Based on https://www.momontimeout.com/best-homemade-baked-mac-and-cheese-recipe/
You need:
- A ceramic, oven-safe baking tray
- An oven
- One pot (will be reused, you can use two if you want to multitask)
- One small bowl (to mix panko and parmesan)
- One cheese grater
- Aluminum foil
I do it with (3-4 ppl):
- 300g of macaroni (cooked beforehand)
- 75-100g of butter
- 20g of generic flour
- 350ml of milk
- 300g (or more by taste) of cheddar cheese (pre-shred is fine tbh)
- 90g of parmesan (we’ll grate this)
- salt, pepper, carolina reaper, anything you want
- 45g of panko crumbs (or any other bread crumbs shaped product if you don’t care)
- optional: vegan bacon, if you want to make it mac and cheese and bacon
Then:
- Start preheating your oven to 180°C.
- Grate the parmesan at the points when you’re having downtime.
- In a pot:
- Cook the pasta to bit short of al dente
- Drain it
- Transfer it to the baking tray
- Optional: If you want to add anything to your sauce like vegan bacon or chopped jalapeños, prepare them by chopping them into an appropriate size.
- In the now-empty pot (or if you’re multitasking, in your second pot):
- Melt the butter
- Mix in flour
- Add cheddar and milk
- Add salt, pepper, etc. Put in anything you want to mix in like bacon or jalapeños.
- Continue heating until cheddar is at least mostly melted (it’ll go in the oven so).
- Once it’s all nicely melted, pour it to the baking tray, stir well.
- Now in a bowl, for the baking tray:
- Mix grated parmesan and panko crumbs.
- Melt some butter on top if you want to, but tbh it’s not that big of a deal.
- Evenly spread this mixture on top of the now-mixed mac and cheese
- Finally:
- Cover the baking tray in aluminum foil.
- Put it in the oven.
- Bake for 15-25 mins, then get rid of the foil.
- Bake for another 5-15 mins depending on how the top layer is looking.