The Best Mac And Cheese At Home (2 Ways)

Homemade Mac and cheese my favorite ways. One on the stovetop and one in the oven. Not overly complicated.

Recipe: https://www.joshuaweissman.com/recipes/the-best-mac-and-cheese-2-ways

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A lot of people would say Craft makes the best mac and cheese, but I have another one. This isn’t just any ordinary mac and cheese. We’re doing two different versions, both of which are excellent and honestly beautifully perfect in their own way. One’s an easy stove top version that you can make real fast, and then the second one is sort of a more involved real cheese, kind of a fancier one. So, there’s a mac and cheese for everybody, but both of these I believe to be kind of the best. Let’s make this, shall we? So, we’re going to start with the perfect most luxurious baked mac and cheese from my cookbook, Texture Over Taste. Then, make an even easier stove top only version that’s sort of a fancier craft mac and cheese. Each begins with a classic rub with cream and different cheeses. Boil your pasta. Combine and enjoy. First, we’re going to start by grating our cheese. Little technique for you. Get yourself a piece of parchment paper, put a grater on that. We have a box grater. They’re pretty inexpensive. And I have two cheeses for you. We’re going to grate three cups of sharp cheddar. I’m grating this on the coarse setting. You can grate it on the finer setting, but a lot of these sort of like semi hard, semi soft cheeses don’t grate very well on fine settings. I find it easier to do it on the coarser setting. Once the cheese is all done, you just kind of grab the parchment paper on both sides like a hot dog. And then you just simple as that. Then we have our griier. Same exact amount, three cups or 270 g. Now we’re going to toss together our cheeses. Just make sure they’re nice and mixed and incorporated. You need a three baking dish. This is also a 9×9. Going to take a little cooking spray. Grease that up. You can also use butter, a little bit of oil, and just kind of rub it out with a paper towel. You just want this to be greasy so it doesn’t stick. We’re going to move on to the stove. The first thing that I want to start with is the rue for the cheese sauce. We have a large sauté pan. 1/2 cup of butter, unsalted in. Set that to medium heat until it’s completely melted. No solids left at all. Now, while that’s melting, got my boiling pot of water. I’m going to salt that very, very generously. You want this super super salty, like almost as salty as the ocean. And you’re going to add one lb of any large elbow macaroni. And you’re going to cook that 1 to 2 minutes less than what the package directions are. This one says 10 to 12 minutes or until tender, more like 8 minutes because it’s going to finish cooking in the oven. All the butter’s melted. I’ve got half a cup or 75 g of allpurpose flour. You’re going to whisk that in. You’re going to cook it out for about 30 to 60 seconds cuz what you don’t want is a lumpy sort of flowery tasting cheese sauce. You want it nice and smooth and creamy. We’re going to now add half of our milk. So that’s about 1 and 1/2 cups of milk. Then whisk that together. Let that thicken. You’re then going to add the rest of your whole milk. That is three cups total. And then you’re just going to keep cooking and whisking. And once it begins to thicken, you’re going to add 1 and 1/4 cup or 310 ml of heavy whipping cream. Now just keep heating and whisking. And once it’s thickened like this, it’s done. And you’re ready to receive cheese. So I’ve cut the heat off this cheese mixture. We’re only adding half of this. We want the other half of the assembly. Drop in my cheese. Then just whisk until everything’s melted and emulsified together. Season it taste with salt. You can add a little fresh nutmeg if you want. This is your only opportunity to season it properly. Please do it now. It tastes cheesy. It tastes nice. It tastes creamy. Pasta is going to go in. I prefer to use a spider. So, I have a little bit of pasta water left behind in case I want some to loosen this up a little and emulsify it better. I prefer this to be a bit more on the soupy side than thick side cuz it’s going to thicken substantially in the oven. Now, remember, this is not cooked all the way. You see that line? See how there’s like a rim in the center of the pasta? That’s uncooked pasta that hasn’t been touched by the heat yet. All right, so you’re going to stir all that together. Fold it nicely. This is where you can call your friends over and say, “What does that sound like?” She’s looking good. Tastes phenomenal. We’re going to transition into our pan. We have our remaining cheese here. We have our pasta nice and prepared. Now, first we’re going to add half of our mac and cheese, followed by half of your remaining shredded cheese mixture. Now, we’re going to add the rest of our pasta right on top. Get all that cheese sauce in there. We have our remaining cheese mixture. We’re going to use that as our topping. Beautiful. Come on now. Look at this. Really, we just want this to make kind of a bit of a cheese crust. Even if you end up not having as much as you wish you had, maybe you put too much in the middle, it’s fine. It’s still going to be delicious. Don’t freak out here. It’s not going to ruin the dish. If anything, if you put less, it’ll become more crispy than