My Gluten-Free Mac-n-Cheese heroically saved the day, taking the edge off a rather rocky gluten-free pasta tasting. HUGE lesson learned: Don't cook gluten-free pasta in advance and try to reheat it before serving. The exception to that rule was the mac-n-cheese, which turned out to be a perfect way to showcase the slightly chewy pasta that results from reheating. Here's how I adapted my favorite Macaroni and Cheese recipe, using potato starch to create a creamy sauce.
Sep 25, 2017 Macaroni and Cheese is a kid favorite – typically made with butter, flour, milk and shredded cheese, before being stirred into pasta and seasoned with a little salt. Make it on the stovetop, or mix it up and bake in the oven topped with breadcrumbs – both are just as fabulous! Another way to make macaroni and cheese is to toss hot cooked and drained pasta with shredded cheese directly in the baking pan. By using a variety of cheeses, the omission of butter and flour is not noticeable, as the dish turns out just as rich and creamy. Boil elbows in highly salted water. While elbows are boiling, in large saucepan, heat butter and cheese until melted. Add 4 cups buttermilk, dry mustard and eggs. Heat until thoroughly melted and blended. Add to drained elbows. Stir together. While flour and butter are included in many recipes for macaroni and cheese, both can be left out without affecting either the flavor or the texture of the dish. Alternate methods include layering cooked and drained pasta with sliced or grated cheese, or making a sauce with just milk and melted cheese, both of which eliminate the two troublesome ingredients.
Photo by Kim Lamica
When prepping for monthly Tasting Panels, I try to come up with a complement to the featured food. Poached chicken was served alongside a rainbow of condiments, old-school onion dip a natural match for a tasting of potato chips. Gluten-free pasta cried out for marinara, and when one of the tasters said it reminded her of Grandma's sauce, it made my year. But I had all sorts of pasta, so I wanted to double down and make an extra post-Tasting Panel dish. So, I came up with an extra creamy mac-n-cheese using these 3 key ingredients.
1) Evaporated Milk
My go-to recipe was adapted from a book by the great food writer Marian Burros, called Cooking For Comfort. It starts with a basic roux of butter and flour, cooked until bubbly and golden. To that, I add a can of condensed milk. Yes, I've tried cream, half and half, whole milk, even buttermilk, and combinations of all of those, but nothing beats the density of condensed milk (not the sweetened version, and not the nonfat, either.) Condensed milk, aka evaporated milk, is gluten-free, so that piece of my tried-and-true recipe didn't need tweaking, but the flour had to go. Staples wireless printers for mac.
2) Potato starch
There are loads of gluten-free flours for cooking and baking, but I discovered the one that's so slick for sauces when making a Jacques Pepin recipe. That fab French chef uses it often, raving about its ability to transform thin sauces into something silky without the gritty texture of cornstarch. 'Cornstarch tends to make a sauce gooey and gelatinous. I prefer potato starch, which is made from steamed potatoes that are dried and ground,' he writes in Essential Pepin. In Jacques Pepin's recipes, potato starch is typically mixed with water and added to the sauce to thicken it. Turns out that potato starch also works well as a substitute for flour in a roux, stirred into lightly sauteed chopped onions before the evaporated milk and cheese are added.
3) Mascarpone
And on the all-important cheese question, I recently read somewhere that mascarpone makes a great addition to any mac-n-cheese recipe. This Italian version of cream cheese is super rich, so a little bit makes a big difference when I whisked it into the sauce along with the shredded sharp cheddar.
Substitute For Butter In Box Mac N Cheese
For the final step, I casserolized the Gluten-Free Mac-n-Cheese, sprinkling extra cheese on top, so I could pop in the oven while tasters were trying the pasta. Spectacle for mac. They were less than impressed with my attempt to prepare the gluten-free pasta samples in advance, but after taking my lumps on that misstep, there were compliments for the Mac-n-Cheese, and not a bite left in the pan. Horror games for mac.
More Gluten-Free Recipes:
![Butter Butter](https://www.meals.com/imagesrecipes/29515lrg.jpg)
Chef John's Cauliflower Pizza Crust
Gluten-Free Pancakes
Almond Flour Brownies
Blueberry Muffins
Easy Cloud Bread
Gluten-Free Pancakes
Almond Flour Brownies
Blueberry Muffins
Easy Cloud Bread
You should know substituting the milk and butter ingredients with heavy whipping cream when making Kraft Macaroni & Cheese makes for a creamier and, in my opinion, tastier cheese sauce.
Substitute For Butter In Mac N Cheese
Necessity is the mother of all innovation. I was out of milk one fateful day, without knowing it, and began making some Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese before I discovered this sad fact. From there, I could have gone with the age old practice of not straining all the water out of the noodles in order to have enough moisture to mix in the powdered cheese-but, ya… no thank you. Luckily, I noticed where the milk normally was there happened to be some heavy whipping cream, which I usually use for making sauce for Chicken Pesto Tortellini (which might just be one of the most ridiculously delicious and easy to make meals on the planet).
I then mixed a little of the heavy whipping cream with the strained noodles (no need for butter here) and the result was Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese taken to a whole different level of creamy goodness. Give it a try. Just don’t go too heavy on the heavy whipping cream, lest it end up a bit tangier than you might have hoped for. I don’t actually measure it, but just give it a little splash, stir, then add as necessary until all the cheese is uniformly distributed.
Pro-tip: If you’re eating for one, remove about 1/3 of the noodles in the mac ‘n cheese box and put it aside in a zip lock bag or other container to be used for a different meal. This increases the cheesiness of the end mac ‘n cheese, while also cutting some of the calories out of what you would have eaten. If you add chicken breast and some crumbled extra crispy bacon, you can even bring it down to about half the box of noodles and the end product is practically gourmet… err, well, at least compared to straight boxed mac ‘n cheese.
As promised, here’s an extremely easy and fairly quick to make Chicken Pesto Tortellini recipe that is ridiculously tasty (recipe is for 1 serving, multiply as needed):
Ingredients:
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/3/3/8/133895013/274456667.jpg)
- 1 cup cheese stuffed tortellini
- 1/8th cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/8th cup pesto
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream (depending on how much sauce you like- I personally tend to go with the half cup.)
- broccoli (however much you like)
- 1 chicken breast
Cook the chicken breast (I usually boil it to keep it extra moist) and steam the broccoli. While you’re doing that, boil or steam the tortellini. Next, pour the whipping cream in a sauce pan and mix in the pesto, Parmesan cheese, broccoli, and diced chicken breast, then bring the sauce to a simmer. Once simmering, strain the tortellini and mix it in with the simmering sauce. That’s it!
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