Pro Chefs Improve Boxed Macaroni & Cheese (8 Methods) | Test Kitchen Talks @ Home | Bon Appétit

let's just jump some box mac and cheese that's what the world needs all right action you're gonna love this this is a great way to kind of Judge up a box mac and cheese and like take it to a different planet it's so good maybe I will eat this tell me what you think it's really good right personally I like the classic but it's got to be ripping hot as soon as it starts to get a little cool no good oh and I might add a little bit I got this little fantastic there's actually a video to teach you how to make it will show called it's alive but it's a little fermented garlic and garlic and ginger paste okay the ginger might be a little weird but maybe just a little maybe just a little dab I got my water already ripping hot because that's the kind of guy I am yeah I get it Cory I feel like I might be out of the frame we're back I'm like Morocco might I you probably can't see it my time is dialed in all right I'm telling ya oh she's done she's done beautiful okay put that on whoa okay get a little bit of a little bit of butter go all right use as much as you want I'm gonna do a little dab at this garlic and then I'm gonna hit it with a little Calabrian well there goes getting some to the kids huh then you had the pasta I'm gonna hit it with a little bit of water and then we hit it with a little milk and we'll get that problem yeah I get that going I'm gonna start putting in this packet you know I guess do you have to use the packet okay um confirm the packet must be used part of my Jewish plan is to I'm just gonna seed it with some grated sharp cheddar come on holy for well black pepper get out of town the Calabrian chili in there whoo and that's it just jump your pantry pasta use whatever you want I like a little spice but I like to kind of keep it classic ripping hot a Dios out of my kitchen box mac and cheese one of those things I feel like I never had in my household growing up my parents were kind of like health food fanatics so I'm kind of gonna try to like make up for it all in like one day so basically I took the boxed mac and cheese I made it as is as per the instructions on the box then I added a good amount of whole milk mozzarella big handful of sharp cheddar cheese and then also another handful of grated parm I then let the mac and cheese cool overnight so I can get really good scoops of it okay I mean they're not gonna be perfect but nothing is you know we're then gonna dredge them in flour got egg and I've got panko just want to make sure flour is completely coating the mac and cheese the egg completely coats the flour and the panko completely coats the egg boom all right not a perfect sphere all right but hey clocks are now synchronized hear hear hear hear so I heard you I changed the clocks they're synchronized okay it's fine so let's do a tester I'm trying to keep this oil at about 350 any hotter than that and it might just fry a little bit too quickly any cooler and you're gonna have a situation where you know you could get some oil kind of like getting into you know past that dredge and into the kind of mac and cheese mixture itself which I definitely don't want so if you don't have a thermometer it's really not a big deal you're just gonna have to go somewhere in the neighborhood of like three minutes or so is probably a reasonable amount of time that is starting to look really good just saying okay attempt at a cheese Pole take one yeah we didn't quite get a pole it breaks my heart a little bit that it's like so cheesy and yet we didn't get like a big strand it tastes very good and we'll try a few more maybe we'll get one I think and then in a little bit maybe we'll get the kids in here and see what they think about all this alright I think uh zero holding it upside down alright so here I'm gonna cut up some of these collaborating Chili Peppers put a little high quality olive oil in with Arde Calabrian chilies okay wait ooh that was awesome careful dear God that thing's pointy okay here what do you want to try this it's mac and cheese it's mac and cheese alright try this see that stretch alright and I'm gonna do a little condom at careful oh dear God did you stab that thing Calabrian chili and Calabrian chili looks like brings like a little funk you need some balance to this thing and heat definitely delivers there is cheese stretching from this child to this this nug of fried mac and cheese just pointing that out we nailed it on the end what anything hey welcome back to my kitchen here in the East Village and today I'm gonna show you how to make mac and cheese pancakes how's that what are the actual directions foil we're gonna follow that one so these pancakes are actually an ode to Kenny shops in his restaurant was really important to us when he first came to New York because we were working in all these fancy-schmancy restaurants and his philosophy is like the total total opposite he would use things like Aunt Jemima pancake mix mix so I feel like using Kraft for this is very Kenny this is V ace best buttermilk pancakes um so in here I have flour baking powder baking soda sugar and salt that's getting really combing this thing's too powerful alright here I've got a couple eggs buttermilk and I'm gonna whisk in my melted butter that exploded man here what this happens a lot I lost a tablespoon or so but who cares I'm gonna whisk my wet and dry separately and then bring them together and we have pancake mix nice and fluffy all right it's been about five minutes I think it's ready to go I'm going to train okay I'm gonna prepare my cheese packet while my pan preheat and I'm gonna dunk it in this little sister I'm gonna add a little key because why not so we'll do just a little guy to see how it cooks up all right Tess pancake came out great nice and fluffy now before the batter sets I'm gonna sprinkle macaroni it's the symphony of texture and wrinkle on my cheese packet and I have no idea how that's gonna cook up so these guys have cooked to the point where there's little bubbles on the top and that's how you know it's ready to flip okay we got there all right Clementine you want a pancake okay Clementine tell me what you think oh she likes it all right let's see how these are doing this cheese packet did get some good color some of the macaroni got a little bit of crispy which i think is cool and looking a fluffy the pancakes are little honey a little hot sauce oh the dogs are just staring at me since I gave him a taste they know what's up here one of these days they're gonna kill me in my sleep I think this is a winner you're gonna love this this is a great way take it to a different planet if you guys couldn't tell I'm trying to make a star out of this cat so they don't have to work anymore but now go away it has been quite a while since I've made a box of kraft mac and cheese but I have to say what's not to like about mac and cheese from a box it's taste so good I went actually kind of fancy and decided to do caramelized onions which I have under this upside-down pine container because I didn't them to dry out you hold it closer to the camera so you can see so I sliced thinly sliced six or seven small or medium onions and then I pretty much constantly stirred them for like 35 to 40 minutes it's just like a delicious delicious ingredient tat which is why I make a lot and save some so I'm gonna put these in the fridge Oh Felix don't be stripped back Kitty just ahh ok what is it 4 tablespoons of butter I'm gonna put that in the skillet generous pinch of red pepper flakes I'm gonna strip a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme