Mac and Vegetable and Cheese

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I'm a snob about mac and cheese and haven't found any restaurant or store-bought version that I like more than my version. I've been using the same recipe for years, but I recently tried adding more vegetables via puree and I like it even more now! The great thing about this recipe is that, despite the snobbery, you will dump everything for the sauce into the same pot you boiled your pasta in. No crazy roux shit here.

You can use pretty much any warm-colored or white vegetable you like... or any vegetable in general if you don't care what color the sauce is. Warm-colored vegetables will make the sauce look like box mac and cheese radioactive yellow.

The mustard is an essential part of this recipe. Give it a chance even if you don't like mustard. It is important that you get one that isn't the bright yellow kind.

Ingredients

  • 1 pound pasta (elbows, cavatappi, dinosaur shapes, etc.)
  • ~1 tbsp butter
  • Half and half or milk
  • 2 carrots, peeled and sliced
  • 2-3 bell peppers, sliced
  • ~1/2 pound SHARP cheddar cheese, shredded
  • Dijon or brown mustard
  • ~2 tbsp sour cream (or creme fraiche, crema Mexicana, etc.)

Directions

  1. Melt the butter over medium-low heat, then add the vegetables. Saute until the vegetables are soft.
  2. Take the vegetables off the heat and let them cool. Transfer them to a blender with a little bit of half and half (or milk) and blend until smooth. The amount of liquid you need to add depends on the liquid content of your vegetables; you want a puree that's pourable without being liquid.
  3. Boil the pasta until al dente, then drain. Put the pasta back into the pot.
  4. Add the cheese and vegetable puree to the pot and stir vigorously until the cheese is melted. If you work fast, the heat of the pot is enough to melt the cheese, but if it's not melting, turn the heat to low.

    Add more half and half if the sauce is still too thick. Also add a generous amount of mustard.

    5. Right before serving, mix in the sour cream.

Notes

Usually, I think half and half and heavy cream can be used interchangeably, but here you will want half and half/milk because heavy cream doesn't thin the sauce enough.

I strongly encourage you to use sharp cheddar, but at the very least, don't use mild. The cheddar forms the base of the sauce so I don't like to completely remove it, but you can augment it with other melty cheeses like gruyere and gouda. (I usually just use cheddar because cheese is expensive.)

Other vegetables that will work and preserve the color of the sauce are cauliflower, sweet potato, butternut squash, and pumpkin. These all tend to be a little bland, which is either good or bad depending on your preferences. I like the flavor the bell peppers add.

I like to garnish my mac with sriracha and green onions. My green vegetable of choice is peas and/or broccoli. I'm also known to throw some cut up hot dogs in there if I'm feeling really wild.