Mac ‘n’ Cheese

Background: When I was a kid, we made mac ‘n’ cheese from the box with the radioactive orange pouch of powdered cheese. When I was a young adult, I learned how to make a Mornay sauce. I learned this move in between those other two moves. It’s the one I do most often. It’s the easiest, most stable, and most versatile.

1. Get some veggie noodles or whatever your kids (and you) like.
2. Make Buttered Noodles.
3. Get some (at least 1 pound) high-quality white American cheese that isn’t individually wrapped. The latter part is especially important.
4. Get some milk.
5. Get a microwave safe bowl.
6. Open the American cheese package and cut through the whole stack of slices, first in strips, then in cubes.
7. Separate the cubes, to the extent you feel like it, into the glass bowl. Add a forth of a cup of milk to the bowl for every pound of cheese.
8. Microwave for 3 minutes.
9. Stir with a fork.
10. Microwave for 3 minutes.
11. Stir with a fork.
12. Add more milk if necessary.
13. Pour over noodles or add noodles to sauce, depending on your quantities of each.
14. Keep extra sauce in the fridge for up to 3 weeks (probably longer, honestly, unless you use it to make queso. )

Why It Works

1. You are training them to not be afraid of the word veggie, not actually feeding them something healthy.
2. If you are doing the Buttered Noodles move on the same night, you can use the same method as you did in steps 9-14 in that move to make cheese sauce instead of Cacio e Pepe. If not, just pour over refrigerated buttered noodles.
3. If you are unsure what that means, go to a fancy grocery store and look in the cheese case and try to find something that isn’t made by Kraft and isn’t individually wrapped. The slices should be offset for ease of peeling instead of having plastic between them. If you can’t find that, Havarti makes an excellent substitute. If you are looking for the justification for using American cheese when, clearly, it’s the lowest in the hierarchy of cheeses, then read J. Kenji López-Alt’s meatloaf analogy. If’s fine. Just try mod #1 below.
4. Whatever milk you have on hand is fine. This is really just to loosen the sauce.
5. High sides are good for this move. You can mix some noodles for the kids in the glass bowl and fancy up your own in the pot.
6. This is why the “not individually wrapped” part is important.
7. The amount of milk here is an estimate. If your result is too loose, add more American cheese and zap it again. Adjust your notes.
8. Again, just an estimate. What you don’t want is the cheese turning brown anywhere, especially at the side of the bowl. I should say “what your kids don’t want” is the cheese turning brown. Adults know that’s just Dr. Maillard’s thing happening in the bowl. That’s where the flavor is.
9. So, you could whisk it. But after doing this for the 57th time, you’ll probably fork it.
10. Don’t forget to check for browning.
11. Why a fork? For the same reason you fork your scrambled eggs: Because your dishwasher is always full and your sink is usually full of dirty dishes and there’s a good chance that two of your whisks are dirty and the other one fell down in that space between the fridge and the bottom cabinets. It’s fine. Use a fork. It takes up less space in the dishwasher anyway.
12. Remember you can always add more milk, but you can only add as much cheese as you’ve got. Cheese is the limiting factor here. You could make this with water or chicken stock if you had to.
13. It might be less of a “Pour” and more of a “Use a rubber spatula to coax the sauce out of the bowl and gently fold around noodles.”
14. Pro-tip that’s probably going to be it’s own compound move at some point: Add pico to leftover sauce and you’ve basically got queso.

Mods:

1. Steam the heck out of some frozen cauliflower…like really blast it in the microwave before you do this move. Then blend it up really really good. See if you can replace some or all of the milk with cauliflower purée and get it past your kids. Over the years, gradually increase the size and amount of cauliflower chunks until they are eating cauliflower cheese casserole.
2. Top a portion for yourself with some of your own favorite cheeses like brie, bleu cheese, Parm, Asiago, Manchego, havarti, etc.
3. Add crispy fried onions or shallots to the top!