Maybe you're eating mac 'n' cheese out of a box right now. It's probably great. But with just a tiny bit more effort, you could be having a hero's meal.
Step 1: Salt your pasta water GENEROUSLY.
Before you put any pasta in it, the water should taste like the ocean. Just throw a small handful of kosher salt in there. But not too small — noodles absorb the water they're being cooked in, so this is the best way to season them. Otherwise they're just taking in tasteless water.
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Step 2: Don't overcook the noodles.
You can get a loose sense of how long they should cook from the directions on the package. But if you plan to bake the mac 'n' cheese — which is necessary to achieve any kind of crispy topping — don't boil them all the way until tender. Instead, take them out a minute or two early while they are still toothsome.
Step 3: Make a real sauce.
This is the most important part (aside from salting the pasta water). Good mac 'n' cheese doesn't come from shredding a bunch of cheese onto cooked pasta. You're going to fold that pasta into a silky cheesy sauce.
1. Melt butter (like 4 Tbsp. or 1/2 a stick) 2. Add an equal amount of flour (so again, 4 Tbsp.) 3. Whisk to combine and cook for a few minutes so that flour doesn't taste raw. Now you've got what is called a "roux" — equal parts butter and flour cooked together. 4. Add around 2.5 cups of milk or cream and whisk again. Watch it thicken and magically turn into sauce.
And that, sirs, is how to make bechamel sauce, one of the five mother sauces of classic French cuisine. Technically it needs some grated nutmeg and white pepper to be a bechamel, but Jacques Pepin isn't going to bust in and bitch slap you for skipping that part, should you choose to. (Although don't you kind of wish he would?)
Source: Photos courtesy of Pioneer Woman Cooks
Step 4: Add spices and seasoning (this step's optional).
This is an optional step, but a lot of people swear by adding a teaspoon of dried mustard at this point. You could also add cayenne for kick, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, and/or Worcestershire sauce. Don't go overboard, but play around with what you like.
Source: Photos courtesy of Pioneer Woman Cooks
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