Protip: The reason Velveeta and American cheeses melt so well is because sodium citrate is added to them. You can buy this yourself as a powder, and then add it to actually-good cheeses to give them the same properties.
You can also just melt nearly any cheese into a roux to make a mornay sauce if you are careful about it, which is the secret to both mac and cheese and queso sauce. Sodium citrate helps to keep it from breaking but is not strictly necessary in most cases.
Edit - yes, cheese and milk
This sounds fancy, so to make it a bit less daunting:
- roux - flour and fat (typically butter), usually in equal amounts by weight
- béchamel sauce - roux + milk, often with nutmeg for flavoring
- mornay sauce - béchamel sauce with grated cheese
When making the béchamel sauce, add the milk a very small amout at a time to prevent clumping, and mix well over medium heat between additions.
I use mustard powder
You’ve saved my life 😋
My buddy bought a bunch of this to make queso dip. It works well for that
Just not in the prison cafeteria, that food qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment.
their “solitary” should be together, and in a special section of the kitchen so that they are constantly having to do the cook off until they realise they suck
I am confused and afraid, the one on the left appears to have the scooping characteristics of ice cream
They cooked the noodles before they baked. Those noodles might have been al dente when they went into the oven. 45 minutes later, and they have the consistency of play dough.
Damn, I was wondering where you got those numbers, but yeah, results speak for themselves.
likely cause by mac overcooked to hell and back and cheese is nothing but cheese that has all of it’s moisture absorbed by the mac
It’s more of a cheese infused macaroni loaf now
My entry.
Mac, Cheese, Peas, and Bacon:
Prison.
What’s the charge?
Eating a meal? A succulent American meal?
Ray, a drop of golden sun.
Peas are a hate crime.
Don’t knock it till you try it!
Everyone is giving you shit. I hate Mac and cheese, but yours with bacon and peas I might actually try.
It is amazing.
No one can convince me they actually like peas. They’re all paid off by big pea
Peas are just savory popping boba, what’s not to love?
They’re nutritious as hell and cheap. People just don’t know how to prepare/season them
Garden peas are my favourite vegetable, or petit poi in a pinch. Marrowfat peas less so, though obviously you need marrowfat for mushy peas, and sometimes mushy peas are a must.
I like peas
Not like this though. I have peas growing in my garden. I eat them fresh and uncooked. Hell, sometimes I even eat the pod.
Cooked peas suck
They are beans close cousin!
Straight to prison. There’s no due process here.
America seems to have forgotten what is a due process anyway lately, why would these need one when others don’t for milder reasons
Inappropriate peaing
Cheese apathy, book em
I dispute the charge! There’s plenty of cheese in there!
Electric chair.
This is perfect, you can easily scoop up just bacon and peas to eat and skip the rest
Nooooo!
As an American, why bother with the peas?
My fellow American, peas are delicious! Not only does the flavor pair with bacon, providing an earthy, grassy savoryness that complements the salty, fatty deliciousness of the bacon to create a rich flavor, but the pop and mush of biting into a pea provides a firmament to the crunch and chew of the star that is bacon to form a heavenly texture
And that’s how you get out of having to cook something for Thanksgiving
WHY ARE THERE GREEN BEANS IN THE MAC AND CHEESE? T_T
also just make tini’s mac and cheese; anything else is scandalous
I think that’s just the bad color temperature of the lighting, giving the macaroni noodles a green hue.
That looks horrible. And why the fuck is any sane person preparing a cassetole in a throwaway baking dish?
1 - you don’t have to worry about leaving a dish
2 - you don’t have to clean it after a get together that is probably exhausting
3 - aluminum is one of the materials that is actually very recyclable, so it’s not a big deal like plastic is.
75% of all aluminum ever mined is still in circulation- its also more efficient- recycling aluminum takes 5% of the energy it takes to produce it.
But you can’t recycle it when it’s dirty
I have melted and cast ingots from thousands of dirty aluminum cans. Rinsing first is ideal of course, but all the crap floats to the top of the molten metal as slag and you can scoop it off to discard.
I’m sure you can, but at the recycling facility it will be rejected. Look it up.
Ya but how many people are cleaning and recycling them? They’re going straight in the garbage.
Because you’re going to a potluck and don’t want to worry about getting your dish back?
I put a shitton of onion carmelized in butter until dark brown in mine.
It does look like prison Mac
Learn the basics of sauces from a French cooking book/course.
Make a blonde roux, for 4 pounds of cheese, add 1.5 cups of milk and 2 cups of half and half. Add in the shredded cheese saving about a pound to a pound and a half for layering. Add 4 tsp of sodium citrate. Voila you have a cheese sauce that won’t break on you that pours into the pasta easily.
As a non-American, how much pasta goes with all that cheese? And how many serves do you get out of it?
Generally I use 1 pound of dry pasta (I prefer shells to macaroni) per 2 pounds of cheese. Four pounds makes a casserole dish that is 12"×8"×4" or 12-16 servings
Ok, thanks! I tried to make mac and cheese twice, years ago, and they came out pretty good, but even though I don’t remember the recipes I’m certain I went shorter on the cheese (it was 4-5 servings, not even close to a whole pound), shame on me. Next time I’m also trying with the citrate, I’ve been wanting to use it for some cheese sauces for quite a while but it’s not something they sell at any store here and I always remember when I’m about to cook. Also, what cheese(s) do you use?