cheesy. This is going to go straight into the oven, 325 Fahrenheit, for 15 to 20 minutes. It’s been 15 minutes. We’re now going to switch this to broil on high for like 1 to 3 minutes or just until the top is nice and brown and crispy. onto the easy mac. This is real easy. I’m gonna make this quick and simple. Same concept. We have two four quart pots. One for boiling water, which is right here, already boiling. Oh my god, it’s magic. How did he do that? Kosher salt. We’re going to season that generously. Almost as salty as the ocean, just like before. But this time, this is a smaller batch. I made the recipe a smaller batch. So, you could easily double it. But really, because this is something quick, something simple to something that you make for a week night for, you know, you and your significant other that you might make love to afterwards. Hopefully. going to use 8 oz or half a pound of small elbow macaroni. Do not put oil in this for God’s sake. It doesn’t actually help with keeping them separate. It ruins the emulsion of your sauce you’re about to make. It’s dumb. Stop. Now, in the separate pot, we’re going to make our r. This is on medium heat. 2 tbsps of butter in, unsalted. Let that melt. Now, we have 2 tablespoons of allpurpose flour. Whisk that in. Same concept as before. Just cook out the flour about 30 to 60 seconds, stirring often. Now to that we are adding a few spices. This just for some fun, right? We have two teaspoons of chicken bullion powder. You can use nor or you can use likumi. They make a great chicken bullion. It’s optional, but I’m telling you it adds flavor. Half a teaspoon of smoked paprika and half a teaspoon of onion powder. It smells nice and fragrant. We’re going to add 1 and 1/4 cup of whole milk. A lot of people will say, “Oh, never add all of your milk at once. It makes it harder to incorporate.” That’s true. It does, but it will eventually incorporate if you just let it cook and thicken. The R will do its work. It might take a few minutes. I’m also going to add for richness a/2 cup of heavy cream. Whisk that in. And then just let that cook over medium medium low heat just until that mixture is thickened. That could take anywhere between two to 3 minutes roughly. As you can see, it’s still pretty liquidy. That’s what you want cuz we have a lot of cheese to add to this. So, we have 1 cup each of cheddar cheese and American cheese shredded. You can buy whole blocks of American cheese at the store or you can chop up some craft. That’s fine, right? Hear me out. This is like a craft but better. And then half a cup of Gouda or howa as some of you say. Cut off the heat completely. Add half your cheese. And once all that cheese is melted and emulsified, you can then add the other half of your cheese. Your sauce may become like 90% emulsified, 90% creamy. You’re like, “Oh, there’s still lumps. What do I do?” When you add your pasta, it will come together. Trust me. Okay, so our pasta’s done. Take out like roughly a cup of pasta water because I may need it to emulsify and smooth this out over here. Strain my pasta. Then I’m going to dump that in to my cheese sauce. We’re going to stir that together. Get that acquainted. And you’ll notice something magical happen here. When you add that hot pasta, all of this becomes beautifully emulsified and creamy and delicious. I don’t really want any more liquid in this. But if for some reason it’s too thick, maybe you reduced it too much, you have your excess pasta water. And just add it about a tablespoon at a time until it’s your desired consistency. Look at this, dude. That is a gorgeous cheesy mac and cheese. At this point, you can taste it. It doesn’t need any salt, honestly. The chicken bouan does the work. It’s beautifully seasoned. It’s very saucy. It’s thick. It’s luxurious. Now, we are going to plate and taste both of our mac and cheeses. And I wonder, could there be one better than the other? Especially knowing we have an easy one that takes significantly less time. Let’s taste. Woah. I’m scared to try the one from my book cuz that’s crazy. Beautifully creamy. Visually, it reminds me of Craft, but a little bit up. The chicken bouan in there. It’s just taking it to another level. God, Uncle Roger was right. MSHG makes everything better. Holy. This might be the best mac and cheese I’ve ever made. The consistency of the sauce is like so creamy and cheesy and luxurious. Phenomenal. Salted perfectly. The flavor is intensely cheesy and also has this rich umami anxiousness. This is unfair, especially with how easy this was to make. Moving on to the nicer one. Although it’s not that much harder to do, the baked mac and cheese. We’re knocking balls out of the park with both of these. I know what people are thinking. They’re like, “Oh, of course he’s going to say something nice about his book.” I you not. These are equally delicious. Genuinely, I just think it depends on what your vibe is. If you want something a little fancy, a little bit more luxurious, then do the baked one. If you want something that’s going to hit every time, that’s really easy to make, then you have this one. They’re both great. So, choose your own adventure. If you want to make this one, you’re going to need my cookbook. Or I guess I just gave you the recipe for free, but you should get my cookbook anyway. It’s in the link in the description. Subscribe. I love you so much. See you later. [Music]