Both of these horrors look like those Walmart one pan recipes where you dump a 4lb bag of cheese on some noodles with some kind of broth and cook for an hour hoping what comes out is edible…
I still find it wild that Americans call macaroni and lasagne “noodles”.
I find it weird that anyone has an issue with that.
You’re right, I should have said pasta, feel free to shame me, I don’t call penne, macaroni, etc., noodles e.g. but I certainly said noodles above.
Never feel any shame, they’re all noodles and they’re all pasta.
My beloved wife still thinks it’s all the same and we are crazy for having so many different names and shapes for 面条
Ask her why the shapes of 兰州拉面，油泼面，𰻝𰻝面, 重庆小面，etc. are so different.
Hahaha! Yeah exactly! And same for all the delicious varieties of 豆腐. Mostly she just gets crazy trying to remember all the Italian names, since we are in France. It’s a fair point. It’s just funny slagging her about it :)
Maybe you could just use the names I tell my daughter: les pâtes tournantes, les pâtes longues, les pâtes papillons… Kidding aside, I totally understand how having all these names taken from yet a different language than the one you’re actively trying to learn could be a handful.
It’s wild but convenient for my username
I’ve never called macaroni noodles, but I do call lasagna that. It’s just really wide noodles.
And donuts are dessert noodles
Hot dogs are meat noodles inside bread noodles
My favourite food is deep fried potato noodles.
Jokes aside, I’m now craving potato noodles because of your comment…
Germans do it too. All pasta is noodles.
Also, technically it’s maccheroni
1 macche 2 macche 3 maccheroni
Bechemel dammit your Mac and cheese needs to start with a bechemel
I had no idea it was called Béchamel, lol. I always referred to it all as roux as you really just add more to the base sauce. The more you know…
Roux is flour and butter. Bechamel is a roux + milk. Mornay is a bechamel + cheese.
So you’re telling me it’s a Macaroni Mornay this entire time?
And a Macaroni Afternoon too!
Macaroni good night. 🚪 🛫
Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, but I think so.
Bechamel traditionally has a cloute (onion studded with cloves and bay leaves) and nutmeg added to it. But ain’t nobody got time for that
Béchamel and roux are different, but only by an ingredient
It’s possible to have a good mac and cheese without bechamel (e.g. by using Velveeta instead), but those two pictured ain’t it.
I don’t think you’re wrong, but if we’re talking about winning the right for the Thanksgiving meal, you know I’m using at least 3 kinds of cheese and some of that is gonna be Velveeta. But some ain’t, so, bechemel.
I’m open to debate on the breadcrumb topping, but, personally, I’m partial to it.
Usually, processed cheeses have enough extra sodium citrate (or other emulsifier) to help make a smooth melt from anywhere to half the processed cheese weight up to equal weight.
Mind you, there’s still the tradition factor. Making the bechemel gives a different taste and texture that citrate. So, even if you decided to just keep the sodium citrate around by itself (it’s cheap and easy to get), it won’t be the same end result in terms of what people expect of a good, homemade mac n cheese.
I’m okay with bread crumb topping, but I prefer a good shredded cheese across the top so that it gets a little crust to it by the end of the bake. The topping is usually going to be cheddar, or a cheddar/American mix (not Velveeta, and only an actual cheese American as opposed to fake), with cheddar, Colby, and either swiss or muenster as the preferred inside cheeses. Maybe add some jack or pepper jack for the right crowd. Can even crumble up some bleu in the mix instead/as well.
But the exact cheeses don’t matter as much as that base bechemel. As long as it’s smooth, the cheese sauce is going to be the right texture.
And with that you’ve just won the right to make the mac-n-cheese next Thanksgiving!
Sweet :)
No, don’t make it sweet please!
Nah, that’s for the sweet potato casserole.
Phenomenal post, buddy, thanks a ton for the knowledge.
I’m with ya on the pepper jack, I think some of that is a great addition. If the company permits it, I’ll shake things up with some smoked gouda and throw some smoked paprika in the bread crumb topping which I’ll then throw under the broiler to get that nice finish on top. Gonna try the shredded cheese topping next time tho, love a good crusty cheese layer.
I’m open to debate on the breadcrumb topping, but, personally, I’m partial to it.
For me, it depends whether the mac and cheese in question is oven-type or stovetop-type.
I was like - ew, breadcrumbs. But you do have a point here.
Im also interested in the garlic breadcrumbs topping idea - i cook my garlic in the butter before I add flour so this sounds great.
Fry some panko in garlic butter as a topping when doing high effort as opposed to a simple one for just the wife and I.
I’m partial to the debate on spicy in it
Lao gan ma Chili Crisp is a fantastic flavor and texture boost for mac and cheese
My last honey Sriracha beer-cheese had about $70 of cheese in it, including a fair amount of 5 year aged cheddar. Made it for New Year’s and ate like a goddamn king for a week. Put that shit on everything, including veggie burgers (inside, not outside)
I prefer panko to traditional breadcrumbs myself.
Edit: Also, why Velveeta instead of just adding some sodium citrate and using all real cheese?
Mmm pasteurized process cheese product with a vaguely cheese-like flavor
It makes a nice fleshlight and you can still use it for the mac and cheese after.
As a white girl in a culinary wasteland, this hurts me on a level that my English ancestors can feel. My favourite food is plain unsalted potatoes, and yet this abomination is offensive to me.
I’m certain serving either of these would be considered a war crime. I’m actually confident if we offered these choices to insurgent armies as the only alternative to a truce, we’d have peace on earth.
What I’m saying is both of these crimes against pasta are soul-crushingly awful. Jesus wept.
