Mac and cheese is a top-tier comfort food in my household. I’ll eat it just about any which way, including on its own, straight from the pot I made it in. I only have two requirements for my mac and cheese: one, it needs to taste distinctly of sharp cheddar; two, it has to be super creamy. No lumps, no chunks, and plenty of sauce.
I’ve tried all kinds of recipes for mac and cheese, each promising perfection. I’ve mixed and matched cheeses: gouda, gruyère, parmesan, and pepper Jack. I’ve used a roux and made recipes without one. I’ve made baked mac and cheese with breadcrumbs and other weird ingredients.
While almost all of the variations I’ve tried have been worth eating (mac and cheese is like pizza in that even bad versions are at least edible), my favorite mac and cheese recipes use evaporated milk instead of regular milk or even cream.
I once thought that the more fat you add to mac and cheese the better, and I deployed heavy cream or half-and-half instead of milk in my mac. But even though fat is a flavorful component in and of itself, it also coats the tongue, dulling other flavors in the process. Yes, fat is an important part of mac and cheese, but you get plenty of that from the cheese itself, and ultimately you have to balance fat with flavor for the best-tasting results.
What Is Evaporated Milk?
Why not just use whole milk instead? What makes evaporated milk superior? Evaporated milk is exactly what it sounds like: milk that has been reduced into a more concentrated liquid. In the process of making evaporated milk, about 60 percent of the water content of the milk is removed, making it a highly concentrated form of milk. When the water is removed from milk, you’re left with a liquid that contains more fat and more protein.
That higher concentration of milk proteins means evaporated milk is more stable, so it’s less likely to “break” or curdle. Evaporated milk also usually contains stabilizers, such as carrageenan, which help keep your mac’s sauce super smooth and silky. You could achieve a similar result by tossing a chunk of Velveeta or American cheese into the sauce (these cheeses are rich in stabilizers), but then you have to buy a whole package you might not use, whereas it’s easy to use a whole can of evaporated milk in one pot of mac and cheese.
Using evaporated milk also means you don’t have to make a roux. Many mac and cheese recipes require a roux for thickening and to stabilize the sauce. While this approach certainly works, it can leave the sauce thick and gloppy, and the flour dulls the flavor of the cheese. Evaporated milk doesn’t have that drawback, and pouring a can of the stuff into a pot is a lot less work than making a roux.
How To Make Mac and Cheese With Evaporated Milk
To make an easy mac and cheese with evaporated milk, cook eight ounces of pasta a minute shy of al dente in well-salted water, then drain. Return the drained pasta to the pot, and add a 12-ounce can of evaporated milk and all your cheese (you’ll want 12 ounces of cheese for this amount of pasta) and seasonings. Stir it constantly over low heat until the sauce thickens.
Just make sure you’re working with evaporated milk and not condensed milk. While both of these canned, shelf-stable milks are made by the same process, condensed milk — also called sweetened condensed milk — has added sugar, which has absolutely no place in a pot of mac and cheese.
Butter and flour: The combination of butter and flour thickens our creamy cheese sauce. You'll cook them together on the stove and then add the milk. The mixture thickens, and you can add your cheese. Easy!
You can thicken cheese sauce further by adding more flour or even using a couple of teaspoons of cornstarch. In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch or flour with a cup of water. The cold water will create a slurry. Stir the slurry into the cheese sauce over medium heat, and let the sauce boil and thicken.
Pro Tip: Don't use pre-shredded cheese. Many store-bought shredded cheese brands coat their cheese with an anti-caking agent than can make sauces grainy and less creamy. While it requires a bit of an arm workout, grating your own yields the best texture.
Starting the pasta in cold water works just as well as adding it to already-boiling water but cooks faster and with less energy. A combination of multiple thickeners and emulsifying agents—cornstarch, evaporated milk, eggs, and American cheese—ensures an extra-gooey texture with real cheese flavor.
Instead of water, cook your pasta in milk! Now, you usually add milk later in the cooking process to make the cheese sauce, but for an extra touch of luscious creaminess, incorporate the milk at the very beginning of cooking.
A roux is a thickening agent made of one part fat and one part flour that makes up the base of this creamy mac and cheese. To make the roux, start by melting butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour, salt, and pepper and stir until smooth. Slowly pour in milk and stir until the mixture is smooth and bubbling.
For oven-baked mac and cheese, put it back in the oven. Add some milk. Add some moisture into the mac and cheese to get some of the sauciness back. Use 1 tablespoon milk for every 1 cup mac and cheese.
Add 1 tablespoon of milk per cup of mac and cheese and mix to incorprate as much as possible. *If you'd like to add more creaminess and flavor, substitute half-and-half or cream.
Keep the heat down while boiling mac and cheese in milk
High temperatures can break the matrix of fat, proteins, and water in milk, causing it to separate and curdle. These lumps and grainy bits ruin the texture of your creamy mac and cheese, so keep the heat on medium-low from start to finish.
Gordon Ramsay's mac and cheese is a simplified recipe. Just boil pasta in milk and then, add butter, cheese, salt, and pepper to it. Merge all the elements and Gordon Ramsay's mac and cheese will be ready in no time.
Can you put too much cheese in mac and cheese? Yes, adding more cheese than a recipe calls for will not improve the dish. Too much cheese will result in a dish that is heavy and greasy.
Keep baked macaroni and cheese moist by adding plenty of milk and not too much flour. The ratios I use in this recipe are perfect for a moist and cheesy macaroni and cheese recipe!
The starch in the water is what helps the sauce adhere to your pasta. Rinsing pasta will cool it and prevent absorption of your sauce. The only time you should ever rinse your pasta is when you are going to use it in a cold dish like a pasta salad.
Always add the cheese off the heat. Grate it in advance, add it a bit at a time, whisking until it dissolves, then add more. Don'tget impatient and dump it all in at once. Adding cheese while the pan is on the heat tightens the proteins, which will make lumps in your sauce.
To avoid problems, add starch to your cheese sauce to prevent the fat and protein from separating, and — rather than continuously stirring your cheese to melt — allow the heat within the pot to do the heavy lifting, then quickly stir to combine everything.
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