The Creamiest Baked Mac and Cheese!

Hey, welcome to making meals with Mika. Now before we start, please subscribe and like to my page Okay, go ahead do it. Go ahead. Click subscribe. Go ahead. Click like on this video So I am so excited so excited today. I even brought up my good red wig for this one I am sharing my famous. Yes, it is famous macaroni and cheese recipe now Listen during the holidays at least in my family everyone they're tasked with making we're bringing a dish Everybody knows who's going to bring what I am The macaroni and cheese designee. There's no questions. No answers. We don't have to say who's bringing macaroni and cheese Everybody knows that Mika's bringing macaroni and cheese Everyone loves this recipe. So I'm going to share with you my famous Macaroni and cheese recipe now. I'm just giving you how I make it If you want to make this your own that's totally fine. I'm also going to give you a Vegetarian version of it if you want to make it the vegetarian way now, this is very very creamy. It's very indulgent I don't eat like this all the time But when I when I make macaroni and cheese and when I eat macaroni and cheese, I want it to be delicious I want it to be ooey gooey rich just like when you take a spoonful, you know That your heart your heart rate is sped up a little bit because it's a little bit too delicious Someone's put everything in here show you how I make this feel free to make this your own So you're going to start with some elbow macaroni. You need Velveeta cheese. You're going to need some American cheese Okay, we're going to use butter and we are going to use cream of chicken now in order to make this vegetarian All you have to do is swipe off the cream of chicken for some cream of mushroom. All right, we're also going to use Grated sharp cheddar cheese. Now I say this over and over again. I grade my own cheese I go to the store I get the block of cheese and I grade it this It's important to you to grade your own cheese because if you use the already shredded cheese I know it's more convenient, but it has like a wax or a film outside of the shreds to keep them from Melting together. So if you want your cheese to have the ultimate of your macaroni cheese have the ultimate flavor Do not use shredded cheese. Just go ahead and shred your own it takes. I don't know what two three minutes. It's worth it so Shred your own sharp cheddar cheese Fresh garlic. Okay Pepper got some salt a little bit of bouillon and some milk So I am going to show you step by step how to make my famous mac and cheese I hope your family loves it as much as my family loves it Let's get ready to make this meal with me good now the first thing you're gonna do is bring your water to a boil and I am going to cook the pasta as Directed on the label. Okay, I'm gonna cook it as directed now Typically when I'm making regular pasta, I put salt in my water. That's what you're supposed to do That's how you're gonna season your pasta. But for this for mac and cheese, I just put a couple of Teaspoons of bouillon in my water. Haha. Haha. That's that that's adding that flavor. I Snicked it in there. So put the bouillon in the water then If I am going I'm only making this for my husband and I but The recipe on the video It's gonna feed eight people. So I'm reducing the amount that I'm cooking today because it's just two people But if you follow my recipe While you're doing these steps, it will be enough for eight people. So my pasta is added. I'm gonna cook this to Al dente. Al dente means it's not mushy. It has it has some bite to it While the pasta is cooking let's get started on the on the magic cheese sauce as The noodles are cooking. We're gonna make our cheese sauce the star of the mac and cheese. So I'm gonna put about a Tablespoon of butter into this pan Now the key to really good mac and cheese is that it's very flavorful. So a teaspoon I mean a tablespoon of butter into this pan and I'm gonna add My chopped garlic. Yep. I said it chopped garlic and The garlic is going to add layers of flavor to your mac and cheese, okay It smells delicious already. I'm not joking just butter and garlic. Oh my goodness and then make sure your heat is on medium because you want this to be you don't want to Burn your garlic. All right now after that has been in the pot for about 30 seconds. I am going to add my cubed Velveeta Okay Now follow the recipe for the amount that you add. I'm going now Like I said, I'm only cooking this for my husband and I So it's not going to be as much as in the recipe that I'm providing in the comments You add the Velveeta and you want to add just enough milk to cover it to cover the Velveeta, so you're gonna add about a half a cup of milk and then you're going to add all that beautifully hand Hand shredded cheese. Okay and shredded cheese We do not use Already shredded cheese. We don't use it Not for our mac and cheese, you know, it might be good for tacos or good for you know, a quick salad But when you want something it tastes delicious I need you to shred your own cheese. Now. I need to add a little bit of more milk a little bit more milk So this would be the consistency that I want I'm gonna do is I'm going to continue to watch this stirring occasionally until all my cheese Is melted in here It's important to continue to stir and check on your cheese sauce Because it can stick to the bottom of your your pot and it can also burn now once Your cheese sauce has gotten to this consistency and this is the consistency that you want Kind of like if you were to pour this over nachos, it looks like the you know, the the nacho cheese sauce, right? once your Velveeta and your hand shredded cheddar Have melted then You're gonna add Your American cheese. Now. I always add this last because it melts a lot quicker then The Velveeta and the cheddar and you're going to stir this until it's all evenly melted and Then we're gonna add it to our to our pasta This already looks delicious. Oh Looks good The noodles are done. The cheese sauce is done. Let me show you how I put together my mac and cheese. All right So the pasta is nice and hot Perfect texture now the main What makes mac and cheese or any food delicious is flavor? So I season my pasta. All right first, I'm gonna put a couple Yes, a couple of tablespoons of butter. I know you're like, oh my goodness. Yep. I know butter makes everything delicious So and we're putting this directly on the pasta All right we're also