Upgrade Your Comfort Foods Part 3: Gourmet Mac and Cheese

Gross!

Mac & Cheese will forever be a Broke-Ass staple food. Unlike the Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich, you can kind of pretend a big bowl of mac & cheese is a real, grownup dinner instead of a lunch item all the other kids at your lunch table would make fun of you for in the 4th grade. (I have the weirdest food-relationship issues, apparently.) The problem with macaroni and cheese, as with many comfort food items though is that it comes in widely varying degrees of quality. I can think of  a couple swanky restaurants where the seemingly simple menu item of noodles and fromage can run you upwards of ten bucks a bowl. So what makes those so special? The short answer is, “Nothing, really. They’re restaurants, what did you expect?” The long answer, however, requires some examination of the various parts at work in your average batch of mac & cheese.

Noodles: These are pretty much a matter of personal preference and as far as I can tell there isn’t really any reason for the standard elbow noodles from the blue box brand. Honestly, have you ever used elbow noodles for anything other than packaged mac & cheese or 2nd grade art projects? I didn’t think so. If you want to look gourmet get something with spirals or ruffles or even those mini-shells. My Italian grandmother knows exactly which type of pasta goes perfectly with which kind of sauce, but when we’re just talking about slathering it bright orange dairy products I don’t think anyone is going to judge you. (Although spaghetti would be weird.) Since we’re all broke here, you probably don’t need me to tell you that boxes of pasta with enough to make a huge batch of M&C and are generally under a dollar, so just pick something that looks nice. Or better yet, hit up your favorite bulk-section grocer and come home with a whole sack full.

Cheese: Along with the noodles, this is obviously the most important part and the real problem with the packaged stuff is the mysterious orange-dyed powder your supposed to whip up into cheese. For your purposes, velveeta is pretty cheap and is super melty so you don’t have to try adding too many other ingredients like milk or cream. Unfortunately, velveeta isn’t really known for it’s exquisite flavor, so you might want to experiment with something bolder here. Mild cheddar tends to be the next step up and provides a good base that won’t offend your roommates with the smell. Try that to start out and add in smaller portions of smellier stuff like white cheddar or jack cheeses to get the flavor you want. Dairy farmers at the local farmer’s market can be your new best friends here.

Yum!

Fixins! Aside from getting crazy with the cheeses, this is what sets restaurant-grade mac & cheese apart from store-bought stuff. One easy add-on is tossing some breadcrumbs on top and baking the whole thing in the oven so you get that awesome golden brown crust on top. Chances are you have some bread around your apartment that’s in danger of going bad if you don’t use it up, so lightly toast a slice or two (it’ll get more brown in the baking process, so don’t burn it) and crush it up over top of you’re almost-done batch of macaroni and cheese.

If you want to get really creative and look healthy at the same time, try steaming some broccoli and stirring it in. If you’re more of a carnivore, try going the other way and mixing in crispy pieces of bacon or pieces of ham. I guess you could try hamburger for a hamburger helper-style thing, but I’ve found pork products are really the easiest to work with here.

Finally, if you’re a vegan this is all moot, but I can always recommend a good tomato sauce.

In the meantime, feel free to leave suggestions for next week’s comfort food in the comments!