leaves so you don't need a lot though so I'm adding the milk to the skillet that orange color man real kraft mac and cheese ok so now I'm gonna grate some of this parm it really is like the mushy --is-- pasta all right listen let me give us a taste the onions make it pretty sweet to balance it out a little bit I'm gonna add more parm and maybe a pinch of garlic powder let's see if I can do this without spilling so far it's not going well okay now I'm gonna rinse this out I'm going to throw in a knob of butter a little bit more fresh thyme and now I have the biggest thing of panko known to man and they crisp extremely well I'm gonna add a pinch of garlic powder a little bit of salt and a little even layer kind of spread it around a little more parm on top and then that goes there bowls over here I'm not gonna feed you oh it's hot in here the boiler is hot and it's really close to the broiler so ohh oh my god well it's done that one real fast come here okay so here's my mac and cheese it got golden oh you got golden brown and delicious in the oven it happened very fast because the broiler was very hot smells delicious mmm this is for me the most sophisticated box the mac and cheese I ever tasted it's delicious perhaps the caramelized onions are a little bit of a labor intensive step but it makes everything delicious so why not kitty Bad Kitty Oh all righty today I'm gonna make macaroni these are spirals cheesy spirals I'm gonna make macaroni and cheese carbonara east or cacio e pepe a vibe without the bacon and I'm gonna top it with a bunch of crispy crunchy garlicky panko bread crumbs because that's something that I also have in my pantry so I'm gonna add these to this water and I'm gonna take a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and just sort of generously coat the bottom of the pan I'm going to add this pinko we're looking for even golden brown color all over okay so I'm grading in two garlic cloves and season it with salt first and now taking parsley and I'm just snipping so I don't have to dirty a cutting board right now kitchen shears for the win so here's our parsley panko bread crumbs in the meantime I'll get my butter now I'm gonna add a big handful of these frozen peas I'm not going to measure it it doesn't matter I'm gonna scoop out and reserve some of that pasta water to help emulsify our sauce and I'm gonna go drain this so now everything's going into the skillet with the butter and the cheese oh wow that's kind of it's literally dayglo orange okay so I'm adding some of this reserved liquid to help incorporate the cheese into the sauce black pepper and peas is a delicious combination and then we'll plate a little up how many people does this serve two servings two servings per container I could definitely see someone needing this whole thing and now I'm topping it with my krispity krunch itty garlicky panko bread crumbs smells so good absolutely delicious honestly you would not know that this came out of the box except for the fact that it's table orange hey guys it's Carla I'm here in my home kitchen today and I'm gonna show you how to kind of judge up a box of prepared mac and cheese what I think about when I think about this delicious cheesy powder is I think about my other favorite food popcorn I'm actually gonna pop it in regular vegetable oil I think this is peanut oil after many years of experimentation I have discovered that a third of a cup of popcorn which is probably four times as much as what they tell you is the perfect amount of popcorn for one person slowing down a little bit guys okay guys leave no kernel unpopped you know what I mean so I know it seems crazy I'm gonna add a little bit of olive oil just just kosher salt seeing because it's like all spread out you don't really need to toss it that much okay cheese powder oh god it's gorgeous it's just transforming look I am garlic powder Aleppo this is black pepper oh I almost forgot don't ever forget the nutritional yeast it's so good on popcorn I bring nutritional yeast with me to the movie theater I'm not person this is really the best use of that cheese packet I swear to God cause yeah come here it tastes like Mexicans whoo seems like a loti hijab now we got to figure out about the noodle I'm just try one of these very crunchy your neck hurt yeah tell me why [Laughter] obviously if you actually want to cook these noodles and butter them up and put some any kind of cheese on them do that but kind of can't get enough of the stroke dad have you ever filmed a video before so my version of a sort of juiced up version of box mac and cheese involves stirring in a bunch of pesto when I was leading these camping trips in college I usually just buy a jar of pesto they didn't have access to a kitchen to make my own but today we are gonna make our own we've got the basil which is a little less than ideal is left out the garage by someone who will remain nameless put a little bit of garlic and to kind of spruce up the green flavor I'm gonna add like a little bit of frozen spinach that I've thought a little parm pine nuts you can use walnuts if you don't have pine nuts I mean you can use almonds and then we're gonna add some olive oil I think that's probably good go light on the salt and if it's a little less salty that's okay all right cool so we're gonna one this up it's not quite as a verdant as I want but it's still gonna taste really good shells better than tubes in my opinion sir mac and cheese has been cooking I'm going to reserve a team bit of the water got the milk I'm gonna play fast and loose and not measure alright we're gonna add like half of this packet this is white cheddar shells hey mom would you mind cutting a little piece of butter she's using a butcher's knife to cut butter okay that's a lot of butter so I'm gonna put in maybe two spoonfuls of this pesto like that it has combined to make this really verdant color and this turned out great I guess it's all the butter all right so I'm just gonna put a few bread crumbs in here until they start to get golden brown cool as you can see the sauce is nicely incorporated we've got those beautiful flecks of basil our crunchy bread crumbs huge upgrade from your box stuff mmm really good it's really good right yeah you can have another bite death hey this is Andy I'm out on Long Island I am supposed to be making some kind of mac and cheese I'm gonna go a little bit differently with this and a little bit more my style more greens a little brighter a lighter I'm gonna kind of get my situation with the flavor components for the sauce I'm gonna pour some milk into the blender I'm gonna add this ball of grains I just blanch it in hot water and then put it in an ice water to stop the cooking but it really could be any greens you like a tablespoon of miso I'm added more green ooh that's some crazy-ass cheddar lookin smells like cheddar huh oh hi Goldie she's perfect she's beautiful she looks like Evangelos this she's a model she gets like 40 kisses a day all right we'll work with that oh I'm gonna scoop up some of the pasta water oh my god it's a it's cooked already six minutes my ass I'm kind of treating this like pesto I'm gonna pour that over some butter sounds lemon zest your salt it's melted it behind and then sprinkle on the cheese powder parmesan and sesame seeds and a little bit of pepper not bad right Brad it calls me the master player I challenge you Sola let's do it smells good it tastes pretty good you get a little bit of the miso in the black pepper I'm pretty happy with this I would eat this for lunch maybe less cheese powder but still I hope that was fun hope it was usable I probably sound like I'm on cocaine

