Dad's Mac and Cheese

Son of a Southern Chef

Mac and cheese can be pretty divisive. Do you like stove top, or baked? Should it be super creamy or more solid? Are toppings like bread crumbs a yea or a nay?

For me, mac and cheese has never been a big deal. I'll eat it, it's fine, but I didn't really LOVE any version until we tried the Poole's Diner Macaroni au Gratin (https://cookwithheather.com/Pooles-Macaroni-au-Gratin/), which is creamy and topped with only browned cheese. But it does have its flaws. If you can't eat the whole batch (and my family generally can not, it's super rich) immediately, it does not reheat very well. (Low and slow on the stove, stirring all the time, renders a passable stove top version, but without the crunchy cheese on top. Otherwise the cream-based sauce just splits into an oily mess.)

So, when tasked with providing mac and cheese for a shared Thanksgiving dinner, I chose to try this recipe. It was everything I thought I needed for this application. It travelled well (wrapped in towels in a cooler, hot from the oven, it was still very hot an hour later), it reheated well (when we tried it before Thanksgiving, because this makes even more than the other recipe, and there was no way my family of four could finish it), and it wasn't TOO "weird" for Thanksgiving. I thought it would be a good compromise for everything.

Let me know what you think if you try it!

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