My Mom's Homemade Mac and Cheese

It is so good, y'all.  I add chicken and a few other goodies so that I don't have to cook anything else to justify eating only mac and cheese for a meal, but without the amazing cheese sauce recipe there would be no desire to fill up on 'just a side item.'

Make sure to read to the end, as this is kind of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" sort of recipe.

I'm going to jump right in-- my mom's mac and cheese doesn't need much of an introduction.

For the macaroni:
a box o' sauce-bearing pasta
you know... water

Boil some water. Pour in the pasta. When the pasta is ALMOST how well-cooked you want it, when you think it needs two more minutes to be perfect, take it off the heat and strain it!  You're going to bake the whole shebang later, and you don't need your pasta to be overdone and weird-textured. That's not good for anyone.

Once you've strained your pasta, leave it in a bowl until your sauce is done. To prevent filmy, gummy weirdness, you can put some plastic wrap over it and press it onto the pasta.  I learned that trick from pudding!

(It seems I am very concerned about pasta being 'weird.' You're welcome, as now you don't have to worry. I got you.)

For the chicken:
2-3 cups shredded, boiled chicken
4 sundried tomatoes (the kind kept in a jar with oil)
parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil (or bacon grease, but I know not everyone keeps a mason jar full of bacon grease on her kitchen windowsill. What I don't know is why not.)

If your chicken isn't cooked, take care of that.  The macaroni isn't going to bake long enough to cook meat!

Now, put your olive oil (or bacon grease, which I encourage you to save in a mason jar on your kitchen windowsill) in a skillet with well-shredded chicken.  You could also chop the chicken, if you'd prefer bigger chunks of meat in your bites.  Dice the sundried tomates, and throw them in the skillet.  Sprinkle as much parmesan cheese as you fancy onto the top.  Move everything around so it heats evenly.  Once it's warmed through, remove it from the skillet and set it aside.  I usually take the plastic wrap off my pasta, throw the chicken into that bowl, and put the plastic wrap back on.  I do this because I am not a huge fan of generating a thousand dirty dishes.

For the best cheese sauce I have ever tasted:

*a pound of grated cheese
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 and 1/2 cups milk
1 egg, scrambled
2 heaping teaspoons mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt (there is a cajun one, and one that rhymes with Mowry's)
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon black pepper

*the photos in this post are from a time when I used 1/4 lb of monterrey jack, 1/4 cup parmesan, and 1/2 pound of medium cheddar.  You should always use at least half cheddar, because tradition dictates that you must.

Pro Tip:  get all of your stuff out and measured before you get to work on the sauce. It's a quick process, and if you stop to measure stuff you might as well start over. 

Do you know what a roux (pronounced roo) is?  You should.  It's the easiest, best thickener for liquids there ever was.  I used some in a curry the other day because I was frustrated with how thin it was.  SOLVED THE PROBLEM.  I really wasn't even sure it would.  My husband and I argue about whether roux is meant to be made with butter or oil, and I'm right.  It's butter.  Anyhow...

Make a peanut butter roux with your butter and flour over medium heat.  (Melt the butter completely, sprinkle in the flour and whisk continuously until it is the color of peanut butter.  Recipes will usually tell you what color the roux needs to be.  If it just called for 'light roux,' I would go for the color of a latte. If it calls for dark, I go for milk chocolate.)

Once your roux is finished, add in the milk, whisking while you pour it in so that it doesn't scald.  After you're confident you've totally mixed your roux and milk together, you can stir just frequently instead of constantly.  I have found that, although sauce recipes tell you to stir constantly at this stage, that makes your sauce take seventy-four years to thicken and, well, ain't nobody got time for that.

So, frequently it is! In about five minutes (still on medium heat), you should notice significant thickening.  At this point, add in your mustard powder and garlic powder.  When they're fully incorporated, temper the egg and then pour that into the saucepan. Stir it in pretty fast, just in case it threatens to cook separately. Avoid egg chunks in your sauce. (Just in case: to temper, take a little bit of the hot milk and mix it with the egg, stirring as the milk makes contact with the egg.  You're raising the temperature of the egg so it isn't shocked when it is added to a hot saucepan.)

Now, add cheese a small handful at a time. As you add each handful, whisk until the cheese melts before you add more.

Lookit those spirit fingers!

Once all your cheese is added and melted, throw in your seasoned salt, table salt, and pepper.

Finished!

 

Now. Here's the "Choose Your Own Adventure" part of this recipe.  There are three ways to finish up:

1) Pour cheese sauce over everything now, call it a day. My only suggestion here is that you cook your pasta until it's really done, because it won't finish in the oven if you don't ever put it in the oven.

2) Pour pasta and chicken into a 9x13 dish, cover with sauce. Stir sauce around so every noodle is cheesy, and top with about 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar.  You can save cheese meant for the sauce for this or add more.  Suggestion: save some energy (yours and the stove's), and just add that chicken in cold. The oven will do the work. No oil or grease, though! Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, until the cheese on top looks how you want it to.  This is what I did.

If you don't cook a few slices of bacon and crumble them on top of either of these versions, I don't understand what you're doing with your life.



and the third option:
3) Don't add chicken at all and use it as a side dish.  

 

Serve, enjoy, and think of my beautiful mother.

 

If you don't know my mother, think of yours. And then call her. I'm learning that this mothering stuff is pretty serious business, and you should call and thank yours for doing it.