This is some serious flavor.

When goat cheese won the poll last week, I started immediately having Paradox of Choice woes. There’s just so much that you can do with goat cheese.

Staring at a log of fresh goat cheese is the food blogger equivalent of a fiction writer staring at a blank page.

I started immediately brainstorming. I could put it in some fancy appetizer. I could make a salad. I could make some strange (but probably delicious) dessert out of it.

Or I could do the right thing and make macaroni and cheese.

I almost always do the right thing.

Macaroni and (Goat) Cheese

Yield: Serves 6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound macaroni, cooked
2 roasted red peppers, diced
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes (from oil), minced (about 6)
4 tablespoons butter + a bit for the pan
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups milk
6 ounces cheddar cheese, grated
1 cup goat cheese
1/2 cup bread crumbs
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Roast red peppers over a flame. If you have a gas stove, you can stick them right on the flame or you can grill them. You can also just used jarred peppers. Cook them until they are nicely charred all the way around.

2) Add peppers to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rest for 10 minutes and then peel off pepper skins. It's okay if some skin is left on.

3) Dice peppers and sun-dried tomatoes.

4) Cook macaroni according to package.

5) For cheese sauce, add butter and flour to a medium pan over medium heat. Whisk together once butter has melted to form a roux. Cook for about 3 minutes, whisking constantly.

6) Slowly add milk to the roux, starting with just a few tablespoons. Whisk it constantly so no lumps form. Keep adding milk in small increments until all your milk is added and your sauce is silky smooth. Turn your heat down to medium-low and continue to cook it until it thickens.

7) Whisk in cheeses into the sauce and season with salt and pepper.

8) Drain pasta and mix with peppers and tomatoes, then stir in cheese sauce.

9) Add macaroni to a buttered baking dish (2.5 quart or 9x13). Top with bread crumbs and bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees.

10) Let cool briefly before serving.

Adapted from a recipe in How To Cook Everything.

The Add-Ins

You could leave out the add-ins in this recipe if you wanted and still be left with a pretty rocking macaroni and cheese. But there’s something about the deep flavor of the peppers and sun-dried tomatoes that works really well with the goat cheese.

Plus it’s fun to roast peppers on a gas stove.

Any flame will do.

If you don’t have a gas stove, you can also roast these guys on a grill or in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

You can also just buy the jarred peppers and use those.

If you do roast your own though, stick them in a bowl after they are nice and charred all over and cover them with plastic wrap. Let them sit and steam for about 10 minutes. That’ll make them much easier to peel.

Then just start peeling off the skin of each pepper. It’s okay if the peppers aren’t 100% peeled.

Some skin is okay.

Then just remove the seeds and dice them up along with a few sun-dried tomatoes. I like to use the sun-dried tomatoes that are in oil for this recipe. If you use the dried ones, reconstitute them in some hot water for a few minutes before using them.

Sun-dried tomatoes are also in there.

The Cheese Sauce

Besides the peppers and macaroni, the only thing left for this recipe is the cheese sauce. And let’s be honest. It’s the star of the show.

You’ll need this stuff.

A cheese sauce!

Start by adding the butter and flour to a medium pan and get it cooking over medium heat. It’s probably a good idea to melt the butter first and then add the flour, but I like to live on the edge so I just threw them in together.

The beginnings of something beautiful.

Once the butter melts, whisk the butter and flour together until it forms a paste (a roux to be specific and French). Continue to cook and whisk this paste until it turns a light brown color. This will probably take 3-4 minutes and you’ll end up with something like this.

That's the color you want.

Then start to slowly add your milk. When I say slowly, I mean start with just a few tablespoons and whisk that in. Then add a few more and whisk whisk whisk. If you add to much milk at once, your roux will get lumpy which will lead to a lumpy sauce.

Nobody likes a lumpy cheese sauce.

So work slowly and after a few minutes you should have all your milk incorporated with the roux and you’ll be left with a light gravy basically. Again, you could be French and refer to it as a Béchemel, but let’s be real. It’s gravy.

Once you have that part of the sauce done, you’ll need some cheese. Goat cheese is the star of the show obviously, but I added in some grated cheddar also just to give it a more complex flavor.

Hard to go wrong here...

Finishing the sauce is as easy as dumping all this cheese into the white sauce and continuing to whisk it until the cheeses are melted and smooth.

Lots of cheese....

