The Easiest Cheesiest Macaroni & Cheese Recipe

Craving mac & cheese? Don't you dare pick up that blue box. In the same amount of time, you can make the best bowl of even cheesier macaroni with no orange mystery powder.

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Master this four-ingredient cheese sauce, then let your creativity run wild and experiment with add-ins like bacon, vegetables, chicken, and even baking it with a crumb topping. The simplicity of the sauce makes the cheese the star of the dish, so try different cheeses (or a mix of a few!) to give the dish a completely new flavor. 

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This recipe is for a single entree-sized serving, or two side dish servings. Read on for the condensed recipe, or get it broken down in detail below.

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The Easiest Cheesiest Mac & Cheese 
Serves 1-2

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Ingredients:

1 cup milk, warmed

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp flour

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup dry elbow noodles

Salt

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Bring a pot of salted water to boil, then add the noodles. Let cook until al dente (about 5-6 minutes), then drain, reserving 1/4 cup pasta water. 

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Heat milk until warm and set aside. Melt butter over medium heat, then whisk in flour. Cook for a minute, then gradually whisk in milk. Bring to boil, then cook for 2-3 minutes to thicken. Turn off heat. Add cheese and let sit until melted, then stir to combine. Stir in cooked noodles and pasta water and let sit for a minute to thicken. Add salt to taste, if desired.  

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The Details

Feel like you need a bit more help? Read on for each step broken down in detail. 

Step 1: Boil Water

Easy, right? Even if your extent of "cooking" skill is making that blue box stuff mentioned earlier, you can do this step. Fill a pot with water, add enough salt to make the water taste salty like the sea (about 2 tbsp), turn the heat to high, and wait until you see bubbles rapidly rising to the surface. Since we want the noodles to be ready to go as soon as the sauce is finished, we want to start this part first. Plus, we can move onto the next steps while we wait for the bubbles.  

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Measure out 1 cup of dry elbow noodles now and set it aside so that once your water boils, you're ready to toss it in.

Step 2: Start the Sauce

First, we'll make the roux.  

What the heck is a roux? 

This may be one of those things that throw you off when reading through recipes if you don't consider yourself a "cook." A roux is just a simple term for equal parts flour and melted butter used to thicken sauce. That's all. 

Now, isn't it so much easier just to say "roux" than all that? And don't you feel sorta fancy?

Pop the butter in a small saucepan, turn the heat to medium, and let it melt. After the last solid part of the butter is gone, add in the flour and, using a whisk, stir to combine it into a thick bubbly mixture. Let it cook for a minute while you whisk it. You'll notice it start to turn golden, and that's a good thing. This gets rid of the raw flour taste. 

Note that your water is probably boiling at this point, so go ahead and toss in the noodles and give it a quick stir. 

Step 3: Add the Milk

Now that the roux is ready, we're going to slowly whisk in the milk. I like to add about 1/4 cup at a time, whisking between each to fully incorporate the milk into the roux. 

You'll notice that when you first add in the milk, it will immediately turn into a thick paste. Whisk it until smooth, and then add some more. It will get thinner and thinner with each bit of milk you add. We always want to go slow when we add in the milk so we don't get lumps.

Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring frequently. You don't want to constantly stir, just enough to make sure the part of the sauce touching the bottom of the pan doesn't sit for enough time to scorch. Once it begins to boil, let it cook for 5 minutes until it is noticeably thickened. You'll know it's ready if you touch the surface of the sauce with the back of a metal spoon and it coats it.

Step 4: Drain the Noodles

We want our noodles to be al dente. 

Okay, again with the words. I'll explain. 

Check on your noodles after boiling them for 5-6 minutes. They're ready when they're soft enough to chew, but firm enough that they bounce back when squeezed. This is al dente. 

Pour them into a colander, and make sure to save about 1/4 cup of the water you cooked the noodles in. We'll add it to the cheese sauce along with the noodles. The starch that came off the dry noodles when cooking that now lives in the pasta water will help to thicken everything up when we mix it together. 

Step 5: Finish the Sauce

Turn off the heat and add in 1 cup of shredded cheese. Shred some sharp cheddar off the block. It really will enhance the flavor of the entire dish since there are so few ingredients and the cheese really is the star of the show. Pre-packaged shredded cheese also contains an anti-caking agent, which tends to make the sauce the slightest bit grainy. However, it works in a pinch. 

Stir in the cheese just until it is covered in the béchamel. 

Wait, what? 

Ok, remember when you made that roux, mixed in the milk, and let it thicken? Congrats, you made a béchamel! 

Béchamel is a basic white sauce that you can use to make so many other things, and it is one of the building blocks of French cooking. Let the cheese sit for a minute to allow it to melt, then stir to combine.

You are now one step closer to becoming a French chef.

Almost Done!

Combine the cooked noodles, pasta water, and cheese sauce until all the noodles are coated, then let sit for a minute to thicken. Give it a taste. Since we salted the water the noodles were cooked in and added a bit of it to the whole mixture, there is enough salt for my taste, but you can always add a little more at this point. Mix in a small amount at a time, taste and adjust if needed. 

That's it! You have successfully made your own macaroni & cheese from scratch. 

Isn't it so much better than the fake stuff? 

Now that you have a great basic recipe, use it as a starting point for your own ideas. Mix in roasted broccoli, bacon, or sautéed mushrooms and onions when you combine the noodles and cheese sauce. Make a baked casserole version by placing all the ingredients in a greased casserole dish and baking at 350 for 30 minutes. Mix together a tablespoon of melted butter with 1/4 cup of bread crumbs and sprinkle on top before baking to make a buttery, crispy crust. Have fun with it! 

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Again, this recipe is for one entree-sized portion or two side dish-sized portions, but take a look at the ingredient list. Notice how every ingredient is 1? This makes it so easy not only to memorize the recipe, but to multiply it for a family or larger group.

If you're serving it as an entree, multiply each ingredient by how many people you have. For example, if there are 4 people, you'll need 4 cups of milk, 4 tbsp butter, 4 tbsp flour, etc. all the way down the list.

If you're serving it as a side dish, take the number of people you're serving and divide it by 2, then use that number for how much of each ingredient you'll need. For example, if there are 6 people, you'll need 3 cups of milk, 3 tbsp butter, etc. 

Hope you enjoy this recipe, and don't ever go back to that blue box!