Macaroni cheese is macaroni covered with cheese cream and baked in the oven, very tasty and with a strong flavor, typical of the USA where they are also called mac and cheese. There is a very popular baked mac and cheese recipe by a pioneer women.
We present a version of this hearty dish. The combinations of cheeses that you can create, following your personal tastes, are many and different: experiment! In this recipe, you can use cheddar, jack, or fontina cheese.
A recipe, called macaroni and cheese, is found in the cookbook “The Virginia Housewife” of 1824, including macaroni, butter, and cheese as ingredients. Over time, meat and onion have entered different variations of the same recipe. It is to be considered a traditional recipe from the United States of America, where it is still appreciated and consumed on a large scale today.
Macaroni cheese is a dish with a strong and very inviting flavor that appeals to cheese lovers but also to the little ones.
Please note that this recipe is inspired by Pioneer Woman’s baked mac and cheese recipe with little variations.
Baked macaroni and cheese pioneer women
Equipment
- Oven
Ingredients
- 4 cup macaroni
- 4 tbsp salted butter
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 ½ cup milk
- 1 tsp mustard
- 1 lb cheese
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Instructions
- To make the macaroni cheese, first cut all the cheeses without zest into pieces, put them in a mixer, (if you don't have it,grate them by hand) and chop them.
- Then prepare the cheese cream: in a saucepan,melt the butter and add the sifted flour, then mix the two ingredients with a whisk to form the roux. At this point, pour the milk into the same pot and continue to mix, keeping the heat low, until you get a creamy and thick mixture.
- Take 4 tbsp of sauce and pour it into beaten egg. Whisk constantly to avoid cooking the egg. Whisk until smooth then pour it into the sauce mixture. Stir until smooth.
- Season with salt and pepper, then add the grated cheese and continue to cook for another 7 minutes, mixing everything to mix the ingredients. Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling water, salted to taste.
- Drain the macaroni, pour them into a bowl and sprinkle them with a drizzle of oil, then mix so that the paste does not stick.Once this is done, grease a large pan well.
- Add the cream cheese to the pasta and mix well.Pour the pasta into the pan. sprinkle the surface with the grated cheese and pinch of mustard and cook the macaroni cheese in a preheated oven for about half an hour at 180 ° for 20-25 minutes and continue for another 15 minutes by putting the oven in grill mode, in order to obtain a golden and crunchy crust.
- Once ready, remove the pan from the oven and serve your macaroni cheese hot.
Storage
Macaroni cheese can be stored in the refrigerator, covered, for up to two days.
After cooking in the oven you can freeze the pasta in a hermetically sealed container and consume it when needed.
Advice
You can prepare macaroni cheese using other types of pasta such as rigatoni, penne or any other type of short pasta. You can use the cheeses you prefer, remembering to use at least one type of stringy cheese with a strong taste.
The original recipe includes the unseasoned, white cheddar. For an optimal result of the recipe, we advise you to stay a little behind with the salt in the water for the pasta, to better balance the flavor of the recipe, counting the flavor of the cream cheese.