Then just season the sauce with salt and pepper and you’re ready to make some serious mac and (goat) cheese.

Finishing the Mac and Cheese

Cook and drain whatever kind of macaroni you choose. I went with shells this time around, but you could use anything except those little wagon wheels.

I’m just kidding. You can use the wagon wheels. I have an irrational hatred of them for some reason.

Sorry. Getting sidetracked.

Add the peppers and tomatoes to the pasta and then pour on all of that delicious cheese sauce.

Whoa man.

Stir this all together and feel free to serve it up like that if you like or you can take it to the next step.

The next step being to pour the mac and cheese into a buttered casserole dish, top it with bread crumbs, and bake it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Bread crumbs give some texture.

The bread crumbs should crisp up a bit and give the dish some really nice texture.

Yum.

It’s pretty hard to go wrong with goat cheese I guess, but that should just make you even more confident to throw it in random dishes with abandon.

Betsy and I ended up housing about half of this in one meal which, for the record, is a lot of macaroni and cheese.

Thanks for this Austin.

There’s this really cool spot across from the Austin Convention Center called Moonshine. They serve kind of new style Southern food. Stuff like chicken fried steak that’s as big as a plate, but then they also bring out free spicy popcorn when you sit down. It’s that kind of place. While I was in Austin I met some of my family that I haven’t seen in a very long time for a dinner there one night and I really loved the food.

My favorite thing was this slightly spicy macaroni and cheese dish that had green chiles, black beans, corn, and chicken. It was so delicious I mentally bookmarked it as something I had to try to replicate.

I’m not sure how technically close my version is to theirs, but it tasted darn close to their version so I’ll count it as a win!

Green Chile Mac and Cheese

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound elbow macaroni
1 pound pepper jack cheese
1 large chicken breast, grilled or pan seared
2 poblano peppers (if you can find Hatch green chiles, use those)
1 Cup black beans (I used canned)
1 Cup sweet corn, frozen works best
3 Cups Milk
1 small onion, diced
4 Tablespoons butter
4 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 Cup panko breadcrumbs
Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1) To roast peppers, add them directly to the flame over a grill or a gas stove. Turn the peppers ever minute or so until they are completely charred. Add the peppers to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit for 10 minutes to steam.

2) Remove peppers and peel or rub off skin. Don't rinse the peppers under water. Once peeled, remove seeds and dice them up.

3) If you're using chicken, season it with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and some dried chili flakes if you have some. Sear it for about 5 minutes a side and then finish it in a 350 degree oven until cooked through, about 15 minutes. You could also grill it. Let the chicken rest for a few minutes and then dice it up into small bites.

4) Toast panko crumbs in a dry skillet over medium heat for about 5 minutes, tossing occasionally. They should be lightly browned. Set aside for later.

5) Drain and rinse black beans from can and set aside.

6) Melt butter in medium to large pot over medium heat. Once melted add diced onion and cook until onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in flour and cook for another few minutes.

7) Whisk in milk in 1 cup batches. Add it slowly to avoid lumps. Continue to cook the sauce and turn the heat down to medium-low once the milk is added. It should start to thicken and be the consistency of a light gravy.

8) Whisk in cheese and once cheese is melted, add roasted chiles.

9) Cook macaroni according to package, drain, add macaroni back to pot and add cheese sauce to macaroni. Stir to combine, then add diced chicken, beans, and corn. Season with salt and pepper.

10) Before serving, add toasted breadcrumbs on top.

There’s some good stuff in this mac and cheese, but try not to add too many fillers. One cup of beans and corn is enough to give it some good texture. At the end of the day you want it to be a mac and cheese with some stuff in it, not a salad covered in cheese sauce.

Roasting the peppers

If you’re in a pinch, you could use the canned roasted peppers that they sell for this, but if you have a grill or a gas stove, you can just roast your own. It just takes a few minutes and is a cool party trick.

Blistered!

Crank your heat up to high on your gas stove or grill and lay the peppers right on the flames. Turn them every minute or so until they are almost completely charred. You’re looking for like a 90% char coverage.

When they are done, add them to a bowl and cover them with some plastic wrap.

90% char is good.

The plastic wrap will help them steam and make them easier to peel. Let them sit for about 10 minutes. After that they should be cool enough to handle and also the skins should peel right off.

