The Big Cheese: Baked Macaroni and Cheese

AKA: Zacaroni and Cheese

Welcome back everybody! It’s a brand-new week, it’s summertime in Ottawa and aside from the odd terrifying thunderstorm, the weather is fantastic as of late. Get outside with the people in your bubble and have yourself a picnic or a cookout!

If that sounds good to you, keep reading. Over the course of the summer, I’ve given a couple recipes here and there for dishes I think are best eaten outside with loved ones. Today’s post is no exception. This is the mother of all potluck favorites: a great big ol’ baked mac and cheese.

This one is a doozy, a little more labour-intensive than most of the recipes I post on here, but the results speak for themselves. It ends up just the way you want it. The pasta is perfectly cooked, not mushy and obliterated. The sauce is thick and clingy, not soupy or too dry. There’s no pool of oil from a broken cheese sauce, either.

A lot of the science in this dish comes from the genius mind of J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, a name I have mentioned here before. His work in dissecting common dishes and cooking techniques is invaluable if you want to take your home cooking to the next level. Give the man his dues.

It should be noted that a baked mac and cheese is a different animal than a creamy, dreamy stovetop mac and cheese. While I do love a stovetop mac, this guy here, this is an EVENT. Carry that baking dish out to the table, cut a square complete with crispy edges and crunchy breadcrumb topping. See if you’re not the belle of the ball. I know I was.

If you wanted to adapt this recipe for a stovetop mac and cheese, well, you could easily do so. Just cook your pasta normally (what does he mean by that? Read on, friend, read on), drain it and stir it into the cheese sauce when it’s thickened and seasoned how you like it. You’ll have an ooey-gooey mac that will have you giving boxes of KD the side-eye every time you waltz by them at the shops.

A final note: this is a straight-up baked mac and cheese. Get this technique down pat, and you can take it wherever you want. You can add bacon, sausages, lobster, tomatoes, spinach, anti-matter, tuna fish, mushrooms, kryptonite, whatever and it’ll be amazing. But get the basics locked down first. That’s a rule worth repeating for any dish.

Oven-Baked Mac and Cheese

Ingredients:

• 453g (1lb.) macaroni of your choice (I used cavatappi)
• 4 slices white bread, crusts removed, torn into small chunks
• 100g (7 TBSP) butter, plus more for greasing the baking dish
• 18g (2 TBSP) all-purpose flour
• 355mL (12oz.) evaporated milk
• 360mL (1.5 cups) 2% milk
• To taste, vinegar based hot sauce (Franks, Tabasco, etc.)
• 4.2g (1 TSP) ground mustard
• 680g (1.5lbs.) old cheddar cheese, grated
• 226g (8oz.) Velveeta, cut into roughly 1/2” cubes
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• Kosher salt, to taste

Method:

1. Place a rack in the upper-middle portion of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Place the macaroni in a large bowl, add a hefty pinch of salt and cover with hot water by about 3-4 inches. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, stirring after the first 5, to ensure no sticking. Drain the pasta and set aside.
2. While the noodles are soaking, place the bread into a food processor with a pinch of salt and 28.4g (2 TBSP) of the butter. Pulse on high speed, 12-15 times until bread crumb consistency has been achieved. Set aside.
3. Melt the remaining butter in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Once fully melted and foamy, whisk in the flour. Cook for 2-3 minutes until a light roux has formed, then slowly drizzle in the evaporated milk, whisking all the while. Add the 2% milk in the same manner, then add the hot sauce and mustard. Bring to a simmer, whisking to prevent scorching, then reduce the heat to low.
4. Add the shredded cheese and Velveeta, all at once. Whisk until smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Reduce heat to very low.
5. Whisk about 236mL (1 cup) of the sauce into the eggs. Whisk the egg mixture back into the rest of the sauce. Add the drained macaroni, stirring with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula to combine. Taste for salt and hot sauce, adjusting if necessary.
6. Butter the hell out of a 9 x 13” baking dish and pour the macaroni cheese into it, making sure it’s in an even layer. Top with the breadcrumbs, then cover the dish tightly with tinfoil and bake for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake roughly 15 minutes longer, turning the broiler on in the last 5 minutes if you really want to crisp up that top (I didn’t, but you can).
7. Remove from the oven, let stand for 5-10 minutes then serve it up!

It’s a big one, no? This is a serious recipe for a serious dish. A big baked mac and cheese is always an event, and for good reason. It’s a dish that is not just delicious, cheesy and carby, but resonates emotionally with many of us, as well. I’ve been wanting to do this one for a long time, and I’m confident this rendition won’t disappoint.

Are you gonna attempt to tackle this beast? Shoot me an email or let me know in the comments below how you fared, if you tweaked it and if it’s the best baked mac you ever attacked.