I personally use 1.5 lbs ofCuba NY Extra Sharp White Cheddar, 1 lb of mozzarella, 1 lb of Gruyere, and .5 lbs of smoked Gouda.
Swap the Gouda for a nice buttery Parmesan if you have $$$
You could also swap the gruyere out for Monterey Jack, or Pepper Jack.
But the cheese in blocks and shred in a food processor. It’s cheaper that way.
I’m no chef, so look up a book if you want proper instructions, but here’s how tondo things:
- Mix equal parts (by weight) flour and butter in a saucepan over medium heat - this is your roux, and it’ll be a bit clumpy
- Add milk, very slowly, and mix thoroughly after each addition, consider adding nutmeg - this is a béchamel sauce
- Add grated cheese (and sodium citrate if desired and if your cheeses won’t melt well), cut the heat, and mix until smooth - and this is a mornay sauce
- Pour over pasta and enjoy!
It’s not that hard and the result will be better than anything you get from the store or eat at your aunt’s house.
This is, of course, the proper way of doing things.
My practical version for everyday cooking/trying not to consume large amounts of cream looks like -
Bring a couple cups of milk (usually have 2% in the house) to a near simmer, then whisk in another cup of milk with a few fat spoonfuls of flour mixed into it (as a slurry.) Let it barely come to a boil for a few minutes, thickening the milk mixture, scraping the bottom and sides slowly the whole time. Once it coats the back of the spoon well turn the heat way down and add salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder to taste. Turn the heat off and add an obscene amount of shredded cheese (usually whatever partially used bags and random slices that need to be used from the fridge.) Once melted, double check seasoning and add to fully cooked pasta for a stovetop version. For baked Mac and cheese, undercook the pasta a bit and save some shredded cheese for the top.
Boiling the mix after the cheese has been added increases the risk of the cheese splitting and getting oily. Adding a slice of American cheese provides enough sodium citrate to create the same smooth, saucy texture. Shredding your own cheese may also be best practice, but I’ve never had an issue with pre shredded cheese.
I made a custard Mac and cheese last Thanksgiving and I liked it so much more than Roux style.
Can’t find any pictures, unfortunately.
Yea I used to use a roux, but honestly it’s not much better than melting the cheese directly into heavy cream. If price was an issue a roux would be the cheaper option.
I make a really good macaroni cheese and have never had the sauce “break” despite not using sodium citrate. No cream either, just full-fat milk. And a good spoon of mustard, yum. Maybe it’s the cheese? I use extra tasty cheddar.
God thank you I am so fucking frustrated by how much every fucking person in America has some idiotic combination of cheese and noodles and sometimes fucking eggs??! Which they combine and bake for an hour to make a terrible, dry, bland casserole which everyone insists is anything other than inedible slop like some weird collective delusion, when the real answer is literally just to do a thing from the first fucking week of French cooking lessons.
Right: American cheese on top. That’s gotta be raw pasta underneath.
Left: “came away clean from the tray” in what I can only imagine is a congealed cheese+starch block.
These are terrible choices.
So I’ve never made mac and cheese because it’s literally not a thing where I’m from. How would you make it and is there any way I can sneak some garlic in?
This is a complex topic. People here are nostalgic for family recipes, box mixes, and restaurant varieties. There’s no one single way to make this dish.
The basic components are just pasta and cheese sauce. It doesn’t need to be baked, but its done like that sometimes to make it easier to prepare, or caramelize the top a bit. Some add breadcrumbs to the top before baking, others add some mustard, paprika, or chili to the sauce. It’s also not uncommon to see people add hot sauce after serving, since this is usually kind of bland (fatty and starchy) comfort food.
The key is that everyone makes mac & cheese their own way. If you have a savory cheese sauce in the cuisine where you’re from, you could probably just use something like that. But I recommend trying this the american way first, just so you know how you want to customize it.
Simple: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/238691/simple-macaroni-and-cheese/
Complex: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/old-fashioned-macaroni-and-cheese/#RecipeCard
With garlic: https://www.justataste.com/roasted-garlic-macaroni-and-cheese-recipe/
I’ve never done it, but the garlic version looks great! I checked a few other variations and the consensus is to roast a head of garlic and mash it into the cheese sauce.
Oh wow, they’ve started adding Jump to Recipe buttons! Excellent!
I think I’ll start out trying the simple one with cheddar first. We don’t have any particularly Estonian cheeses anyway, we only make other cultures cheeses hehe
The only correct choice is not to play.
Mac And Plastic
Sodium citrate. It’s not plastic, it just makes cheese look like plastic.
Les francophones, on est d’accord que leur mac and cheese bidule, c’est juste un gratin de pâtes ?
Avec du fromage qui mérite même pas ce nom : c’est plus des pâtes cuites dans une substance gluante jaune-blanche toute droit issue des merveilles de l’industrie pétrochimique.
Ces deux-là n’ont pas l’air super mais un gratin béchamel-fromage peut être pas mal. D’après moi, ça ne mérite pas d’être un héritage familial mais ça mérite bien de saucer l’assiette.
Je n’ai jamais compris ce qu’ils veulent dire par mac d’ailleurs
Je crois que c’est pour macaroni ce qui est un non sens puisqu’ils ont l’air d’utiliser différentes sortes de pâtes selon l’envie.
mac ✅
cheese ✅
i mean i don’t see the problem
The cheese part is debatable.
And the mac part doesn’t seem to exist anymore, it’s a solidified mass.