recipe: macaroni cheese with cheat’s béchamel
here’s a recipe for loaded macaroni cheese with corn, bacon, and onion. @ariashark and i have been enjoying this for over four years.
why “cheat’s béchamel”? well instead of making our sauce by adding cheddar cheese to béchamel sauce, which is in turn made by adding milk to roux (butter and wheat flour in a 1:1 paste), we make our sauce by adding cheddar cheese to milk thickened with corn flour.
- 1x brown onion
- 1x 400g can of corn kernels
- 300g bacon, shortcut
- 500g pasta, short (curls, elbows, macaroni, shells, …)
- 200g cheese, cheddar or tasty
- 300mL milk
- 3tbsp oil, ideally neutral (canola) or close to neutral (peanut)
- 1tbsp corn flour
- 0.5tsp cayenne pepper
now for the steps.
- start a pot of water for pasta, and also start a saucepan of milk gently heating on the smallest burner at medium, leaving 50mL or so in a mixing bowl or measuring jug.
- cut the onion into fingernail-sized pieces.
- cut the cheese into small cubes.
- cut the bacon into thumbnail-sized pieces. use shortcut bacon, save the nice streaky stuff for times where you wanna cook in rendered fat like brekky.
- start frying the bacon and onion (but not the cheese) in a neutral oil like canola oil, or a close-to-neutral oil like peanut oil. use a small pan if your stove is cramped like mine, but avoid using a pot because those don’t tend to hold heat well enough for frying.
- salt the water thoroughly, but not literally as salty as the sea. now add a short pasta, like curls, elbows, macaroni, or shells. @ariashark is a big Curls Enjoyer :3
you will make the sauce in three phases: preheating phase, thickening phase, and melting phase. avoid boiling the sauce at any point other than the end of the thickening phase or the end of the melting phase. if your sauce is boiling at other times, your burner is too big or turned up too high.
- when the milk starts giving off a decent amount of wisps of steam, whisk the corn flour into the milk you set aside, then add that milk to your sauce. this ends the preheating phase and begins the thickening phase. you must now stir the sauce with a spoon thoroughly, scraping the entire bottom of the saucepan, without stopping until the end of the thickening phase.
- after a few minutes, the sauce will start thickening over the course of 1–2min, from the thickness of milk to the thickness of a light custard. eventually the thickening will slow down or even stop, and once that happens the thickening phase has ended.
troubleshooting: if the milk never seems to thicken, increase your burner, but avoid increasing your burner more than necessary to make the waiting time finite.
- add the cheese and some cayenne pepper to taste (suggest 0.25–0.5tsp), and now the melting phase begins. stir frequently, but not necessarily continuously.
- remember to stir the bacon and onions frequently, and stop them when adequately browned. stop the sauce when all of the lumps of cheese have fully melted away. stop and drain the pasta to taste (al dente).
- drain your corn kernels, then add them to the pasta.
- add the bacon, onion, and sauce to the pasta.
- mix thoroughly and serve in a bowl. suggest spoon when freshly cooked, but fork when eating leftovers out the fridge.
(images uploaded with my cohost bulk image uploader)