To Wash or Not To Wash

When you’re roasting peppers, it’s kind of a messy job to peel them. You’ll be tempted to run the peppers under water to rinse off all the extra skin. I do not recommend this. It’ll make your peppers cleaner, but it’ll also wash off a ton of great flavor that’s on the outside of the peppers. They been steeping in their own delicious pepper juices for 10 minutes and to wash all that off is crazy talk.

So just do your best to get off most the skin and then remove the seeds, dice them up, and add them to a bowl.

Peeled and chopped.

Other ingredients

The original mac and cheese dish had some grilled chicken that was folded in to the mac and cheese. It wasn’t an excessive amount of chicken. Just a few pieces here and there.

I seasoned a few chicken breasts with olive oil, salt and pepper, and some dried chili flakes. Then I just seared them for about 5 minutes per side in a cast iron skillet and then finished them off in a 350 degree oven until they were cooked through, another 15 minutes or so.

You could just as easily grill these or, heck, just leave them out.

I only used one of these for the actual mac and cheese.

Optional protein.

The other thing that made this recipe was some toasted breadcrumbs that they added on top of the mac and cheese right before serving it. Since it’s not a baked dish, it needs some crunchy texture.

I added about a cup of panko to a dry skillet and toasted it until it turned a nice tan color, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle this on the dish right before serving it.

Really good topping.

Making the cheese sauce

The important part of this dish is obviously the cheese sauce. I made a pretty standard version, but added some onion to my roux and also used pepper jack cheese to give it a bit of a kick.

Start by adding your diced onion to the butter in a good sized pot. Stir the onion and butter over medium heat until the onion is translucent and soft, but not browned, about 5 minutes. Then add in the flour and continue to cook for another few minutes.

At this point you’ll have a standard roux with some onion mixed in.

This roux will make ya cry!

Slowly whisk in your milk to the roux in 1 cup batches. It should thicken up pretty nicely. After three cups it might be a bit runny, but continue to simmer it over medium low heat and it’ll thicken up. When it gets to the consistency of a light gravy, start stirring in your cheese.

It’s a lot of cheese, but it’ll fit.

Just the beginning of the cheese...

Once all your cheese is melted, stir in your green chiles also!

Bam!

Finishing the dish

Cook the macaroni according to the package and when it’s done, drain it and add it back to the pot. Then stir in the green chile cheese sauce!

It might look a bit runny, but it’ll thicken up as we add more stuff and it cooks together a bit.

It'll seem a bit runny.

Stir in the chicken, corn, and black beans. Continue to stir it over low heat and season it with salt and pepper. It’ll need a good pinch of both.

You can serve it right out of the pot!

Lots of goodies in there.

If you were making this for a dinner party or something (recommended) you might want to put it in something more decorative.

It’s one of the best mac and cheese dishes I’ve made!

One of the best I've made!

I forgot to sprinkle on the breadcrumbs before snapping my last picture, but they are pretty essential. Don’t forget them! They give the dish some great crunchy texture.

This might not be a beginners mac and cheese. You have to make a cheese sauce, roast some peppers, and maybe sear some chicken, but it’s totally doable and it makes a mountain of food.

If you’re a mac and cheese fan then you should give this a shot. If you aren’t a mac and cheese fan then I’m not sure why you read this far!

Let me re-enact a conversation I have probably half a dozen times a week either in person, over email, or through some other medium:

Me: You should really try out X recipe. It’s really delicious and not that hard to do.
Person: Why in holy Hades would you make that? You can just buy it?
Me: Well, it’s just better.
Person: Sure it is buddy. Take a hike.

So after having this conversation a million times, I’ve realized that actually the person isn’t wrong. I’m most likely biased toward my homemade version because, well, I made it.

So after much thinking, I’ve come up with what I hope to be a recurring series here on Macheesmo (maybe once a month like my Guess the Food posts) that I’m calling The Homemade Trials. The idea is simple enough, I make or buy a store bought item, then make it from scratch, and compare the two on a series of criteria.

The Criteria. I picked four main criteria on which to evaluate my pre-packaged item versus the homemade version:

Time: How long does it take to prepare? Do I save any time by buying it pre-packaged?
Cost: When you break down ingredients, is it actually cheaper per serving?
Nutrition: How do the two versions shape up from a nutritional standpoint?
Taste: The only subjective criteria, but at least for me it has to be one because this is food after all people.

I’m No Scientist. Let me state before I go into the super-nerd breakdown of this post, that I’m not a scientist. That said, I do think I have a scientific brain meaning that I tend to think about things in a pretty logical fashion. Feel free to point out errors though if you see them.

