast the flour a little bit, so I cook it another 30 to 60 seconds longer. Okay, once this is nice and a little toasty, we’re going to add our spices. First up, let’s just do our salt, you’ll need a half teaspoon of regular table salt, a half teaspoon of ground black pepper. I like to use a teaspoon of garlic powder and then a half teaspoon of onion powder—what is going on here? Jeez— and half a teaspoon of ground mustard, which also really helps give us a nice, flavorful base. So I go ahead and whisk these spices in, and then I’m going to add the milk. So for this recipe you need 3 cups of milk— I recommend a whole milk—or you can do what I do, and to make things extra indulgent and creamy, you can use two cups of whole milk and then swap one of the cups of milk for a cup of heavy cream. The recipe works great either way, but recently I’ve been subbing one of those cups for a little bit of cream. So we’re going to gradually stir in the milk. Things are gonna get a little steamy. Sorry, it’s just the nature of mac and cheese. I don’t want to add it all at once. Just keep whisking. I like to do the spices first because it really helps integrate them into the sauce and just kind of blooms them a little bit, which makes the dish even more flavorful. Okay, two cups of milk. And like I said, when I first wrote this recipe, I always just use 3 cups. But more recently, we do a cup of cream and you add this now. Oh, it’s gonna be so good. If you notice any separation of the milk and butter at this point, don’t panic. Your heat may be a little bit higher than is ideal, but it should all come back together a little bit later on as you keep cooking. So we need to cook this until it’s thickened. The mixture will usually come to a simmer. You don’t need to come to like a full, full rolling boil, but you do need it to thicken and, as it’s simmering, just keep whisking, just to keep it moving, so it doesn’t get lumpy. So after a bit of simmering, you’re going to notice it gets thicker and you’ll be able to feel this in your whisk, like it’s just kind of…the whisk will start to leave like gentle trails and you can always do the spoon test if you’re really not sure, which just means when you coat the back with a spoon, and then run your finger down it, it leaves a little trail. Mmm, little taste test here too. That’s how you know you’re ready to move on. Okay, here, we’re going to drop the heat down to low. We’re going to add our cheese. So the first cheese I recommend is two cups of a sharp—not extra sharp —but a nice sharp cheddar cheese. So, very important, you want to shred this yourself instead of buying that pre-shredded cheese, you know, that you can like get pre-shredded. That has additives to it that keep it from melting like nice and silky smooth, so I really always shred my own. A Gruyère is something people like use instead of cheddar sometimes, that should be totally fine here. The next cheese we’re going to use is a cup of mozzarella cheese. Again, I buy whole milk or even—what’s the other one—part skim and will shred that myself. They both work really well here, so this is a cup of mozzarella. When I first shared this recipe, I used to use a cup and a half. But I actually found that by cutting it down to just a cup, we get a little more flavor because mozzarella can kind of dull the other flavors, so reducing the cheese made it more flavorful—who would’ve thought, right? Alright, we’re going to stir this in because we want the cheese to melt. And the cheddar is really important for flavor and the mozzarella—not that it doesn’t add any flavor —but it’s really important for texture, and it adds that nice, like, subtle stretchiness to the dish as well. These two just work really well in this dish. And the reason I say not an extra sharp cheddar isn’t because it won’t work at all, but because it doesn’t have as smooth of a melt and it can make the mac and cheese seem a little bit less creamy. Whereas, if you use a cheese like Monterey or Colby, instead of the cheddar, it would be even more creamy, but it doesn’t have quite the same flavorful punch that cheddar gives. I spent a lot of time thinking about mac and cheese. So here’s where we have to just be a little bit careful since we’re using a more shallow pan. I love this cast iron. This is a Lodge cast iron. I’ll leave a link to it in the description, but like Lodge is pretty inexpensive as far as cast iron goes. Pretty sure they’re still made in America, I think, and they just last forever. I love them. This is not a commercial for Lodge. I just really like the pan. It’s nice and stretchy. Thank you mozzarella. Let me grab our pasta, which is nice and hot. Don’t wanna burn my hand. Alright, again, proceed with caution. Try not to Splash anything here. I’ll go to great lengths to avoid having to do an extra dish. Okay, let’s stir in that macaroni. You can turn off your heat at this point. We need those noodles nicely coated. I’m so excited to eat this. Don’t skip the baking process though because we’re about to add the crown jewel, the layer that makes this mac and cheese so good compared to any other I’ve ever had. Oh, it’s so creamy, so good. Alright, I’m going to move this behind me. It’s just going to hang out on my stovetop. Doesn’t need to be over the heat anymore. And we’re going to make that topping I was just telling you about. This is an easy panko topping. I just need a small skillet or even a saucepan would work. Okay, my cooktop wants to make weird noises, so we’re going to head over to the stove. Okay, so now we’ll set those over medium heat, add a tablespoon of oil—I’m using olive oil—and two tablespoons of salted butter. We’ll let this melt. Okay, once that’s nice and melted, we’re going to add our panko. We’re going to use one cup of seasoned panko here. We’re just going to stir this and cook it until it’s nice and toasty. It only takes a couple of minutes, but you want the panko to be a nice, golden brown and all of that butter and oil should be absorbed. Ah, this is what makes it so good! Okay, once this is nice and golden, we are just going to scatter it evenly over the mac and cheese. Ah, this stuff… it just adds like such a nice texture and a nice flavor. Alright, once we have all the panko on top nicely distributed, we’re going to drop this in the oven, center rack, 350 degrees. It just needs to bake for 15 minutes. Alright, once it’s finished baking, hold off just a little bit. That way, it has some time to cool down, so you don’t burn yourself. And also, if you dig in right away, it’s going to be like extra creamy, it thickens and the sauce tightens up a little bit as it sits. But once it’s cool enough that you’re not going to absolutely burn yourself, it’s time to dig in. I love this mac and cheese. If you try it, let me know what you think. I always love hearing from you. Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll see you next time. Oh, this is definitely gonna be too hot to eat. Mmm…that’s incredible. It’s so good. Hey— *oven beeps* Pasta’s startin’ to go crazy back there. Casey has my skillets. Let me find—let me see what I did with that. That’s some weird noises. —again. Oh! Darn it. *sigh* My all time favorite ba—baked… Like I think that’s gonna cut the cheese—ha!