If you want to make your mac and cheese over-the-top rich (you are the grown up after all!), you can use half-and-half, though we still found it delightfully creamy and cheesy with the lighter option. I’ve made this recipe with both whole milk and 2% milk and found both to be excellent choices. Use Milk to Reach Your Desired Level of Indulgence.Purchase a well-made brand and don’t overcook it. Like the cheese, good-quality pasta makes an enormous difference. Set down the dried and embrace the fresh. Once you start topping your mac and cheese and other baked pastas with breadcrumbs, you don’t go back. If you chop them finely, the flavor melts right into the cheese sauce. A note for mushroom skeptics: we didn’t tell the toddlers that the recipe had mushrooms, and they didn’t notice.Do not use white button mushrooms, which are mostly flavorless. I recommend springing for a blend of oyster, shiitake, and cremini mushrooms, but if that is too much of a splurge, use all cremini. Mushrooms give the mac and cheese robust umami notes and real grown up appeal. (Mozzarella, for example, can be bit ho-hum when used in macaroni and cheese.) For this recipe, I use sharp cheddar and fontina for the sauce (these are the melty cheeses), then Parmesan in the topping. Use three cheeses: two fully-flavored, melty cheeses and one hard, nutty cheese.

Pre-shredded bag cheese doesn’t melt as smoothly, so make sure to buy the right cheese! Buy a block of nice cheese and grate it yourself. Mac and cheese has few ingredients, and the cheese you choose will 100% impact the results. These easy tricks will instantly elevate your mac and cheese into a world-class affair. How to Make the Best Gourmet Mac and Cheese Ready for the secrets to the best gourmet mac and cheese ever? Pull out your skillet and your cheese grater, and let’s get cooking! Toddler affirmation is the at-home version of a culinary gold medal. I made a fresh batch of this baked mac and cheese for my 2- and 4-year-old nieces when they visited Milwaukee last week, and both little ladies (one of whom is notorious for her pickiness) cleaned their plates. In fact, real-life toddlers (a notoriously tough group of critics) have approved this exact “adult” recipe. With a few easy tips, you can elevate even the most simple mac and cheese recipe into something that tastes special enough to please the most discerning adult palates.Īt the same time, I can also assure you that the appeal of grown up mac is not limited to adults. The next time “adulting” has you down (like when your washing machine breaks mid-cycle and you spend your weekend appliance shopping instead of brunching), Gourmet Mac and Cheese will remind you that this whole “grown up” business does have its perks.

Best baked mac n cheese recipe ever