Our Extra-Cheesy Grits Recipe, Inspired by Mac and Cheese | America's Test Kitchen

A big bowl of grits with a little salt and pepper. Can it be beat? It's really hard to unless you add cheese. I love cheese grits. Very cheesy grits and Carmen's here and she's going to tell me if there's a limit to the amount of cheese that we can put into cheese grits. That's exactly right Bridget. We are very strategic about our use of dairy in this recipe. We want to maximize those cheesy flavors that are so comforting to us. I have here two and a quarter cups of whole milk. I'm going to add two cups of water, half a teaspoon of table salt and half a teaspoon of black pepper. I'm going to bring this to a boil over medium high heat and I use whole milk and water because it's going to be a foundation for creaminess. We're going to build on that with the cheese which is our next step here. Okay. I have six ounces of extra sharp cheddar cheese. We're going to go ahead and grate that up and we're using extra sharp cheddar cheese just because it's stronger. We tried using American cheese. That was fine. It just gave us a little bit too much of a mild flavor. I want to show you a little trick I do. I like to use a bench scraper and just scoop underneath everything so it just makes it easy to transfer into wherever I'm going. I have here parmesan cheese as well. Okay. And this is going to add savory umami. That's really important here. We noticed that when we didn't use the parmesan it was just something missing and this gave it a little bit more of interest, more body. And that's a superpower cheese. I mean that's like super concentrated flavor and a lot of seasoning as well. Now something like a parmigiano reggiano would be good here or would you just use a really good parmesan? I think a really good parmesan is great. If you have another cheese I'm sure it will be perfectly acceptable. Okay. Definitely save this. Put it in your freezer and add it to soups and stews. Really good. That's really smart. Two ounces of parmesan cheese. Our cheese is ready for our next step and I can see my milk and water are at a boil right now. This is the perfect time to add a cup of our grits. I'm going to whisk in those grits. I'm going to turn the heat down to low, cover this, and I'm going to whisk this often over the course of 25 minutes. I want to make sure that my grits are fully cooked through, thick, and creamy. Now this recipe was developed with Quaker old-fashioned grits but of course if you have artisanal or coarse grind grits in your pantry you can use those. We have instructions on the longer simmering time on our website. Yeah, they do cook very differently. Bridget, it's been 25 minutes and these grits are completely cooked through. They are thick, they are creamy, they are not stiff. Yeah, they're not stodgy at all. That's good. They didn't stick to the pan at all. If I had noticed at any point in time during the cooking process that they were getting too stiff, I could have added two tablespoons of water at a time just to loosen up that texture. We don't have that problem here today though. I'm going to flavor up our grits now. We were inspired by mac and cheese so of course we're going to add our cheese and some additional flavorings that are just going to punch up the overall dish. It's always a good thing to be inspired by mac and cheese. I'm also going to add two tablespoons of unsalted butter, two teaspoons of hot sauce, I have two teaspoons of Dijon mustard. These are kind of universally loved flavors too for something like this. And all of these ingredients are very pantry friendly. I also have here two teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce. Let's whisk that until everything is completely melted and all of those flavors have been incorporated. This will take about a minute and that butter is really just going to add that extra richness, almost like a la minute, the way you finish sauces. But we're finishing our grits here with something delicious. This cheese is completely melted and we are going to make sure this tastes just right. So I'm going to taste this and see if it needs additional salt and pepper. That's very good. I don't need to add anything to that. Perfect. Great. I would love to serve you. I would love to serve. We want a nice hefty portion of this. Some might call this a side dish, but I would be fine with this with an egg. That's my, that's my entree. Well, you're right. I mean, this is just a, the start. You could absolutely put a little bacon over the top. Catfish. Why not? Some nice barbecue fries. And I also love hot sauce. So if you don't mind, I'm going to put a little bit on top. Hit me. This will stick to your ribs. Yeah. I was going to say the problem with cheese grits is that you eat them and then four or five weeks later you're hungry again. Yes. A couple of weeks. That's a really good consistency. Yeah. It's not stiff. Super creamy. The richness, the richness is beautiful. Yeah. It's got that, that nuttiness from the Parmesan as well. I was going to say it's not gritty at all, but by that, I mean the cheese itself. Sometimes when you're using extra sharp cheese, Parmesan cheese, it doesn't feel as creamy. It can feel a little bit textural. This is smooth. For full episodes of your favorite cooking shows, head over to ATK's full episodes channel on YouTube. You can stream complete seasons of America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Country, and more. See you there.