If you got here via the magic of internet search, then welcome, fellow spice lover! Never one to be satisfied with plain old mac and cheese, you’ve instead sought out a spiced mac and cheese recipe. And I salute you! Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good boxed mac and cheese dinner as much as the next gal, but can we all agree that homemade mac and cheese just hits different?
As with pretty much every other food under the sun, I think macaroni and cheese tastes better when made from scratch. You’re in charge of everything — amount of cheese, type of pasta, and any funky additions you want to add.
Spiced Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb dried elbow macaroni
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- 2 cups milk any kind (unflavored if non-dairy milk — I used oat milk because that’s what I had on hand), room temperature or warmed lightly on the stove
- ¼-½ tsp grated nutmeg start with ¼ and add a few dashes if you like more!
- couple dashes of paprika
- 3 cups cheddar cheese freshly shredded (you can also get fancy and combine cheeses but again, this was what I had!)
Instructions
- Cook the elbow macaroni according to package instructions.
- While pasta is cooking (because I hate letting cooked pasta sit and get all weird and crusty!), melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
- Whisk in flour, salt, and pepper, stirring constantly for 1 minute.
- Reduce burner temperature to medium-low and slowly add the milk to flour mixture, whisking constantly for a couple minutes until the mixture is just barely thickened.
- Remove mixture from heat and stir in cup shredded cheese, stirring just until melted.
- Add the cooked macaroni noodles, tossing to coat thoroughly.
- Serve!
Mac and cheese is right up there with pizza in terms of my favorite foods. I mean really, carbs and cheese…how can you go wrong? Sometimes I like to mix it up and use this cashew cream instead of real cheese, so you can whip up a batch of that instead if you’re not in a super cheesy mood. But since you’re here, I’m going to venture a guess that you are, in fact, in a super cheesy mood!
As with a lot of recipes that I share, this one is a great candidate for tweaking to how you like it. You could add some cooked veggies — peas, broccoli, or leafy greens. You could take it the extra mile and coat with panko breadcrumbs and bake it for a bit. Mix up the cheeses! But don’t feel pressured to buy fancy cheese just for this. Heck, fancy cheese is delicious but that adds big bucks to your grocery bill. I really want you to feel empowered to take a recipe and make it your own and be comfortable omitting things or adding items as you see fit.
If you try this recipe, let me know what you think. I’m a huge fan of the subtle complexity that nutmeg adds to an otherwise basic meal — it gives you that little je ne sais quoi. Spiced mac and cheese is one of my quick and easy go-to weeknight meals. You know, when 5:00PM hits and you realize you haven’t even thought about dinner and really just *cannot* bring yourself think about cooking food for the human(s) in your household.
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