Mac'n'Cheese
It's easy to make macaroni and cheese that tastes better than the stuff from the box.
Sure, you can buy a box of GF macaroni and cheese on Amazon, but it is not much harder to make your own, with the bonus that there will be no mystery ingredients (my ingredients don’t include sodium triphosphate, for example). Probably the most difficult part is making the sauce, which is just mixing GF flour into melted butter and then whisking it with warm milk. After that, you’re just mixing in grated cheese and half-cooked GF macaroni and sticking it in a hot oven.
For this recipe, I recommend having a whisk, a large mixing bowl, and a baking dish.
Ingredients
8 ounces (2 cups) of GF macaroni (see note 1 and 2)
2 cups grated cheese
3 cups warm milk (gently heat in the microwave or on the stove)
¼ cup butter (half a stick)
2 ½ tablespoons GF flour (I recommend King Arthur brand, see note 3)
Salt and white or black pepper
These are the GF products I use for mac’n’cheese. Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (325 if using convection)
Boil the GF macaroni for 3 or 4 minutes, so it is about halfway cooked
To make the sauce (see note 4):
Melt butter on medium-low heat in a sauce pan
Add the GF flour and stir until blended
Still with the pan on heat, pour in about a cup of the warm milk and stir with a whisk to blend
Once any lumps are gone, add the rest of the milk and continue whisking until it is thick (see note 5); add 1 tsp salt and several good grinds or pinches of white or black pepper
Pour the hot sauce into a mixing bowl and add the grated cheese, mixing as you do. The cheese will melt into the sauce
Add the partially cooked macaroni to the bowl and mix until the pasta is fully coated with the sauce
Pour the mac and cheese into the backing dish and place in the middle of the oven
Bake for about 30 minutes—until the top starts to get brown (see note 6)
Notes
I like Barilla brand GF pasta. The texture is very good.
I normally use 8 ounces, but in the photos here, I actually used 12 ounces, which is a full box o Barilla GF macaroni. I increased the other ingredients by 50% as well.
As for baking, I have found King Arthur Measure for Measure Gluten Free flour works best. If you have another blend you like, make sure it includes xanthan gum. Unblended flours, such as rice or coconut, are too course to blend into the milk—it will end up just sitting on the bottom of the pan, no matter how much you mix it.
This sauce actually has a French name and is used in a lot of French cooking. It is bechamel sauce. I didn’t use the name to avoid intimidating anyone! But now that you know how easy it is to make bechamel, you can use it for other recipes as well—it is great for making cheesy casseroles (gratins) with a variety of vegetables, like cauliflower or broccoli, and is an ingredient in some lasagna recipes.
You can turn up the heat to medium—the sauce will thicken gradually as it gets warmer and as you stir. This can take a few minutes, so don’t get impatient if it doesn’t thicken right away! Just don’t do like I did and go away with the heat turned on to empty the dishwasher—it will bubble over the top and burn! I make a lot of mistakes in the kitchen, and I imagine you will too. Just have fun and enjoy the results.
Trying to tell someone how long to cook or bake something is just a guessing game really, because it depends on your oven and your tastes. The best answer to “how long should I cook it?” is “until it’s done”. So 30 minutes is probably about right, but you’ll have to judge for yourself, depending on how brown you want the top. Also remember that the longer you bake it, the firmer it will be in the center. So if you want your mac’n’cheese a little more runny or gooey in the middle, bake it a little less.
Cat Update
I’m heading out of town for a few days, so Seraphina will be getting daily visits from friends to make sure she has water and her evening meal of canned food and has a clean litterbox. Of course, Seraphina has to do quality control on my packing!
