The best Homemade Mac and Cheese

 
I think we could all use some good ol’ comfort food a lot more often in our lives. Comfort food for me usually comes in the form of pasta and it’s the same for my kids. The one comfort food we can all agree on is some delicious, homemade Mac and Cheese. I’m so excited to share our recipe with you today for the best homemade Mac and Cheese.

By request of my kids, or necessity

The best homemade Mac and Cheese recipe is a recipe I developed because of my kids’ love for Panera’s mac and cheese. This one is just so easy to make at home. It’s literally a less than 30-minute meal. That means I can make it for a fast lunch or dinner any day of the week. It’s just important to have the right cheese. And once you have this and see how easy it is, you’ll never go back to powder mac and cheese again. And maybe stop buying it at Panera too?

For the longest time my son had a massive eating problem. The problem was he wouldn’t eat at all. Through food therapy and a lot of doctor’s visits, we discovered he was really having more of a texture issue. At one point he was in the 13th percentile and I was going crazy with grief about he wasn’t eating enough calories. However, he would eat the Panera Mac and Cheese. He was a milk lover and mac and cheese was one of the easier things to get him to eat.

The best homemade Mac and Cheese starts with the right cheese

Since I started making the best homemade Mac and Cheese recipe as a straight Panera copycat recipe, I knew I had to nail the creamy texture. To do that, you really need to use the correct ingredients.

The kind of cheese and the brand of cheese you use to make the best homemade Mac and Cheese is VERY important. For this recipe I use two kinds of cheese. The first is Cracker Barrel Vermont Sharp White. This cheese doesn’t taste like yellow cheddar. It’s smooth, it’s creamy and It tastes pretty darn close to the Panera cheese. The second cheese is white American Cheese from the deli and rip the slices into pieces.

If you use normal cheddar cheeses or cheese pre-shredded from a bag, your cheese sauce will have a very thick and gritty texture to it. The texture will be all wrong. Personally,I don’t like cheddar cheese at all when it’s cooked which is why it’s important to make this with the right cheese to make the best homemade mac and cheese.

Start with all the prep to make it the best

Since it’s a pretty fast process to make the best homemade mac and cheese, I would recommend having all your ingredients next to you as you go. You especially want to make sure you have the butter, flour, milk and heavy cream pre-measured. These are possibly the most important ingredients for making a smooth, creamy sauce – maybe even more so than the cheese itself.

Also, make sure your pots are ready. Start to boil your water for the noodles before your shred the cheese and gather the ingredients. I’ve found this post {HERE} so easy to use for making noodles! It strains them too! I use this Dutch Oven to make the sauce because this recipe makes a lot of sauce and then I can just pour my noodles into it. I also use the Dutch Oven for all my soups, breads and stews. It’s especially great for my No-Knead Bread {HERE}.

Making a Roux

A Roux is a mixture of flour and fat cooked together to thicken sauces. The flour is added once the fat has melted or warmed. The fatty ingredients generally used include butter, oil, bacon fat or lard. The French often use butter. In Cajun cuisine they often use bacon fat or oil to get a darker color and Central European countries tend to use lard or vegetable oil. For the best homemade mac and cheese, you will want to use unsalted butter.

Basically, you let the butter melt on a low flame in a pot. Continuously move it around so it doesn’t brown. Once melted, add the flour and whisk the mixture until it’s smooth. You want to add the milk almost right away once it’s combined so keep it close by.

Add ons and toppings

This is a basic recipe for the best Homemade Mac and Cheese, but there are plenty of ways to plus this up! First, you can add a bit of garlic powder to the sauce. This will give it a cheesy garlic flavor, but note, it will no longer taste like a Panera copycat. Some recipes suggest adding in onion powder but in my experience, the garlic powder is better.

And don’t forget the toppings. While the best Homemade Mac and Cheese is delicious on it’s own, there’s so many other wonderful was to make it better. Bacon is a big hit in our house, hence my photos. But avocado, pepper, caramelized onions, tomatoes, chicken and even some hot sauce are delicious additions. Basically, make the base recipe and then have fun with it!

You can find the full recipe for the best Homemade Mac and Cheese below! If you’re looking for other pasta recipes, click {HERE}.

The Best Homemade Mac and Cheese

This is the best homemade Mac and Cheese that your whole family will love.

5 from 8 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: dinner, lunch

Cuisine: American

Keyword: homemade mac and cheese, panera copycat, panera copycat mac and cheese, the best homemade mac and cheese, white mac and cheese

Author: Rachel

Ingredients

• 1 cup + 3 Tbsp. butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 8 oz.  Cracker Barrel Vermont Sharp White, shredded
• 10 slices White America Cheese, sliced from the deli and the torn into pieces.
• 1.5 tsp. salt
• 1/2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 1.5 tsp. ground mustard
• Optional: 1-2 tsp. garlic salt
• Optional: Bacon
• Optional: 1 tsp. pepper I like this with pepper but my kids prefer it without.

Instructions

• Cook the noodles in a large pot according to package directions.
• While the noodles cook, the your butter to a warm pot and stir it continuously. You do not want it to burn or brown.
• Once the butter is melted immediately add flour and make a roux. Whisk continuously until well blended. This will make the base for the mac and cheese so it's really important. You don't want it to be grainy still.
• Once the Roux is done add the milk and heavy cream. Simmer. DO NOT BRING TO A BOIL.
• Add the cheese and stir continuously over a low flame until it is all melted and combined.
• Add the salt, Dijon mustard and ground mustard. Stir in well.
• Add additional salt and pepper to taste.
• Once the noodles are done, drain them well and then add them to the cheese mix.
• Serve immediately.