Our Favorite Ina Garten Mac and Cheese Recipe Videos | Barefoot Contessa | Food Network

I'm making truffled mac and cheese. So I'm starting with mushrooms. I've sliced cremini and shiitake mushrooms, and I'm just sauteing them in butter and olive oil, just until they're tender, which they are. It's perfect. I'm gonna add a little bit of cream sherry. The sweetness is really good with them. There's something about sherry and mushrooms that are really good together. You'll get infused into the mushrooms, but it's also gonna deglaze the pan, so you get all the flavor into the truffle mac and cheese. Mm, next, the sauce. So I'm starting with truffle butter. It's a three-ounce pot. I buy several of them. I keep them in the freezer, and it's amazingly not that expensive. I use white truffle butter, because I really like the flavor. I'll add half a cup of all-purpose flour. Whisk it constantly for two minutes. Pour in four cups of scalded whole milk, and cook the sauce, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon for two minutes. Okay, the white sauce is done. Look how nice and creamy it is. Just fabulous. So now I'm gonna add lots of cheese. So I've got four cups of Gruyere. It's kind of got a really nutty flavor, and three cups of grated extra-sharp cheddar, and then lots of seasonings. Classic gratin seasoning is nutmeg, and I really like it with mac and cheese. So just a sprinkling of nutmeg, and then lots of salt and pepper. Just gonna stir this in. Oh, this smells good. It looks good. This is like classic comfort food, all dressed up for a party. Okay, I think the pasta's ready. So I'm gonna just drain it. I'm just gonna put it right in the bowl. Lots of pasta. Okay, now I'm just gonna put the sauce into the pasta, and I wanna do it while it's still hot. You can really smell the nutmeg. It's a little subtle, but it really makes a difference. And then stir all this in. That's a big bowl of pasta. This is really fit for a birthday party. And then I'm gonna add probably 2 1⁄3 of the mushrooms that I cooked. I'll save some for the top. So the cremini mushrooms, shiitakes, the aroma's gonna be all the way through the house. Okay, that's nicely mixed. Now I'm just gonna put it in a baking dish. This is a great oven-to-table dish. Okay, just put it right in the dish. So nice. You can really make this early in the day or even the day before, and just throw it in the oven before dinner. And just because I can't leave well enough alone, I've made herb breadcrumbs to put on top, and it gives a nice, really crunchy topping and lots of flavor. Okay, one more thing, just so everybody knows there are mushrooms in this and truffles. I'm just gonna do some mushrooms right down the middle of the dish. Into the oven, 375 degrees for 40 minutes, and this is gonna be amazing. Mm, and that's truffle mac and cheese. Who knew mac and cheese could be so elegant? That's a little taste. Mm, that's the best mac and cheese I've ever made. When it comes to comfort food, I'd say mac and cheese is pretty high on everybody's list. So for dinner tomorrow night, I thought I'd make a grown-up mac and cheese with bacon and blue cheese. Okay, so I need one and a half cups of milk, and I'm gonna heat it up. And then in another pot, two tablespoons of butter. Turn on the heat. Two tablespoons of flour. So I'm just gonna cook these together for about two minutes. You don't want the butter to burn. I'm gonna whisk them together. So this cooked butter and flour is gonna act as a thickener for the sauce. Now I'm gonna add the hot milk to it, and it's gonna thicken it. Okay, I'm just gonna cook that over low heat until it just gets a little thicker. Okay, let's see how this is doing. Oh, the white sauce is just perfect now. It's thickened, it's not incredibly thick, but what it does is just coat the spoon. So now off the heat, I'm gonna add all the cheeses. So a half a cup of Gruyere, a third of a cup of cheddar, and about two ounces of Roquefort. You can really use any kind of blue cheese, but Roquefort has a particularly wonderful flavor. A little bit of nutmeg. It's a really classic spice that's used in gratins. You sort of won't know it's there, but it'll make everything else taste better. Give it a stir. So the cheeses all melt in. That's a much better way to do bacon, so it's not splattering all over the place. Just chop it up. Just put it right in. Okay, time to drain the pasta. So I'm just gonna put this right back into the sauce to stir it around. This is so easy to make in a large quantity, but since it's just Jeffrey and me, I'm just making it for two. And the best thing is I can make it today and bake it off tomorrow. And then I can spend tomorrow with Jeffrey instead of cooking. Okay, a little bit of a topping so it's sort of crunchy on the top. So just take two pieces of white bread, cut off the crust, and just chop them up. Put them in the bowl of a food processor with a steel blade. And just a little bit of fresh basil, a couple of leaves. Just put it right in the food processor with the bread. And just pulse it until it's crumbs. Okay, and just right on top of the mac and cheese so it's creamy on the bottom and crunchy on the top. Okay. Into the