How to make lower calorie Mac & Cheese that still tastes good.

we love mac and cheese for its gooey and creamy components but this leads to a calorically dense dish so i asked myself if i wanted to make mac and cheese except as a lower calorie option how would i do it well this version today has 33 percent fewer carbs 33 fewer calories and 24 more protein per serving but does it still taste good hey everyone i'm ethan a home cooking nerd who likes to find better ways to cook and share them with all of you so mac and cheese for me has become this really versatile meal because it's pretty quick to make you know some days i'll go for the full-on kind of classic buttery creamy versions but a lot of times i'll actually go for a lower calorie version maybe it's just like a a week night something simple that i can chow down and not feel super heavy with but what we're gonna do in this video is break down both versions and then i'll meet you back here for the taste test the base components of mac and cheese are the pasta the sauce the cheeses and the topping if you're using one here's what that looks like for the restaurant style version now for the pasta as covered a couple weeks ago i like to add macaroni to a pot cover it with just enough water to submerge the pasta then add a small pinch of salt bring that up to a boil over high heat and set a timer for about one minute less than the package says while stirring occasionally to prevent sticking meanwhile the sauce base is mustard heavy cream evaporated milk melted butter and corn starch and these components create a base with powerful emulsifiers for our cheeses to melt with making a silky smooth sauce speaking of cheeses i like a blend of at least two parts melting cheese with two parts of flavoring cheeses for this version i used american cheese as my primary melting cheese but other good options would include gruyere monterey jack young cheddar or mozzarella since american is fairly mild i like to up the flavor with one part of sharp cheddar and one part of smoked gouda both are good melting cheeses and are probably my all-time favorite cheeses for adding some extra flavor the cheeses are shredded and then added to the sauce base now back at the stove when the pasta is cooked and basically all the water has evaporated the heat is turned to low and that sauce mixture is poured into the pot and stirred until the cheese has melted and a cohesive sauce forms to finish this off pour the mac and cheese into a cast iron but this would not be complete without a seasoned crumb topping mix panko breadcrumbs melted butter smoked paprika garlic pepper and 20 cranks of black pepper and sprinkle this evenly over the top lastly slide the whole thing into the oven at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes to let it toast and there we have gooey creamy mac and cheese for 375 gram or about 13 ounce serving of the restaurant style version it comes in at 834 calories 76 grams of carbs 52 grams of fat and 31 grams of protein if we take a look at the top three caloric ingredients as you can guess number one is the pasta then the cheeses and the butter milk and cream which is where we'll focus on for our substitutions first i'll be substituting chickpea shells instead of regular elbow macaroni this only results in 27 fewer calories per serving but it does increase the amount of protein which is great for building muscle especially if i'm only eating mac and cheese for a meal now chickpea pasta does have a softer texture that won't really get al dente like normal pasta and it also has a different flavor from the chickpeas however one really cool thing that you can do with chickpea pasta is make two ingredient mac and cheese all you have to do is literally just boil the pasta in water which creates this kind of slurry and then you mix in shredded cheese and there you go now it's not the best mac and cheese in the world but it's definitely good in a pinch second instead of butter cream and evaporated milk i'll only be using low-fat evaporated milk and collectively these changes result in 233 fewer calories per serving now we're not going to get the buttery goodness but the evaporated milk and the pasta water slurry is great for creating that silky smooth sauce lastly i made some other changes like using pork panko instead of regular panko and this doesn't lower the calories but does lower the carb count if you're worried about that and then i also tried out some low moisture mozzarella which has 33 percent fewer calories than gouda there are definitely a number of ways that you could play with this mac and cheese for whatever your health and fitness goals are but let's walk through my version and then we'll do the taste test to start add the chickpea pasta to a pot and add just enough water to cover it then add a pinch of salt and place this over high heat you're going to bring the water to a boil and stir it occasionally to help prevent the starches from gelling on the pasta which is going to make them stick meanwhile though you can add the spicy brown mustard and evaporated milk to a bowl and stir it to combine now for the cheeses all i did was shred them all and if you are wondering how i got the block of american cheese i just went up to the deli counter and asked for it unsliced once you shred the cheddar and the gouda all of the cheeses are added to the mixing bowl now back at the stove you basically want all of the pasta water evaporated now if you do have extra and the pasta is actually cooked just pour it off into the sink and this is where you're going to help control the consistency of your sauce i like it to look something like this pour in the cheese mixture and stir until the cheese has melted and a cohesive sauce has formed now if you do want it creamier you can add some more evaporated milk if you want it melty and kind of stringy you can add in some more shredded or cubed cheese really do whatever you want lastly though give the mac and cheese a taste it may need some more salt you could add spices like garlic powder or add some more mustard for a little bit of tang before baking make the topping with the pork panko crumbs smoked paprika garlic powder and about 20 cranks of black pepper finally add the mac and cheese to a cast iron pan and spread that bread crumb all over the top [Music] lastly toss it into a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes to bake everything and have it become nice and cohesive pull it out and there we have a beautiful lower calorie mac and cheese again for a 375 gram or about 13 ounce serving of the lower calorie version it comes in at 555 calories 50 grams of protein 25 grams of fat and 41 grams of protein a little bit more anabolic than the restaurant style version but let's see how they stack up to each other in a taste test you already know it's taste test time clearly i've already taken a couple bites of each but for camera's sake we'll do a couple more oh i'm gonna do a little mac and cheese nap after filming this but let's break it down real quickly so both nice and super creamy right we don't lose any of that creaminess with the just using evaporated milk with those other cheeses compared to the heavy cream and the butter here it definitely does lend to a different flavor profile this one is more rich and you know buttery because it has butter in there obviously which gives it that kind of that more like classic i guess mac and cheese thing that i'm used to maybe for around holidays or maybe you get with barbecue or things like that that's what this kind of reminds me of but this one is absolutely delicious the really only big thing that you notice is the chickpea pasta and it's because the chickpea pasta does have this kind of unique taste to it but that being said the chickpea pasta isn't really what makes this dish lower calorie so you can easily just substitute regular pasta right it just changes kind of the makeup of the pasta you get more protein you get less carbs so that's why you may want to use chickpea pasta but if you don't like the flavor of it just use regular pasta and it'll still be lower calorie because we haven't used the butter we haven't used the cream and things like that so both of them really killer recipes like i said this is such a quick thing to make and it's become something that i've made a lot more and just the variability that you can add to these dishes you know you could serve this with some lean protein like some fish or chicken you could just make a big meal out of this this could be just a side dish you could add different spices different you know roasted peppers bacon there's so many things that you can do with mac and cheese um in you know outside of just trying to make one lower calorie or anything like that so hopefully you all learned something from this video i know i've even done that two ingredient mac and cheese with the chickpea pasta done that several times so keep that in your back pocket too if you ever need like a super quick kind of like struggle meal but both recipes will be up on my website if you guys want to check them out i will catch you all in the next one peace [Music]

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 130,836

Rating: 4.9498606 out of 5

Keywords: Ethan Chlebowski, mac and cheese, mac and cheese recipe, healthy mac and cheese, healthy mac and cheese for weight loss, protein mac and cheese, macaroni and cheese, creamy mac and cheese, macaroni and cheese baked, healthy macaroni and cheese

Id: cWHJH7_C3OQ

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 24 2020