going to put a little sea salt now Because cheese is naturally salty. You don't want to over salt your pasta All right, so some sea salt or regular salt. You don't have to use sea salt But don't use seasoning salt or anything like that, no you want to keep your flavors nice and Simple but delicious and then black pepper Yes, black pepper. Yep. So a couple of sprinkles of that now everything in here is already cooked So if you want to see if the seasoning is on point just get a spoon You can get a spoon to sample it But I keep dropping them. I'm gonna eat it. My counter is clean now Now this could use a little more salt But I'm not gonna put More salt in there because I have to add my cheese. I keep dropping them, but I'm gonna eat it cuz it's delicious All right, so Next I'm cream of chicken You know what? So when you reheat your macaroni and cheese the next day, you don't want you still want it to be nice and creamy You don't want it to be all dried out greasy This is what keeps your mac and cheese nice and creamy. Okay this cream of chicken Has that extra level of creaminess So you're gonna put this directly on the noodles make sure everything's all incorporated. It's okay if you spill it Now mind you the recipe that I that I shared Is going to make a big Pyrex pan or a big pan a big baking this a big pan this this size But because it's my husband and I eating this I don't want to make too much macaroni I don't want to make too much macaroni so After Your soup is all incorporated. Make sure it touch every single noodle Every noodle gets the same treatment and make sure all of it is fully incorporated And this is bothering me. I know I have like a little OCD. So the fact that that's on there is bothering me Okay, so We have that all that's all incorporated our cheese sauce has just been marinating on the on the stove and see this is the Consistency that you want and it's okay if there's a little lumps in there because all the cheese is going to melt but you want It to look like you can pour this over nachos. Okay so And then you just look at that. You can't tell me that don't look delicious You're just going to Slowly incorporate your cheese sauce. Now if you notice I'm not putting any eggs in my mac and cheese. That's just my preference I don't want anybody flipping out like eggs. How could you not put eggs? My grandma would use eggs for 30 years. I am NOT knocking your grandma's recipe My mom used to put eggs in her mac and cheese I don't like eggs in my mac and cheese because of the texture to me. It makes it a little more stiff And I don't like my mac and cheese to be stiff I wanted to be spoonable and when I pulled when you know, when I put my spoon in there the cheese oozes out So look at that Look at that and the smell is quite divine right now so Look, I still got some cheese sauce left. I'm not gonna put it in here. I don't want to waste it So I'll probably save it for something else So this is how your mac and cheese should look Look at that. You can technically eat this right now if you wanted to. You technically could because everything in here is done But we're not. We're gonna bake it and make it more delicious now Here comes One of the secrets to my mac and cheese, okay Now I like when you spoon it to the mac and cheese that like some cheese flows out like a lava effect so what I do is I Take about three or four slices of that American cheese and I just dip it on in there. Okay, I just push them in just push them in break it Push it down Make sure your hands are clean. I did eat those couple of noodles off the counter, but I just you know I didn't put my fingers all in my mouth because that would not be good now I just take these and I just dump them. I just push them down randomly throughout my mac and cheese I'm telling y'all these are like little pockets of gold when you spoon it to this mac and cheese And then that American cheese flows out. You're like what? Telling you it's great. And there's no rhyme or reason where to put them Just go ahead hide these just tuck them all the way down in there And once your mac and cheese is done, I'm telling you these just they flow kind of like a like a lava cake You know, you have the center hidden inside. That's what this does And I do this To my mac and cheese. It adds that little extra. Ooh a wow factor Now another key is and then just smooth that out, you know, people know it's hidden in there you hide it smooth it out They don't know the hidden pockets of cheese is in there Now if you want to you can top this with some additional shredded cheese I don't do that because it the cheese on top typically Gets darker a lot faster But you know add as much or as little cheese as you want Like I said make it your own, but this is my recipe. This is exactly how I do it So now I'm gonna put this in the oven and this is going to cook for about 20 minutes You don't want to over bake it You don't want to cook it where it's dry because the purpose of adding all this creamy this creamy Goodness is so your mac and cheese won't be dry. So I'm gonna put this in the oven for about 20 minutes We're gonna come back and we're gonna taste it. You're gonna see how creamy and delicious this is. Okay, okay The mac and cheese is out of the oven Lift this up to show you this is what you want it to look like. Okay It's nice and brown and bubbly I'm gonna cut into this so you can see Now you guys mac and cheese should be simple It's not like you got to mix a whole stuff a lot of stuff together have 5011 cheeses Macaroni should be nice simple creamy Just indulging and delicious, so And this is this is what you want your inside to look like y'all see that you see that Just nice and spoonable the top is crisp There's no egg in this so It's nice and creamy. It's not firm That's smoke you see the pockets of the other American cheese that we that we you know We snuck in there and this is not my look when I spoon into some mac and cheese. This is what I want This is what I want Let me try this It's delicious you taste the fresh garlic you taste the creaminess of the Velveeta taste the sharpness of The sharp cheddar cheese. It is absolutely positively delicious. So I hope that you make this Recipe for your family. It goes great with some jiffy dressing. You can check that video out that I did a couple days ago But please let me know what you think about this recipe Thank you for joining me and making this meal with me I'll talk to y'all later