When you think of comfort food, what comes to mind? Most people will say mac and cheese or anything with cheese, like a grilled cheese or pizza. Wouldn’t that point towards cheese being the most popular comfort food? Anyway, I digress. Reeling myself back in there’s a couple of tips to really great mac and cheese. There’s no room for low fat cheese or milk here. If you’re eating mac and cheese you need to just go for it; full fat and all. That’s where the secret to the creaminess lies! The pasta: You may not think the shape matters, but it does. I know because I’ve made the mistake before of using a flat bowtie pasta and it just gets weighed down by the heavy cheese sauce. A sturdy pasta like elbows, shells or cavatappi are perfect for this. Plus, all these pastas have crevices and holes for the cheese sauce to hide in so there’s extra cheese in every bite. The panko breading topping The cheese The key to any great mac and cheese is the cheese and the cheese sauce, of which there needs to be a lot because there’s nothing worse than a mac and cheese with more pasta than cheese sauce. As far as the cheeses go, I like a nice sharp white cheddar (white purely for aesthetics) but I also like a Swiss gruyère for it’s creaminess and nuttiness, so I use both. Now, what’s a great mac and cheese if it doesn’t have strings that stretch to the ceiling? And the only way to get the stretchy gooey is from adding mozzarella. More Mushroom Recipes:
Vegetarian Mushroom Wellington with Gravy Brown Butter Mushroom Sage Risotto Mushroom and Sage Rice Pilaf Mushroom, Sage Mac and Cheese
- The pasta will finish cooking in the oven. If it was fully cooked it would overcook in the oven and turn mushy.