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 2,166,835

Rating: 4.9603934 out of 5

Keywords: test kitchen, test kitchen talks, sohla el waylly, molly baz, carla lalli music, andy baraghani, priya krishna, chris morocco, brad leone, claire saffitz, macaroni, macaroni and cheese, mac and cheese, kraft mac and cheese, macaroni and cheese recipe, how to macaroni and cheese, how to make macaroni and cheese, making macaroni and cheese, improving macaroni and cheese, improve macaroni and cheese, better mac and cheese, macaroni and cheese bon appetit, food, bon appetit

Id: aY6FW9teGNQ

Length: 19min 51sec (1191 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Rated_PG-Squirteen]

One of Chris' kids turned a folded up thermometer and a mac & cheese arancini into a choo-choo train. Future engineer right there.

And Sohla exploding butter in the microwave again! haha

[u/bitchSphere]

Priya: "If it's a little less salty that's OK"

Molly, all the way in Palm Springs: "WHAT?!"

[u/UtterlyConfused93]

References to Chris’ unsyched clocks and WHERE’S ANDY mystery. This ep was so meta and I loved it!

[u/[deleted]]

ok that cosmo joke actually had me in stitches for some reason

[u/Majestic_Beard]

Watching Chris' kid playing with that probe thermometer makes me thing that he's the kind of parent that would let his kids minorly injure themselves so that they learn a lesson. And I 1,000% respect that.

[u/ScaryFix3]

Okay these editors are MAKING the show! Goldie, Andy's dog/napkin killlleddd me!

And also Chris's kids :'')

I'm going to miss these home videos.

[u/breadburn]

Me before buying a jar of Calabrian chili paste: Man, why do they add it to everything? How good can it actually be?

Me after buying a jar of Calabrian chili paste: Alright how can I make sure I never run out of this even after putting it into every single thing I make going forward?

[u/Expediant]

What is with the BA Test Kitchen and the word "Zhuzh" lmao.

[u/strayainind]

Chris and his kids. Claire and the cat.

I would watch them make a bowl of cereal just for everything other than them dealing with food.