Comfort Food: Four Cheese Mac n’ Cheese (with Bacon!)

Those who know me, know that I can’t turn down a bowl of mac n’ cheese.  It’s my comfort food.  After a long week, I often want nothing more than to make a box of mac n’ cheese and relax in front of the television.  I also have a pretty intense love for bacon.  I mean, who doesn’t?  My goal has been to try a new recipe each week, so when I saw this recipe I knew it was perfect for me us.  Plus, the estimated preparation and cooking time was under 45 minutes, which is great for a week night meal.

What you will need:
1 box of corkscrew pasta, 1 lb.
8 slices of bacon, diced
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 cups 2% milk
1/2 tsp onion flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 pound (8 oz.) of cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup (4 oz) shredded colby-Jack cheese
1 cup (4 oz) shredded mozzarella cheese
8 slices Kraft Deli Deluxe American Cheese

Step 1 – Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray broiler safe baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.  I used a 13×9 glass Pyrex baking dish.

Step 2 – Bring large pot of slightly salted water to boil.  Add corkscrew pasta and boil for 8 minutes.  Drain pasta when cooked.  While the pasta is boiling, cook bacon in a medium sized sauce pan until crisp.  Remove from sauce pan and place bacon pieces on paper towel.  Pour off drippings, leaving approximately 2 Tbsp worth of drippings in the pan.  I estimated this amount.  You could remove all drippings then return 2 Tbsp if you want to be more precise.

Step 3 – Add flour to the medium sauce pan with the drippings.  Whisk together until smooth.  It was at this point that I realized I not used a sauce pan, but instead was using a saute pan.  It made whisking until smooth difficult, but it all worked out.

Step 4 – In a thin stream, whisk the milk into the flour mixture.  Gradually stir in onion flakes, salt, and pepper.  Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat and simmer an additional 2 minutes.

Step 5 – In a large bowl, toss together cheddar, colby-Jack, and mozzarella cheeses.

Step 6 – Remove milk mixture from heat; whisk in American cheese slices and 1 1/4 cups of the cheddar mixture.  This seemed odd to me, and I wondered how the slices were going to whisk in, but they melted and mixed in very easy.

Step 7 – Add bacon pieces to the remaining cheddar mixture.  Mix well.

Step 8 – In pasta pot combine milk/cheese mixture and cooked pasta.  Stir until Pour half of the pasta in the prepared dish.  Sprinkle with half of the shredded cheese/bacon mixture.  Pour remaining pasta in the prepared dish and sprinkle the top with remainder of the shredded cheese/bacon mixture.

Step 9 – Bake for 20 minutes.  Without removing the baking dish from the oven, change setting to broil, and broil for 3 additional minutes.  Top should be slightly browned.

I purchased my cheese in the pre-shredded pouches to save time, but even with doing that, this recipe ended up taking closer to an hour than 45 minutes.  I generally try to keep my week night meals under 45 minutes, but the taste makes it worth the extra time.  I expected this to have a heavy cheddar taste, but you can really taste all the different cheeses.  Plus, the corkscrew pasta made it interesting enough that even Greenleigh wanted to try it. I ate this as a meal, but it would also make a great side dish at a large family gathering.

Perhaps the only thing missing in this recipe is a breadcrumb crust on the top…I will definitely try to add one the next time around.