Amazing Baked Homemade Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

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- It's the most comforting food of all time, macaroni and cheese. I'm gonna show you an awesome recipe that I've been making for years. We're gonna make a classic sauce, mix 'em up with some noodles. It is to die for. I know you will love this. Let's see get one thing clear here. There is no such thing as healthy macaroni and cheese. It's fat, milk, cheese, and noodles. It does not exist in the healthy atmosphere of food, so just accept that off the bat. But the first thing we need to do is shred up a bunch of different cheeses. Sound good? Let's cook. I've got a grater over some parchment paper to help collect all the cheese, and we're gonna start off with some yellow cheddar cheese. I've always loved the flavor of this. I love it on burgers. I especially love it in macaroni and cheese. The reason I put it on parchment paper is so the cheese doesn't go everywhere and it's easy to transport. The next one I've got is some American cheese. I love American cheese too on cheeseburgers. It also has something called sodium citrate in it, which helps make sauces really smooth and none of those clumpy cheese chunks that are in there. Set that to the side. And then last but not least, I've got some aged white cheddar. This is gonna bring a lot of flavor and a ton of natural salts. Once it is grated, and be careful on those graters, set it all to the side. I already know what you're thinking. Yes, this is a lot of cheese, but it's macaroni and cheese, so we want a lot of it. So don't freak out. I promise it will all come together. But you can also swap out. I love the combo of yellow and white cheddar cheese and American cheese. You could try Monterey Jack, Colby-Jack, you could do Gruyere and get quite fancy there. It's up to you, but have some fun here. Now what we're gonna do is prep up some veggies. I've got a yellow onion here. Just simply slice off each end, and then cut it in half. We're going to next remove that outside peel, and then we want to small dice this. Dice it as small as you can. You don't want big chunks of onions in here. You just simply want to taste the flavor. Next, I've got some garlic cloves, which I'm going to run through a garlic press as usual. Like I always say, "I am over chopping garlic in this life." I've done it for 25 years. Make sure you get all of it. Now we're heading over to our cooktop. I've got a nice large rondeau pot. You can use a regular Dutch oven pot if you want. We're gonna add in some unsalted butter over medium heat, wait till it's melted, and then we're gonna hit it with those yellow onions, followed up by adding in the minced garlic. Now grab a spoon and mix all of that goodness together. What we wanna do is get a nice light brown. We're talking maybe six to eight minutes. We don't wanna caramelize it and we don't want them to just be translucent. We wanna pull some flavor from that. Now, I'm gonna add in some all-purpose flour because right now what we wanna do is make a roux. What that's gonna do is help thicken up our sauce. So go ahead with your spoon and combine everything together. You'll notice that the butter is gonna soak up the flour, and you're going to see little clumps of onions and garlic in there. We're next gonna hit it with some whole milk. Please use whole milk, lots more flavor in that. Once it's in there, grab your spoon. We're gonna mix everything around just to try to get those flavors out. And we're gonna crank the heat up to high heat. Really what this does is help to activate that roux. It will help thicken it up and much more quickly. Also, at this point, I usually switch out from a spoon to a whisk so everything gets broken up with ease. You can see that it's starting to look really thick. What we're looking for is a thin nappe. So coat the back of a spoon, run your finger across, if that top layer doesn't go over there, we are good. And the reason we don't wanna take this to that nice thick consistency that you would see in like a creamy Alfredo sauce or a traditional bechamel is we have so much cheese to add in there, we don't want this to be clumped together. We want it to be nice and creamy. That is the goal. Now for the cheese. We're pouring in two cups each of the white cheddar, the yellow cheddar, and the American cheese. Once it is in there, grab your whisk and begin to whisk everything together. We're gonna turn the heat down, just in case you weren't aware, to medium to low heat. Does not need to be hot and boiling. We also wanna season it very well with sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper. This is what's gonna season up our macaroni and cheese. This is the sauce, so be sure to give it another whisk. We want all the cheese melted, all of those flavors incorporated in there. And at this point, just turn the heat off and set it to the side. Don't worry about the cheese sauce. It will stay plenty warm. Because in the meantime, we need to boil up our macaroni noodles. Got a large pot of boiling water. We're gonna add some salt in there. I was always told that water should taste like the ocean before you cook in it. We're next adding in our macaroni elbows. It's gonna take in between six to eight minutes to cook. I usually get a spoon in there to move things around so they don't stick. You wanna take them to al dente because they're still gonna cook in the oven and they're still gonna absorb up some of that sauce, and we don't want it to be mush. Once they are finished cooking, give them a good drain. We don't wanna move over too much of the water and dilute our delicious sauce. So head right over to the sauce, pour it in there. This next part is gonna be up to you. I like it 'cause it helps bring structure and fat, and that is large eggs. This is gonna help bring some body, and it's also gonna help so when you take a nice scoop out, it's not gonna run all over the place. It's gonna hold shape a little bit. But again, if you like it super creamy, don't add the eggs. Now, in an oversized casserole dish, I'm going to add in our macaroni and cheese. Pour it all in there so that it's nice and level, and well, because I love cheese, I'm gonna add a little bit more of each of the shredded cheese that I did before. Completely covering the top. We are going in the oven on 350 degrees. It's gonna take about 20 minutes. So go hang out somewhere before you go grab it and pull it out. And boom, this looks seriously so good, you guys. Let it cool down just a bit before we serve it up. It is all about those fundamental techniques and putting them into practice, like making a proper bechamel and then knowing when and how to add cheese so that you can make Mornay sauce. Once you start understanding these things, I promise you, all of your homemade food from scratch will taste way better. Better than the grocery stores, better than the local barbecue restaurant. You won't even like their macaroni and cheese anymore. This is super good. So I have a little bit of plating up to do, but of course, we're gonna do it in slow-mo. This part is optional, but you can absolutely add on a little chopped chives or parsley because everything is pretty yellow in this dish. This is gonna help bring out some more colors. And for sure, take out a nice big scoop of this macaroni and cheese. You can put on a plate, in a bowl, whatever you wanna serve it in. I love that stretchy cheese there in that shot. And man, oh, man, look at this beauty! (upbeat music) Nothing like good old fashioned comfort food. And I can't believe I've never made macaroni and cheese on video or my website, ridiculous! Be sure to like this video, subscribe to my channel. Check out this video. I promise you will love it. I'll see you on there. (upbeat music)
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Channel: Chef Billy Parisi
Views: 15,928
Rating: 4.9714966 out of 5
Keywords: mac and cheese recipe, macaroni and cheese, how to make mac and cheese, baked mac and cheese, homemade mac and cheese, mac n cheese, cheese, easy mac and cheese, best mac and cheese, macaroni, how to make perfect mac and cheese, food, make mac and cheese, how to make macaroni and cheese, recipe, pasta, mac & cheese, macaroni and cheese recipe, billy parisi, chef billy parisi, chef billy
Id: OtoBGq0QpyQ
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 7min 20sec (440 seconds)
Published: Wed Jul 01 2020
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