Baked Mac and Cheese Recipe
Oven Baked Mac and Cheese
Ingredients You'll Need
Let's Get Started!
- This is going to be one of the Cheesiest, gooiest most creamy Macaroni and Cheese full of flavour that’s sure to get you so many compliments. Let’s start by prepping the White Onion. Chop this up into small pieces, the smaller the better. This will add some subtle savouriness into our dish. For the Cheese we’re going to use 2 different kinds to give us a balance of different kinds of flavour to add more depth into it. We highly recommend grating your own blocks of Cheese instead of using pre-shredded Cheese as they usually contain anti-caking agents which will stop our Cheese from melting into the Pasta sauce properly.
- Grab a large pan to make our Béchamel, our fancy Pasta sauce. Heat up the pan and let’s melt the stick of unsalted Butter into it. Once that’s melted properly, we’re going to add in our finely chopped Onions into the pan along with some Salt. About 1/2 tsp should be fine at this stage. Once the Onions start to become more translucent and start to get more fragrant, we can then pour in our All Purpose Flour. Keep stirring the flour into the Butter and Onion mixture to get in mixing in fully. After stirring the flour in properly, we can season it some more by adding in the Cayenne Pepper and Mustard powder. These will help wake up the dish and cut through the Cheesiness by adding a new dimension into the recipe.
- Now we can start to finish off the sauce by adding in the Whole Milk. We’ll need just over 4 and a half cups of Milk for this dish. Make sure the Milk is room temperature or just slightly warm before we add this into our pan. Begin to add in the Milk a bit at a time and keep whisking properly to avoid any clumps in the sauce. Keep whisking until the sauce is nice and smooth. Season with a pinch more Salt but don’t go crazy on it as we’ll be getting in more Salt from our Cheeses too! We want to let this sauce just cook out for 4 to 5 minutes just to be sure there won’t be any unpleasant raw Flour taste in the mouth when it’s done.
- At this point it’s now time to add in our Cheeses into the sauce mix. Add in about 2/3 of the Cheeses and keep the rest for the topping for when we bake it. Lower the heat or take the sauce off the heat if you need while you keep stirring the sauce until the Cheese is properly melted into the mix. Once that’s fully melted in, feel free to do a taste test to just see if you need any more Salt into the sauce. Now that our beautiful Béchamel is done, we’ll start cooking out our Pasta of choice.
- Bring some water to the boil in a Pot. While this comes to a boil, we’ll make use of time by just greasing up our baking dish for our Macaroni. Just use a small piece of Butter to grease everything properly in our baking dish. Once the water’s done boiling, add in your Pasta of choice. Elbow or Shell Pasta are both perfect for this. Season the water aggressively with Salt because after this we’ll be starting the baking. The key here is to boil the Pasta for just 2 or 3 minutes less than what’s recommended on the packaging because we want it to have a little bite as they are going to be baked. Once the Pasta’s done, simply use a strainer to take out the Pasta and put it into our sauce mix. Don’t worry about getting a little of water into the mixture from the Pasta water as this contains starches that will help keep the sauce nice and thick.
- Start folding the Pasta into our sauce and get it all evenly covered. Use a Ladle to scoop out our saucy Pasta mixture into the baking tray we just greased and fill it up. Sprinkle on the rest of our Cheeses we shredded earlier. Before we start baking this, let’s quickly prepare our final layer for this amazing dish, our crispy bread crumb coating! Get a glass bowl and pour in our Panko Bread Crumbs. Around 1 cup should give you about 100 grams which should be plenty. Throw in around half a cup Parmesan Cheese and a pinch of Salt into the bowl. Drizzle in about 2 tsp Olive Oil and mix everything up together with your hands. Time to layer this on top of our Mac and Cheese now ready to bake. Pre-heat your Oven and let’s get this beautiful dish baked at 400º F or 210º C for about 20 minutes until we have a gorgeous golden crispy top. Once it’s done, let it rest for at least 5 minutes to let the sauce set properly before serving. Enjoy, don’t forget to share this with friends and family!
People Also Asked..
What Kind Of Cheese Is Good In Baked Mac and Cheese?
Reader’s often ask this question.
Cheddar: Adding depth to the meal, sharp or extra sharp Cheddar has a strong flavour and outstanding melting qualities.
Gruyère: It enhances the savoury, slightly nutty flavour of the cheddar and gives it a creamy texture.
Parmesan: When sprinkled on top, it gives a sharp, salty kick and aids in the creation of a crispy, golden crust that bakes up beautifully.
Fontina: This cheese enhances the richness of the meal with its mild, buttery flavour and smooth melting ability.
Does Baked Mac and Cheese Dry Out In The Oven?
It can do if you’ve not made enough sauce or used enough Cheese. This can cause your beautiful Macaroni to dry up too much while baking.
This was one of the reasons why we’ve used a little more Milk in this recipe to avoid it going dry and messing up the recipe. Covering the top with enough Cheese also helps it from going too dry too, it’s not just there to sit on top looking pretty.
Why Does Baked Mac and Cheese Curdle?
This can happen if you were trying to melt the Cheese into the sauce at high heat. We recommend keeping the flame on low or even briefly the sauce off the heat while you melt in the Cheese without it curdling.
Using certain acidic ingredients like Lemon Juice can cause curdling too. Some types of Mustard especially if used in excess may break the sauce causing it to curdle so go easy on the Mustard too if you don’t have Mustard powder.
Will Baking Mac and Cheese Thicken It?
Yes! Baking the Mac and Cheese will thicken it. Once any extra moisture from the Cheese and Milk evaporates this will thicken up the dish too.
Is It Okay To Eat Curdled Mac and Cheese?
While it’s generally safe to eat curdled Mac and Cheese it might not give the best texture and taste. This usually happens when the fats in the Cheese separate from the proteins or from overcooking on high heat.
Provided your Mac and Cheese doesn’t show any signs of spoilage or look like it’s gone off, you can fix this by adding in some warm Milk or cream into the sauce to emulsify it again.
Just be sure to check your temperature when cooking and avoid using high heat at all times just to avoid this happening in the first place. If you follow the instructions provided you should be just fine.
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