Easy Weeknight Mac and Cheese Recipe

I love Mac and Cheese.
It’s an all-american classic meal filled with two of my favorite things: pasta and cheese.

That’s a mouthful of awesome right there.

In this day and age, food transparency is becoming paramount, and many of us don’t like to consume foods that are overly processed and containing weird ingredients that honestly make no sense being in our food. Boxed mac and cheese tends to land smack dab at the top of my processed food no-no list, so I had to go out and make my own.

Let me tell you something. Homemade mac and cheese is thebomb.com. Seriously, it is the easiest thing to make, and it’s very versatile. If you are in a hurry, or forgot to pull out the crockpot, this will be a great dish to throw down in a hurry. Like 20 minutes start to finish fast.

Now, you might be asking, “Karly, what kind of cheese do I need for this awesome dish of awesomeness?”

And I’ll tell you. Use whatever you have. Cheddar, Colby, Co-Jack, Monterey Jack, White Cheddar, Mozzarella, whatever! I usually have Co-Jack and Monterey Jack on hand, so that’s what I generally use.

I will recommend you this, though: do not use pre-shredded, bagged cheese. The flavor is inferior to brick cheese and has lovely chemicals in it that keeps the cheese from sticking together, which tends to make melting it a little less pleasant.

This basic recipe is absolutely wonderful on its own, but you can jazz things up in any number of ways! Add seasoned ground beef for some cheeseburger mac, or throw some bacon in it, because bacon is awesome. You could also get fancy and cook the pasta to al dente, add the cheese, then put it in an oven-safe dish, top with bread crumbs, more cheese and bake that bad boy until brown and crispy on top.

Easy Weeknight Mac and Cheese Recipe

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Course: Dinner

Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 12 minutes minutes

Total Time: 17 minutes minutes

Servings: 6

Author: Karly Gomez

Ingredients

• ▢ 1 16 oz package elbow macaroni
• ▢ 1 ½ C milk
• ▢ 2 Tbsp flour
• ▢ 2 ½ C freshly grated cheese
• ▢ Dash of salt

Instructions

• Fill a large pot with water and set it to high heat. Add some salt to the water, just a few dashes'll do ya. Bring that water to a boil.
• In a smaller pot, add the milk and flour and whisk it until dissolved. Just before the pot with water starts boiling, turn the heat to medium.
• Add the macaroni to the boiling water and cook as directed on the package (generally somewhere around 8-10 minutes). Stir occasionally.
• As the milk and flour mixture heats up, it will start to thicken. Be sure to stir it rather frequently, or it will form a skin on the top, and possibly burn, though I've yet to have that happen.
• When the pasta is ready, dump it into a strainer to drain the water, then return it to the pot.
• Remove the milk pot from the heat and add the cheese, stirring constantly until all the cheese is melted and has smoothed to a creamy consistency. If you don't stir it enough, it will have a grainy texture. Add your dash of salt, stir, then pour it over your pasta and stir until fully incorporated.
• Serve. And devour.

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So delish.