This post will include a recipe for stove-top macaroni and cheese, as well as a link to a recipe for my Mom’s homemade baked macaroni and cheese.
Macaroni & Cheese is a big deal for Moms, because it’s usually one of the few meals all kids like! In the post, “My Dark Secrets“, I had mentioned that I’d like to get away from boxed foods as much as possible, but this is a slow process for me. I went to all organic macaroni & cheese a few years ago (“Simply Organic” was the closest to “Kraft” and my family loves it), but over time I had trouble sprinkling that powdered cheese into the pan, somehow it just didn’t seem all that natural! So I was on a quest to find a healthy and quick alternative to the boxed macaroni & cheese.
Some information if you plan to stick with the boxes
Before I tell you what I did, let me first tell you a couple things about the Simply Organic brand, in case you aren’t ready to make this step away from boxed mac & cheese yet. I always got it cheapest through my buying club. (Ask about one at your local health food store.) Also, it’s not whole wheat because I couldn’t find an organic brand made with whole wheat that my kids would eat. I was told that if you need to choose, organic white is better than non-organic whole wheat, because wheat crops are so highly sprayed with pesticides.
They actually loved it!
So anyway, I needed a fast, easy, & healthy stove-top mac & cheese and then I had to see if it would fly with the kids… Success! I fed it to 2 of my kids and 4 day care kids for lunch recently, and they ALL had seconds or even thirds, even my pickiest eater had 2 helpings! I’ve got an even pickier palate than he does, and I still thought it wasn’t bad! (Don’t tell the kids, but I’d have liked it with white pasta better – I love whole wheat pasta if it’s with a red sauce, but I think it tastes too grainy otherwise. Kids don’t seem to care no matter what it’s in, though.)
STOVE-TOP MAC & CHEESE
- Boil a 12 oz. bag of whole wheat pasta, preferably organic – I used “tunnels” (penne) – it’s all in how you phrase it with the kids, you know!
- Now make a basic cheese sauce. If you don’t know how, here you go: while the pasta is cooking, melt 3 T. butter in a medium sized saucepan. When it’s hot, add about 2-3T. of flour and whisk good, let it cook for a few seconds to get it hot but don’t let it burn. Add about 3 cups of whole milk and keep whisking. Once you have it all stirred in good (keep whisking and don’t have your heat too high or it will stick and burn), add about 6 oz. of shredded (organic) cheddar cheese. Keep whisking as it melts and add some pepper and plenty of Sea Salt to give it a great taste – do some taste testing to get it right. (This cheese sauce is also great on steamed veggies and I use the same sauce for my ham & scalloped potatoes.)
- When the pasta is cooked, mix it all together, and you’re done!
Someday for more of a dinner type dish, I want to try putting this into a buttered baking dish, adding extra cheese on top, then baking. (My Mom makes a great baked mac & cheese, the kind without making a cheese sauce first, but I can’t pull it off without the milk curdling, I bomb almost every time. She’s a great cook though, and I really have to work at it! Update: I made this one again recently and it turned out great!)
I hope this goes over for your kids as well as it did for mine!
***NOTE: See the comments below from a reader who shares her Mom’s recipe for an easy one-pan stove-top mac & cheese!
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I received this comment over at another post and wanted to add it here:
“Kelly
Just wanted to give you my moms simple mac and cheese recipe. Cook and drain your macaroni. Put back in the pot along with a small amount of milk (Mom never measured just poured in about enough to cover the bottom of the pot by about 1/4-1/2 inch). Top with cheese (again Mom never measured and often used different kinds of cheese – shredded, presliced, sliced off the block over the pot – cheddar, colby, swiss, etc, or ussually a combo). Place the pot on low and cover just until cheese melts. Stir. Add pepper and salt to taste. This is the only recipe I have ever used. It is quick – on the table in under 15 minutes, uses only 1 pot – a plus for busy Moms, tastes great and can be made using healthy ingredients. Hope this helps.
Mischele”
I finally tried the above stove-top one-pan recipe – the kids loved it! Only using one pan was a definite bonus. (I also added a couple tsp. of butter to the recipe.) Very easy.
I’ve been looking ALL OVER for the perfect stovetop recipe, when mac’n'cheese becomes an urgent need. I’ve tried white sauces and heavy cream and eggs and…. the above recipe, so simple, so perfect – and only ONE PAN! I used a little butter too, and monterey jack and cheddar. Thumbs up from the husband, the kiddo, and me!!
This is really after the fact, but I wanted to point you towards Alton Brown’s Stovetop Mac-n-Cheese recipe — it doesn’t use flour, and it has eggs in it (more nutrition) and I’ve successfully made it with regular whole milk, or a mixture of whole milk and cream, rather than evaporated milk. It’s so easy and delicious and perfect — I had to find a good scratch mac-and-cheese recipe when I started dating my now-husband because he refused to eat boxed stuff!
Oooooh, how fun! I’m going to find that and print it out!
Thanks!
Kelly, one more varation on the two-pan stove-top version: I season the cheese sauce with a bit each of turmeric, cumin and cayenne in addition to the sea salt. That gives it that extra bit of interest and improves the color! I also throw in veggies with the pasta (steamed on top of the cooking pasta), although the kids have complained that that’s not “real mac and cheese” (but cleaned their plates regardless). And now… off to look up the eggy version!
I’ve been moving away from “the box” for quite a while now although my children are so drawn to the awful orange color. I found my way around this by using mashed sweet potato as a base. I’m not usually in favor of hiding veggetables in their food because I think it’s important they know what they’re eating but in this case if they knew it was in there they probably wouldn’t eat it. So I’m not telling!