Sprinkle bread crumbs and remaining cheese over top and bake for 35 minutes until a nice crust forms on the top. Pour macaroni and cheese into a 2 quart baking dish.

Drain macaroni and return to cooking pot.Once it is at the thickness you desire remove from heat immediately and add cheese, reserving about a 1/4 of a cup of cheddar. When the mixture begins to boil you will notice your sauce will start to thicken. Salt and pepper your sauce to your liking. Once you get your rue to the color you want add the milk while continuing to whisk constantly.You want your rue to be almost a copper brown color. If rue burns throw it out and start again. While pasta is cooking begin to make your roux.Salt water (after it comes to a boil) add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente. And the second it stirs in in a figure-eight, the second it melts in, I remove it from the heat. But if it's 3 cups of milk or combined liquid, it's 3 cups of cheese. Warm milk helps to make the whole sauce making process go a bit quicker and according to Julia Child, warm milk prevents a lumpy cheese sauce. You shred it and measure it loosely packed. Step 1, Warm milk in a saucepan or in the microwave. 'Then, to that ratio, it's identical: the amount of cups of liquid to the amount of cups of shredded cheese,' Rach says. And she warms it with crushed garlic, which is optional, but delicious if you love garlic in everything like John does!Ĭomfort Food Mash-Up: Rach's Garlic Bread Mac & Cheese Pro Tip: Rach warms the milk first, before adding it to the roux. If I was doing a classic, I would just do salt a little bit of white pepper,' she continues. Then add and cook the pasta directly in the milk & water mixture over medium heat while stirring and allowing the liquid to be absorbed by the pasta, about 1 minute before the pasta is done then reduce the heat. 'Once that thickens just to coat the back of the spoon (don't let it get too thick, you don't want that to go too far on you), you season it as you would like. America’s Test Kitchen Mac & Cheese Method: Start by combining 1 ½ cups of whole milk with 1 cup of water in a medium saucepan. And I use about 3 cups of milk, or a combination of milk and stock,' Rach explains. The penne is nice, I prefer it to traditional Mac n cheese elbows, but honestly this was more pasta than Mac n cheese. And for every 4 tablespoons of butter and 4 tablespoons of flour, I bump up the butter to 5. We got one of the specials with spinach, garlic, feta, sun dried tomatoes and added jalapeos/mushrooms. So about equal amounts-I usually do a tablespoon more of butter to flour. 'What we want to do is start with the roux. RELATED: Basic Cheese Sauce for Mac 'n Cheese Rach breaks down how she makes what John calls 'a pretty dang good mac and cheese' in more detail.

Mac n cheese roux