Ok, so plain unsalted potatoes are fine, but as your favorite food??
Aye. I know it’s weird.
At least you own it. Plus, makes it easy to have your favorite food whenever you want it.
My favourite food is plain unsalted potatoes
Weirdly enough I feel like I’m fast approaching that too. Some days I just can’t be arsed to make real food so I bake a potato and call it a day.
Its green. WHY IS IT GREEN
Their camera is as bad as their mac and cheese.
Both with potato.
WTF is wrong with americans? Can’t they eat normal somewhat healthy food? Use real cheese and just grate it on top of some hot macaroni, damn it.
Us real Americans make our own cheese with melted plastic and yellow food coloring. We don’t need that commie dairy shit.
American cheese isn’t made of plastic in the sense of polymers, it is plastic in the sense of being easily deformed or molded.
At its most basic, American cheese is literally just cheese, water and sodium phosphate. It’s “not cheese”, but in the sense that meatloaf isn’t meat and mayonnaise isn’t eggs.
Your “cheese” sucks.
“American cheese” was invented by a Canadian.
It’s also just cheddar with an emulsifier and some milk fat. You can make it in your kitchen in a few minutes.
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American cheese is not a fancy cheese, yeah. It also isn’t great cold.
It is a pretty decent cheese sauce, though. It doesn’t taste starchy, with a muted cheese flavor like mornay does. If you put extra sharp cheddar or smoked gouda in homemade mornay or homemade American, the homemade American will be noticeably cheesier. Having made homemade mac and cheese a number of ways, I strongly prefer homemade American to any of the other recipes I know.
I only really eat store-bought American melted, such as on eggs in a breakfast sandwich, on a burger or grilled cheese.
Also, there’s plenty of decent American cheeses, like Humboldt fog, Maytag blue, or rogue river blue. American cheese is called that, but it doesn’t define American cheese making.
Man I don’t even wanna know what’s in the powdered cheese you get in a macaroni box. (I don’t eat any cheese cause I’m lactose intolerant, but I always see people just toss the cheese pouch and use their own cheese.)
It’s powdered cheese sauce.
It’s mostly made using spray dryers. Basically, a spray dryer uses hot air to quickly dry a fine mist of something. It’s how they make milk powder and egg powder as well.
WTF is wrong with you??? You just grate cheese over pasta and call it a day? The cheese should be melted into a sauce (I start with a bechamel and then add cheese), then mixed into the macaroni. I prefer to bake it with breadcrumbs on top after for some textural variety.
Yeah, bechamel is great too, but I’m lazy. Cheese only is also fine if you let it sit a bit with top covered. It’s not dry if you use soft creamy type of cheese. Baking it? Nah - it’ll be too soft and melty for my taste, pasta should have texture.
Baked pasta works better if you start off only parboiling the pasta so it doesn’t overcook.
I dont even use macaroni. I use orecchiette. Better sauce holder.
Instructions unclear
Here, this, should help
Holy fuck you got me lmfao.
Happy to make a fellow human laugh 😃
That’s not exactly healthy either and but it tastes like it should be. Mac n cheese should be creamy AND cheesy and delicious. What you are suggesting sounds plain and dry, I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole unless I was a guest at your house. But you can be damn sure I’d tell everyone you can’t make Mac n cheese and I definitely wouldn’t trust you with dinner ever again.
You start with a roux add a little milk then cheese then milk and again cheese. Keep doing that until it’s cheesey/creamy enough. Good idea to add salt and some seasonings as well.
I the best way to do it is to cook the kraft slices in hotdog water, then add the noodle until plump.
How can you mess up Mac and Cheese that badly?
By thinking it requires only 2 ingredients.
It’s clearly got three. Imagine forgetting the And
IDK, macaroni shaped cheese sounds delicious.
- Mac
- Cheese
Yup, makes sense.
Yeah, but the first ingredient is actually two ingredients, mac and cheese, so it needs three ingredients.
Chemical X?
Even the Kraft stuff in a box needs 4
You can make a pretty decent Mac and cheese using only macaroni, cheese and evaporated milk.
Or macaroni, cheese, and sodium citrate.
Dunno man, even macaroni and a block of Velveeta can be okay, if done properly. Somehow they both managed to fuck something up that I could passably do when I was 8.
I mean… They didn’t really. Unless you believe everything is true on the internet.
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By making it a casserole
The best Mac and cheese is baked, but a crock pot is a close second.
No.
Crockpot mac and cheese would be an overcooked limp mess.
Would you serve it with steamed tater tots?
I am going to assume you are wrong because your name is awful.
I don’t even eat cheese, but if I were to make it, I’d make this:
https://www.savortoothtiger.com/recipes/jefferson-amp-mac-amp-cheese
But you have to add sodium citrate:
Good call on the sodium citrate, now I want to try that.
You might find this interesting:
Not as cooks though. Some of these prisoners are there for murder, but still…
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I love the low key savage response. Tbh, if I had nothing else I’d eat the right one because it looks less…congealed?
I cook a lot and I’m just impressed someone can burn cheese.
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I meant like in the picture, American singles melt pretty quick. I also like making crispy cheddar for burgers and burnt brick for Detroit style pizza.
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Mac and cheese is just lasagne for people too poor to afford meat.
Tell me you’ve never had good Mac & Cheese without telling me you’ve never had good Mac & Cheese.
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Boxed Mac and Cheese is one of those “its so bad its good” foods.
the singular form of the word is spelled “lasagna”, you used the plural form of the word.
There are literally gourmet mac and cheese restaurants. And they put meat in the mac and cheese. Believe it or not, that is possible.
