Dairy ingredients: To make the sauce you will need butter, sour cream, milk, heavy whipped cream, evaporated milk, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and mozzarella cheese.Elbows macaroni: I always use elbows pasta for this recipe because it absorbs the sauce well.This makes it crunchy on the outside and creamy on the side. To make it even more amazing, I have added a buttery topping made of Ritz crackers and bacon. It simply melts in your mouth!Īdditionally, baking the casserole for 30 minutes after assembling it together, ensures you have a perfectly balanced and cheesy dinner. Due to mixing the ingredients together, and then adding pasta into it, the cheese proportionally and evenly integrates into this dish. I used the classic roux-based cheese sauce, where butter and flour are cooked together.Īs a result of this technique, you will have the creamiest and cheesiest casserole possible. It is rich and creamy thanks to the mix of sour cream, heavy cream, and cheese. The flavors are outstanding, and the homemade cheese sauce here is the secret ingredient. This dish is so creamy and smooth that I can never get enough of it. You see, I love cheese, and when combining it with pasta you are guaranteed to end up with something extra special! Another cool thing about American cheese? You can use it to stabilize your sauce if you want to skip the béchamel.There is absolutely nothing that I love more than this homemade baked Maccaroni and Cheese casserole. The flavor isn’t much to write home about, so it’s best paired with another cheese (although, in a pinch we’ve been known to slap a few slices on a bowl of noodles and call it a day). It’s oh-so-silky and because it’s processed, it won’t ever split, so it’s kinda perfect for adding to mac and cheese. We know you’re scoffing, but hear us out: If there’s one thing American cheese is good at, it’s melting. RELATED: Wondering What Goes with Mac and Cheese? Here Are 32 Sides That Make It a Meal Here, the nine best cheeses for mac and cheese. Older cheeses tend to have drier, crumbly textures-great for serving on their own, but not so much for melting. And when given the choice between young or aged fromage, you’ll want to stick to younger cheeses for mac and cheese purposes. TBH, most cheeses can’t offer both qualities, but combining a few types will solve that problem. Ideally, the cheese is sharp and flavorful-neither too stinky or too bland-with a creamy, gooey texture when melted. But if the recipe doesn’t have a béchamel base, you’ll want to use a combination of cheeses: one for flavor and one that’s processed (like American cheese, cream cheese or Velveeta) for stability.īeyond that, the best cheeses for mac and cheese balance flavor with meltability. If you are starting with a béchamel, you won’t need to worry much about your sauce breaking or splitting (aka turning into a curdled, greasy mess).
What is the best cheese for mac and cheese how to#
How to choose a cheese for making mac and cheese:īefore you select a cheese for your mac, check the recipe: Does it call for making a béchamel? (That’s a white sauce made with a roux-flour cooked with butter-and dairy.) This will influence your cheese choice. So what are the best cheeses for mac and cheese? We have a few ideas. And when it comes to cooking a batch at home, we aim for near-perfection. It’s salty, carby, cheesy, gooey, comforting and celebratory all at once. We don’t like to play favorites, but we would do unspeakable things for macaroni and cheese.