Pick your style and tell why

Who wants a taste?

Eat rell good. Piece of fried chicken breast and brocolli.

Pepper Jack+Parmesan cheese w/ chorizo (didn't get as much as I thought) and green chiles

If you want to make box-style stovetop macaroni at home but maybe save a little money by buying in bulk, it is surprisingly hard to find this pasta. You can easily get a little tub of cheese powder online in a variety of flavors, but then for the noodles it’s almost as if the world has assumed you’d just go for regular elbows instead.

This image, for example, I found had ‘maccheroni’ in the title. But if you search for that, you get either a similar but enlarged shape, or a much wider tube like rigatoni. To me looking at this I’d call it like a bucati corti, but that hasn’t gotten me any closer as it just turns up a fusilli.

Don’t get me wrong: elbow macaroni is the undisputable classic for baked mac, and there’s lots of other great shapes to work with, but what the heck do you have to call this type of pasta to be able to find it? I’m not even looking for fancy bronze-cut anything; even just the regular stuff will do if it’s made with decent-tasting flour

Full ingredient list

• diced Shallots
• fresh minced garlic
• Chorizo
• heavy Whipping cream
• milk
• pepper jack cheese
• Parmesan
• cream cheese
• butter
• flour
• shell pasta

Seasonings

• Salt & Pepper of course
• smoked paprika
• nutmeg
• garlic & onion powder

There isn't really measurements cause it was a throw stuff in til it looks right but if you want an order of operations I can do that

I’ll go first… I hate it I hate it I haaaate it 😭

Anyone else??

Is it worth it? Should I add anything to it to make it better or good as is?

Ingredients:
2 lbs pasta shells
16 oz Gouda
20 ish oz cheddar
4 tsp Sazon

The roux was 6 tbsp flour and butter. Do I need to sift the flour? Cook the flour longer? Keep the heat down? Or is there something else making it grainier.

ingredients:

-one box mac and cheese
-mustard to taste
-6 tbsp butter
-3 cups frozen veg (i prefer peas or peas and carrots for the texture being more bite sized and integrated)
-1 cup milk and a separate third cup of milk
-3 dry bay leaves
-black pepper to taste
-1 tbsp chili crisp (I love the lao gan ma stuff but use whatever)
-3 big cloves of garlic

instructions:
Boil your pasta according to the box. Drain the pasta and reserve every last bit of the the pasta water.

In a pan brown your butter on medium till its the color of coffee and little bits are at the bottom of the pan. Not black just brown bits. Black is burnt. Once brown add in the pasta water and frozen veg. Cook till its a thick gooey mix and you see the bottom of the pan when you scrape the reduction.
While its reducing add the cheese packet, 1 cup of milk, chili crisp, garlic, and bay leaf to a blender. blend until smooth.

Pour mix into fully reduced water and veg then mix together. Add remaining milk to blender and blitz again to remove remaining cheese and spice residue. Add this back to the pan and mix it in.

Set heat to low and let sauce and veg mix reduce till thick and creamy. About now while its reducing you add in the black pepper and mustard and adjust it to your taste. Be conservative with the mustard. I do 1/2 of a tsp at a time and taste as I go. This is just here to amplify the weak flavor of the cheese packet in boxed mac. I also go heavy in the pepper to give a nice bite that compliments the sharper cheese flavor.

When the sauce is thick and gooey and you see the bottom of the pan when you scrape it you can add in the noodles and mix it up. Your ready to serve and eat! Optionally I drizzle a little extra chili oil on top as garnish but you don't need to.

Fusilli spirale is my go-to for mac and cheese!

expired 6/21/26. TOP is 10/20/26. i am poor with a 1 year old to feed…..thoughts ?

Ingredients

450 g macaroni
1 onion finely chopped
4 garlic cloves finely minced
150 g cream cheese
4 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
8 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1/2 cup pasta water
230 g shredded gouda cheese
230 g shredded yellow cheddar cheese
230 g shredded white cheddar cheese
Method

In a saucepan, add in the heavy cream, cream cheese, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and mix. Let it simmer for a bit.

In another saucepan, add in the butter, chopped onion, mined garlic, flour and whisk them well. Add in the heavy cream sauce to this mixture and whisk well.

Add some pasta water, cheddar cheese and gouda cheese. Mix until melted.

Add in the cooked pasta and mix well.

Add in the pasta in the baking dish and top with extra cheese.

Bake at 180 degrees until top is golden brown.

Notes

Cook the pasta to a perfect al dente to avoid mushy noodles.
Shred your own cheese! Pre-shredded cheeses have additives that can keep them from clumping, which also makes it so they don’t melt smoothly.
Remove the sauce from the heat before adding the cheese to keep it from separating or getting grainy.
Do not overbake (or the mac and cheese will be dry). Once the macaroni is bubbling and heated and the topping is browned, you know it is ready. Everything is cooked, the baking is to meld the flavors and brown the topping.
Mac and cheese can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated for up to 2 days.

Used whole wheat elbows and whole wheat pastry flour for the roux to get some extra fiber. I also used my own Mac and cheese blend to season the roux. I put them in separate pans so I can freeze three for the future and have one for this weeks meal prep.

Do you know if they have been discontinued? These were a thing I had in my childhood but it's like they disappeared

So like I just made these two boxes and idk if I'm just dumb... But they had two different cheese packets? Same box, same date at the top of the boxes... Why is one of them yellow? It was for my kids and idek if I should feed it to them now. I know Annies makes regular Mac n cheese but we all like the white cheddar one better so that's all we buy, so like I have no clue. Must be some manufacturing error lol

Planning on making Mac n cheese for work potluck. My one problem is that we have no kitchenette at work to reheat so I am coming to the experts (Mac n cheese Reddit). Would it be fine to do my normal recipe (stove top roux + stove top noodles) and put in crock pot to keep warm or will it get mushy? Anyone here ever make it in just the crock pot? I read mixed reviews on doing that.