Clean recipe · cooking.nytimes.com
Easy Baked Mac and Cheese
You don’t have to boil the pasta ahead to make this easy baked macaroni and cheese. The noodles will absorb enough moisture from the milk to cook through while the pan is in the oven. Enriched with cream cheese (or cottage cheese, ricotta or sour cream, depending on what you have), and topped with plenty of Cheddar and a crunchy, Parmesan-spiked bread-crumb topping, it’s a simple, adaptable and crowd-pleasing recipe that you can probably even make from what’s already in your pantry.
Original recipe: cooking.nytimes.com
- Yield:
- 6 servings
- Prep:
- 15 min
- Cook:
- 1 hr
- Total:
- 1 hr 15 min
Adjust servings, check off ingredients, and save a copy in the recipe reader.
Ingredients
- 4 ½ cups milk
- 1 (8-ounce) block cream cheese (or use 1 cup cottage cheese, ricotta or sour cream)
- Salt and black pepper
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 teaspoon mustard powder or mustard (optional)
- Pinch of ground cayenne or nutmeg (or both)
- 1 pound elbow macaroni or another small pasta shape
- 1 pound/5 cups grated Cheddar (or a mix of cheeses)
- ¼ cup butter
- 1 ½ cups bread crumbs, preferably panko
- ½ cup grated Parmesan, plus more for topping if needed
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 425 degrees.
- In the blender, combine milk, cream cheese, 1½ teaspoons salt, garlic, mustard powder (if using), a lot of black pepper and a pinch of cayenne, nutmeg or both. Blend until smooth.
- Put pasta in a 9-by-13-inch baking pan, and scatter Cheddar on top.
- Pour the milk mixture over the macaroni and cheese in the pan.
- Make the topping: Melt butter in a pan over medium heat or in the microwave, and stir in bread crumbs and Parmesan. Scatter the mixture over the top of the macaroni.
- Bake for 20 minutes, then increase the heat to 450 degrees and continue to bake until the top is golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Let rest for at least 10 minutes before serving; this gives the pasta a chance to absorb all of the milk.