The Recipe: Macaroni and Cheese
Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen and I have just released the first episode of our new podcast, The Recipe. You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Here’s a link:
On the show we pull back the curtains on the recipe development process to show you how we arrive at our final recipes, and how you can make them your own. First up, stovetop mac and cheese.
Here’s my 3-Ingredient Mac and Cheese recipe:
Here’s Deb’s Quick, Essential Stovetop Mac and Cheese:
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9:35 creamy, uzi, gooey
You need to have Chef John on your podcast! How awesome that would be.
Very nice, I tried a mixture of both recipes. So the butter+flower but also a mix of normal and evaporated milk. Turns out insanely creamy 🙂
Also multiple kinds of cheeses but that also makes it pricy 😀
I'm moderately lactose intolerant and have to peace-out with evaporated milk. What's a good substitution? Lactose free milk, reduced?
My favorite mac and cheese has a white sauce. I grew up with that recipe being made.
When you’re adding frozen peas, what stage of cooking do you add them?
The 3-ingredient Mac is a go-to, but I'm going to try Deb's version tonight (using the sub of part white cheddar). Love the Smitten Kitchen blog. I haven't made a ton of Deb's recipes, but the ones I have made have been consistently tasty.
This has inspired me. I'm going to experiment with using starchy pasta water and evaporated milk in place of the sodium citrate I usually use to make "fancier" cheeses creamy and glossy. Great shit, as always.
My wife and I love Kenji’s 3 ingredient mac and cheese recipe. We ALSO love his Food Lab multiple-pounds-of-cheese mac and cheese recipe, and make it at least once a year for the holidays!
Thank you for adressing your non-binary community too ❤
Finding evaporated milk where I live is tough but if I manage to get some, I'll be sure to give your version a try
Pasta 666!
lost me at evaporated milk
Kenji I find that Deb's recipe is better when you make bigger batches and want leftovers. The reason is because by creating the sauce separately, the cheese sauce remains separate from the macaroni.
However if i didn't create a roux, I find that the leftover Mac and cheese to be flavorless -the cheese integrates into the pasta and becomes lifeless.
Damn 211k in 3 days Kenji!
i miss the man-bun
this could have been edited to 2 minutes
You look 15 years younger than you did a year ago!! What's your secret?❤
2 things: 1) Chef John is the kindest man on the internet. 2) The difference between a professional chef and a home cook? Mixing in all of that cheddar cheese into the already full shallow pan was a breeze for Chef Kenji, but for me half of the cheese and somehow all of the liquid would have flown out of the bowl and onto me and the counter/burner.
Would heavy cream work instead of the evaporated milk?
Bring back the late night videos
Instantly subbed to the podcast! Keep on keeping on, brother!
I want to know how Kenji has lost all his extra pounds.
It's been a while since I've used evaporated milk. Does it have that same cooked flavor like UHT milk?
Excellent first podcast episode. Look forward to many more. Congratulations!
Anyone who has been a busy, stressed mom discovers cold milk and hot rue means no lumps. You didn't have time to warm up your milk you just threw it and hope for the best discovered it worked out better than the old way.
I wish there was a better way but probably you have to rely on using "stage-left" and right or "my right" and left — but I don't know how to deal with the rotation to the stove/oven.
how is it fewer ingredients than KD if KD only calls for the box, margarine and milk? i cook both these recipes in the microwave and they do both take about the exact same time…
if only half the water content of the milk is removed from the evaporated milk, and your evaporating most of that pasta water, could not you just replace the water with regular milk and evaporate it yourself?
Just made the 3-ingredient version and it was super easy and fast. I did add a bit of crisp bacon and topped with toasted panko for a bit of crunch 🙂
Kenji I live in France and can't always find evaporated milk, would it be the same to just reduce normal whole milk by half on the stovetop? Merci!
Kenji I live in France and can't always find evaporated milk, would it be the same to just reduce normal whole milk by half on the stovetop? Merci!
Kenji has been working out…..
Prince of Macaronia
Hey Kenji, I make your version of Mac and Cheese all the time time, but when it cools it turns in to glue. Any way to combat this?
He's morphing into BwB.
You know what Kenji, I’m very pleasantly surprised that one of your teeth has not fallen off while you take taste bites. You must have teeth of steel. 😂
I love your podcast! ❤ Great personalities, educational, funny but my favorite is the science to back the why's and how's of the recipe. Thanks for sharing! 😊
Subscribed! Can't wait to listen on my next drive.
Anyone have a blue cheese version that's proven?
Also, I've learned that the best way to convert leftover baked Mac and cheese (because, hey, some of us unknowingly married into those traditions, who knew Mac and cheese should have been part of premarital counseling?) into stovetop is to add a generous dose of milk, heat it and a splash of hot sauce/Tabasco.
Your voice would be great for RADIO 🙂 My favorite way for mac n cheese is blending 2 or three types together, I'm going to make this recipe today, i'm hungry haha
have you tried boiling the pasta in regular milk (or a mixture of milk and water) so it reduces instead of using already reduced milk? would that even work at all or is there more to evaporated milk I'm not getting?
Do you think you could use regular milk earlier and cook some of the water down cooking the pasta? Will that hurt the milk?
Hot roux, cold milk, no lumps.
Its so funny to me, how 80% of the comments here say they love 3 ingredients mac and cheese and then list all the other ingredients they added😂
Have you started working out or something recently? You've been looking leaner and more muscular lately. Good for you if so man!
Using sodium citrate to emulsify just milk and cheese, no flour, makes the easiest and most delicious version of this dish.
Kenji is the recipe GOAT, this dish might be the only thing I cook where I don’t follow his recipe.
I'd be curious about the history of mac n cheese in African American communities and how it compares with these.
Why doesn't the water count as an ingredient?