I’ve been tasked to bring macaroni and cheese for Christmas dinner. In case the vegetarians show up.
Any good recipes? I thought I had one but I can’t find the cookbook
Actually I volunteered to bring the mac and cheese. I couldn’t stand one more phone lamenting that we don’t know if the vegetarians were going to show up or not. Everyone likes macaroni and cheese 
This is the best and very easy. If you double it, do NOT double the eggs.
And you can take it IN the crockpot set on warm…once it’s cooked!
Paula Deens Crockpot Mac and Cheese
2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni (almost one box of 16 ounces large elbows or 32 ounces) regular size elbow macaroni)
1/2 stick butter, cut into pieces
2 1/2 cups (about 10 ounces) grated sharp cheddar cheese
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sour cream
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can condensed cheddar cheese soup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (whole preferred, but 2% works just as well) I use half and half!
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Directions:
Boil the macaroni in a 2 quart saucepan in plenty of water until tender, about 7 minutes.
Drain macaroni in colander.
In a crockpot, combine the cheese, butter cut into pieces, beaten eggs, sour cream, cheddar cheese soup, salt, milk, mustard and pepper.
Stir all together well and add drained macaroni, stirring all ingredients together.
Set on low and cook for three hours stirring occasionally.
Omg I’m totally making this today and was looking up recipes - here’s what I’m doing - this has 5 stars and thousands of ratings
Thanks so much! Both look so good but in the crockpot sounds perfect for Christmas dinner.
Now I’m torn because the other baked one with gruyere looks amazing! 
I’ll let you know how it turns out
I’d make fettuccine Alfredo, you know, adult mac and cheese.
Add baby peas, or spinach, or pesto, or… to punch it up, but it’s best as written with homemade noodles. Couldn’t be easier.
(This is the first dish DH and I became “famous” for serving to friends, usually mixed with baby peas and salmon. Tossed table side for flourish. Fabulous.)
I don’t have a written recipe but we always make it the same way.
One box Creamette elbows
One can Campbells Tomato Bisque soup
Cojack cheese (husband likes to use Swiss, Gouda and/or Cheddar if we have it sitting around) - grated
Milk
Red onion, chopped, amount to taste
Butter
Panko bread crumbs
Basically you cook the pasta and thin the soup with about 3/4 can of milk. Then layer in a casserole dish:
Pasta
Soup/milk
Sprinkle of onions
…Repeat…
Finish with pasta layer, dot with butter, sprinkle with bread crumbs
Bake in 350 oven about 40 minutes.
If there are extra components left, either make a smaller second dish or make a few ramekins and freeze for future use.
Son always like Noodles & Co Wisconsin Mac & Cheese - here’s a copycat recipe:
What quantity of what kind of noodles work best for this recipe?
Thanks
This was a very popular dish at a party I attended. ( dietary restrictions keep me from tasting).
We make fettuccine from a recipe that serves four (about 1 1/4 lbs) using an Atlas pasta machine to roll/cut:
3 cups flour
4 eggs
1 tsp salt
The entire batch is placed into 4 quarts of boiling water and tested as soon as the water starts to boil again; fresh noodles cook very quickly.
Here’s my own recipe - I’ll be making it for Christmas for lobster jalapeño mac. I’ve never been able to get a roux-based version as smooth as I wanted, so I switched to sodium citrate (available at Amazon) which gives a perfectly smooth and creamy sauce. Use a higher ratio of sodium citrate for a lighter/runnier sauce.
2 cups whole milk and 16 grams sodium citrate (about 1.75 teaspoons) and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low and slowly whisk in 400g (about 1 pound) grated or cubed sharp cheddar cheese until smooth. Optional: 2 deseeded jalapeños, finely chopped - add at any point depending on how much you like them cooked.
Use 4% sodium citrate vs cheese, e.g. 100g cheese + 4g sodium citrate
The NYT recipe I listed was quite good. Makes a LARGE serving - there were 9 of us and there was still about 25% of the dish left.
You had me at lobster jalapeño. 
That first item in the ingredients is confusing. I went to the original site with the recipe and it’s the same there - unmatched parentheses. Are they really saying you need twice the weight of pasta if you’re using regular vs large elbows? Has anyone actually made this, and how much dry pasta did you use?
I’ve made this a number of times…and so have all of my neighbors. It’s a great recipe for a crowd.
For the regular recipe, you use two cups of uncooked macaroni noodles…then you cook them.
If you double the recipe, you use double…4 cups uncooked…then cook it.
Regular size macaroni noodles. I did this once with rotini and that worked too.
Sorry for the confusion!
This is a stove top version that we like. I believe it was originally a copy-cat Panera recipe.
Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients:
Directions:
Sauce:
Melt butter in a large bowl in the microwave.
Add flour to butter and stir
Microwave on high for 2 minutes
Add about ½ cup of milk and stir
Microwave on high for 2 minutes
Repeat until the milk is gone
Continue heating and stirring until the mixture is thickened
Add the cheeses, a bit at a time, and stir until it’s all melted in
Add the mustard, salt and hot sauce. Stir
Cook noodles according to directions on the box
Add noodles to cheese mixture and stir well
Yum. I am available as a taste tester
Not my prettiest dish ever, but turned out delish.
This is the jalapeño mac and cheese mentioned above, topped with sous-vide lobster dressed with a garlic jalapeno beurre monte (emulsified butter basically). Roasted baby broccoli tossed with a yuzu vinaigrette dressing (same dressing I described in the brussels sprout thread), and bread with olive oil confit baby tomatoes and garlic.
If you zoom in on the mac, you can see crazy smooth, velvety texture you get from the sodium citrate (a salt derived from citric acid).
I made the mac and cheese recipe @abasket linked. It was very good.
The vegetarians did not stay for dinner so now I have an extra dish to serve later in the week.
My niece made a delicious roasted squash salad so there would have been plenty for the vegetarians had they stayed. All was good! And delicious
We have a tradition 9f lobster mac and cheese for Christmas Eve. However this year we were unable to get lobster, or to get our act together, so we are having this tonight:
We combined the lobster recipe with this one, and the addition of sweet chili sauce is mind blowing! You can’t tell what the ingredient is, just that it’s amazingly good!
