So that you don’t have to overthink things I went ahead and tested 11 versions and here’s what I learned along the way:

Eat it from the pot, eat it with a spoon. The kind you can bring to a friend who is under the weather, to a potluck, one you can make for a dinner party or for a night in by yourself. The no fuss straight forward good macaroni and cheese. The kind that brings back childhood memories. I wanted to skip baking and make the creamiest, dreamiest stove-top mac & cheese. At its best it’s creamy and smooth, simple and straightforward, and makes you question whether you need a fork or spoon. You’ll add just a bit to the sauce before adding the noodles which will help prep the sauce - it needs the warning.An ideal mac & cheese shouldn’t be complicated. Pasta water is important! It holds all of the necessary starch from the pasta and helps your sauce and noodles bind together. The noodles will warm it right back up, don’t worry. Letting your sauce rest for those 8 minutes or so let’s it thicken just slightly, which will make it the perfect consistency. Want to use something other than cheddar? Try one of our 7 best cheeses for mac & cheese. It will help burn some calories you are about to indulge in. Use a decent quality sharp cheddar and grate it yourself. The added preservatives keep it from breaking down and you’ll end up with a grainy sauce. Pre-shredded cheese is an enemy to creamy mac. If you pour your milk in all at once you will for sure end up with flour clumps that no amount of whisking can get rid of.Ĭheese is an obvious ingredient to mac & cheese but don’t skirt past it because of that. Stop every half cup or so and whisk to make sure the flour isn’t clumping. When adding your milk, pour it in a thin steady stream whisking it in as you pour. The flour and butter should be a deep golden and very thick.

Let your flour cook in the butter for a minute or two before very slowly adding your milk. It’s easy to want to add your milk directly after whisking in your flour but that won’t give it the proper time it needs to thicken your cheese sauce. An ideal mac & cheese shouldn’t be complicated.

How to make mac and cheese sauce easy