fridge. I'm gonna bake it tomorrow night for a cozy and comforting dinner for Jeffrey and me. So I'm gonna make lobster mac and cheese, and it starts with the sauce. The French call it a roux, which sounds really fancy. It's not. Start with butter, six tablespoons of butter. And I'm just gonna melt that. And then later I'm gonna add some flour for thickener. Okay, the next thing is heating up a quart of milk. And what this does is thicken the sauce. When I add the cheese and the pasta, it gives a nice thick mac and cheese, classic mac and cheese. Then I'm gonna mix into the butter half a cup of flour. And the thing about making a roux or white sauce is you want the flour to cook for a minute or two so it doesn't have that sort of raw flour taste. Okay, milk looks like it's hot, just under simmering. Just gonna pour it in. And now I'm gonna stir it until it gets nice and thick. So this is white sauce, that's it. It's just thickened milk and it's gonna make fantastic mac and cheese. Okay, I'm gonna turn the heat off next to the cheese. That's the good part. So that's about two cups of grated cheddar. And I'm gonna do four cups of grated gruyere. Just cut it so it fits in the feed tube, just like that. Okay, into the pan with lots of flavorings. I just think it's gonna go so well with lobster. That's a lot of cheese. It makes eight servings. One tablespoon of salt, I use kosher salt. One teaspoon of pepper. Give it a little teaspoon of nutmeg. Sort of a classic French gratin seasoning. Just I think brings out the nuttiness of the cheeses. Stir that together. Mm, this is gonna be really good mac and cheese. Okay, next I need some pasta. Once it's drained, it goes right back into the sauce and cheese. Yeah, okay. It's delicious. All the pasta and the cheese and wait till I put lobster in. It's gonna get even better. Okay, I'm gonna cut up one and a half pounds of lobster. So I'm gonna leave some of the big pieces whole and then the really big ones I'm gonna chop up. Okay, all this is just gonna go right into the pot. This may be one of my favorite dishes of all time. Big stir. Okay, now I'm gonna get the topping ready. First I need some melted butter. Two tablespoons of melted butter. And one and a half cups of breadcrumbs. So these are breadcrumbs, it's really fresh bread that I just ground up in the food processor. And what this is gonna do is when it's in the oven, it's gonna get brown and crusty. So I'm just gonna sprinkle this right on top. Into the oven, 375 degrees for 30 minutes and they're gonna be bubbly and crusty on the top. It's gonna be so good. Lobster mac and cheese. Now I don't know anybody that wouldn't want that for dinner. Wow, smells fantastic. First thing I'm gonna make is this mac and cheese, which is traditional mac and cheese with the volume turned up. So to make real mac and cheese, as opposed to the stuff in the box, first thing I wanna do is make a bechamel sauce, which is really a fancy word for white sauce. So I'm gonna heat one quart of milk and then in another pan, I'm gonna melt six tablespoons of butter and add half a cup of flour and cook them together for about two minutes while I'm whisking it. You don't want the butter to burn. This is the kind of sauce you use in a gratin, which sounds fancy in French, but it's perfect for mac and cheese. Okay, now I just wanna slowly add the hot milk and you'll see the whole thing becomes a really nice, thick white sauce. Add it whisking. Actually, I think you can just... Whoa, that's hot. How about forget slowly, just dump it all in. Okay, there, that's fast. And now off the heat, just gonna add some flavorings. Tablespoon of salt. Seems like a lot, but remember, we're putting a lot of pasta in this. Half a teaspoon of pepper and half a teaspoon of nutmeg, which is sort of a classic gratin seasoning I thought would be really good with mac and cheese. Just whisk it together. I actually think nutmeg brings out the flavor in the cheese, which brings me to the next thing, cheese. Lots of good cheese. So the first thing I'm gonna do is put in 12 ounces of good Swiss gruyere. It's a really nutty cheese and it's just wonderful in mac and cheese. Okay, little piece left over for the cook. The second cheese I use is cheddar and I'm gonna use eight ounces of good cheddar. And that would have taken a lot of time if I'd done it by hand. Lots of cheese. Okay, then I'm gonna put the cheese into the sauce. A lot of cheese in this sauce. But that's why it tastes so good. Okay, just stir it in. So I'm gonna combine this now with macaroni, which I cooked. Put that in a bowl. Add the sauce. It's about a pound of macaroni or cavatappi. Okay, mix that all together. Boy, this looks like enough for a crowd. My experience, everybody loves it, so they eat a lot. So I'm gonna pour this into a dish and I'm gonna do sliced tomatoes and breadcrumbs on the top. It gives a nice little crunch and delicious flavor with it. So it really is macaroni and cheese, but for a party. Okay, into the dish. Just right on top, really simple. Okay, right on top of the tomatoes and the mac and cheese. I'm gonna bake it at 375 for 30 minutes and it's gonna be bubbly and delicious. It's mac and cheese, but better.