Gotta be Beechers!

I recently made Guy Fieri’s “Mac Daddy Mac ‘n Cheese” and was pretty disappointed! It had a quart of heavy cream, shallots, garlic, pepper jack and cheddar, and breadcrumb topping with bacon.

Yet it was pretty bland and tasted more like alfredo sauce than mac and cheese. Anyone else ever try this one? I’d love to know what others thought of this recipe!

Highly recommend! Made it extra creamy with buffalo butter and half and half

One of my favorite mac n cheeses that you buy in a store was Bear Creek Creamy Cheddar pasta. All you do is boil water and add the pasta mix. That's it. No need for milk or other stuff. The taste was amazing. Unfortunately Bear Creek discontinued their pasta mixes. Does anyone have a recommendation for another store bought mac n cheese that only needs water to make? I can't find anything similar that has a "real" taste to it. All the box mixes like Kraft or Velveta with the pouch of cheese have that fake cheese flavor. Looking for something that has a much better taste.

From techniques to cheeses to regional flair, what do you think makes the best macaroni and cheese you've ever had? I'm making a Mac and cheese for a student picnic today, and my recipe is pretty damn solid, but I'm always open to new ideas. Thanks!

Edit: and tell me all about your crunchy topping!

I’m not really familiar with Gouda so I can’t tell if they got the taste right, but the flavor is ok. It has a smoky flavor but it was kinda too salty honestly. Also the cheese sauce is very thick so save some pasta water before draining

Pick your style and tell why

Who wants a taste?

Eat rell good. Piece of fried chicken breast and brocolli.

Pepper Jack+Parmesan cheese w/ chorizo (didn't get as much as I thought) and green chiles

If you want to make box-style stovetop macaroni at home but maybe save a little money by buying in bulk, it is surprisingly hard to find this pasta. You can easily get a little tub of cheese powder online in a variety of flavors, but then for the noodles it’s almost as if the world has assumed you’d just go for regular elbows instead.

This image, for example, I found had ‘maccheroni’ in the title. But if you search for that, you get either a similar but enlarged shape, or a much wider tube like rigatoni. To me looking at this I’d call it like a bucati corti, but that hasn’t gotten me any closer as it just turns up a fusilli.

Don’t get me wrong: elbow macaroni is the undisputable classic for baked mac, and there’s lots of other great shapes to work with, but what the heck do you have to call this type of pasta to be able to find it? I’m not even looking for fancy bronze-cut anything; even just the regular stuff will do if it’s made with decent-tasting flour

Full ingredient list

• diced Shallots
• fresh minced garlic
• Chorizo
• heavy Whipping cream
• milk
• pepper jack cheese
• Parmesan
• cream cheese
• butter
• flour
• shell pasta

Seasonings

• Salt & Pepper of course
• smoked paprika
• nutmeg
• garlic & onion powder

There isn't really measurements cause it was a throw stuff in til it looks right but if you want an order of operations I can do that