I'm looking for a recipe for Mac & Cheese that reheats well. My kids love this and I'd like to make a big batch at the beginning of the week and then dole it out for lunches for the next few days. All the recipes I've tried have a weird consistency or are tasteless after spending the night in the fridge. Any tips. I'm also looking for ways to sneak in more healthy foods into Mac & Cheese. My son is 2.5 and doesn't eat any vegetables (to his knowledge) so I'm trying to sneak them in. What works well hidden in Mac & Cheese?
Thanks!
We make the noodles ahead of time for the week and store in a container. Might want to add a dash of vegetable or canola oil and mix before storing to keep noodles from sticking together.
Then we use Velveeta cheese, cut into slices, place cheese slices ontop of noodles in a bowl and microwave. Cheese melts, noodles were still fresh, and the kids eat it great.
In cooking I find it is not just the recipe but the ingredients that make a difference in the taste. I try to use organic or locally produced things like cheese and pasta. It's amazing how fresh, whole foods retain taste when the others become bland.
While it looks a little pricier in the store, when you stretch it out over the week the cost isn't so bad (and it's comparable or cheaper than buying it in the box or pre-made.
Pureed cauliflower will mix in to mac n cheese very well. I do it all the time. Also butternut squash or sweet potato pureed. The cook book Deceptively Delicious has some good mac n cheese recipes.
This is the recipe I use, using whatever cheese I have at hand and throwing in cooked ground beef and peas from time to time:
http://www.mealsmatter.org/recipes-meals/recipe/29644
It makes a giant batch and freezes/reheats well.
Butternut squash puree hides really well in mac and cheese!
Cut up some cauliflower and mix it in. Tomato is also good in it. The kind I like to reheat the next day is hoem made. The box stuff just tastes funky after a day, like cardboard to me. I use a mix between velveeta cheese, milk, and whatever hard cheese I have on hand (sharp cheeder, Swiss, etc). The next day when I reheat it, I do it in a sauce pan and had a little milk to get it creamy.
I'm not sure if your kiddos will eat this recipe...mine like it...and it is one of my favorites.
Ingredients:
1 small onion diced
1 stick butter
1 can diced tomatoes
1 block velveeta cheese
1 box pasta (I use a fun shape when I make it for the kids)
Par cook pasta (al dente). Drain and set aside
In large pan - melt stick of butter and sautee onion until fully cooked. Reserve the juice from the tomatoes. Add diced tomatoes to the butter/onion mixture. Simmer for a few minutes. Add velveeta cheese (melts better if you cube it up). Add the reserved tomato juice.
Grease a 13x9 pan pour in pasta, pour in the cheese/onion/tomato mixture and stir well until pasta is covered. Top with bread crumbs.
Place in 350 oven for about 20 minutes (uncovered)
Let sit for about 10 minutes
I absolutely love this recipe! And it reheats very well. You may want to keep a little bit of velveeta aside in the event that it gets a little dry when you reheat.
Yummy, now I'm going to have to make this!
mac an cheese with tuna an peas...its really good..my kids arent big hot pea fans never have been..but this is good mix-and very healthy-when you reheat-just add a bit of xtra milk-or butter..my kids are almost 30 an still love this....
Don't have the mac and cheese you are looking for, but I have a freind who sneeks spinch into pancakes. Her daughter caught her putting it in one day, and said "Daddy does not put salad in the pancakes" and she told her that "Daddy does it wrong!" Worth a try!
M.
Well it might sound odd, but one thing I have found for my toddlers is to take a jar of pureed baby food, and mix it in. They eat it without noticing there are any veggies and you can feel good about them getting veggies.
Of course it is important to work on feeding him veggies in a more adult-like manner (cant eat baby food all his life :) so you can continue to just give him a side order of veggies with the doctored mac-n-cheese or whatever you feed him.
there's a good recipe on the back of the box of macaroni noodles that are the target brand. when reheating anything i think it always tastes better if you reheat on the stove and add a little milk or water to make it creamy again versus using the microwave. i just think microwaving ruins leftovers. I would agree that pureed califlower would probably work well for mac and cheese or pureed sweet potato.
good luck
grind any up and put it in the sauce.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipe-collections/macaroni-an...
There are some great ones in the above link.
Personally I start boiling giant macaroni, and while that's happening : make a bechamel sauce, melt in a TON of shredded medium or sharp chedder, and one diced onion/ paprika/ bay leaf/ stone ground mustard. Then I drain the pasta, pour into baking dish, smother with cheesy bechamel sauce, coat in panko crumbs, and bake until all ooey/gooey/bubbly and toasted on the top.
Since I often have random bits of cheese left over some good variations include adding bleu and bacon and pear and cinnamon... or pecorino romano, or parmigiano-reggiano. I'll also toss in some garam masala from time to time.
Butternut squash is great to hide in Mac & Cheese! It is soo smooth once you roast it and puree it and the flavor just blends right in with the cheese. I agree with the others that said to add some extra milk when reheating. I do what someone else said...make a beshemel sauce and then add cheese, mustard, salt and black pepper. Simple but yummy.
If you're trying to sneak in veggies, try adding:
tiny chunks of hot dogs
corn
broccoli diced up
little bits of tomatoes (diced up teeny tiny)
A good book to read is "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld. It teaches you some techniques of hiding veggies in meals. I make a cauliflower puree and put it in with my mac and cheese you can also use a sweet potato puree. It's really easy to make the puree. I use a microwavable ziploc to make the veggies and puree them with a bit of water in the food processor.
This is my recipe.
Heat oven to 350
1/4 cup veggie puree
1/2 block velvetta cheese cubed
1 cup taco cheese or cheddar shreaded plus 1/4 cup reserved for top
1 cup milk (we use skim)
cooked mac noodles
seasoned itallian bread crumbs for topping
2 TBSPS butter
2 TBSPS flour
1 squirt mustard
s and p
To make cheese sauce heat butter in a pan until melted. Add flour and wisk til brown. Add milk and simmer. Add cubed cheese mixing with wisk til melted. Add shreaded cheese reserving the 1/4 cup for topping. Add puree. Mix until just below boiling. Poor over mac noodles in a buttered casserole. Cover with bread crumbs. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Add reserved cheese in the last 5 minutes. To reheat put on micro safe plate and cover with papertowel. Someitmes I reserve some of the cheese sauce and make chili cheese fries the next day.