The Boxed Mac -n- Cheese. I went with what is probably known as the most popular boxed mac -n- cheese and has been for as long as I can remember.

It is, after all, apparently THE CHEESIEST.

The cheesiest.

I followed the instructions exactly.

Honestly I haven’t made boxed mac -n- cheese for a while although I used to live off the stuff. The powdered cheese product is not something I consider as food by the way.

Look at all that cheese!

Let’s get into the criteria for this trial because we have a lot of work to do!

TIME. I started a timer when I started boiling water for each version of mac and cheese. While the box might imply that you can make mac and cheese in under ten minutes, if you factor in water boiling, that’s impossible.

The box version of mac -n- cheese clocked in at 19:20.

My homemade version clocked in at 21:00.

I used the exact same amount of water in each case so that difference is entirely because my elbow macaroni took a few minutes longer to cook than the boxed macaroni.

One difference here is that the boxed version is idle time. You don’t have to do anything while you cook the macaroni. For the homemade version though you need to be making your cheese sauce while the water boils.

That said, the boxed version was technically faster so I’ll give the TIME category to the boxed version.

COST. I was pretty sure that the boxed version would destroy me in this department because I use pretty good ingredients (2 pounds of Tillamook cheddar runs $8) for my homemade version. I did try to keep it as simple as possible though.

Real ingredients.

It’s important when doing cost that you do per serving cost to make things fair. The box of macaroni says that it has 3 servings in it. My final version of boxed mac and cheese weighed in at 18 ounces meaning that 1 serving equals 6 ounces of mac and cheese.

This was A LOT closer than I was expecting. The real saver for the homemade version is that it made six and a half servings of mac and cheese while the boxed version just made three by weight.

I actually think that if you shopped around on cheese prices, you could beat the box price.

As is though, I have to give cost category to the BOXED version which I figured would happen.

NUTRITION. This one was a bit tricky for me to calculate, but basically I wanted to measure some basics like calories, total fat, carbs, and protein and see how the two versions stacked up. Again, it’s important to work on a per serving basis.

To do the homemade version, I added up the nutritional info in each of the main ingredients (macaroni, butter, milk, cheese, and flour) to get a total which I compared to the boxed version.

I thought it was important to adjust the nutrition facts for the boxed version according to the milk and butter that I used as well so I started with the “As Packaged” nutritional info and ignored the “As Prepared” column.

I double checked my math on all of these. Keep in mind that we’re talking about mac -n- cheese here so neither are GREAT for you. That said, I was absolutely shocked that the homemade version had less calories. I wasn’t shocked to find that it had more fat though just because I used real dairy.

All the nutrition info makes a ton of sense if you think about it. That packaged cheese mix is mostly salt which is why the sodium is a lot higher in the boxed version. There’s A LOT more protein in the homemade version because of the real dairy as well.

If you add in all the preservatives and random ingredients that are included in Boxed Mac -n- Cheese (Sodium Tripolyphosphate anyone?), I’m going to give the Nutrition award to the homemade version. Even with the tiny bit of extra fat, I think the other categories more than make up for it.

I think mine is maybe the cheesiest.

Taste. Ok. So this is fairly subjective I know, but I do think it’s important. I also think that at least in this case, I could’ve ran it through 1000 people and I’d be shocked if anyone disagreed with me.

Boxed mac -n- cheese doesn’t actually taste that bad to me. I like it okay. The key to it is to eat it as soon as possible. If it sits for even a few minutes it gets really congealed and strange. Homemade mac -n- cheese doesn’t really have this problem. It’s stays pretty creamy no matter what and even tastes okay cold.

So while boxed tastes okay, the creaminess and cheesiness of the homemade version is just out of this world. It’s not even close.

Taste goes to homemade.

My biased winner.

The Verdict! So according to the criteria this is a tie. The boxed version won the TIME and COST categories and the homemade version won the NUTRITION and TASTE categories.

The thing to remember is that the boxed version just barely squeaked out a win in the TIME and COST categories where the homemade version completely dominated the NUTRITION and TASTE categories.

So I guess at the end of the day, it comes down to a very simple question:

When it comes to mac -n- cheese, are you willing to spend a few extra minutes and few extra cents to eat a healthier and tastier meal?

I can’t answer that for everybody, but for me the answer is definitely YES.

Here’s the recipe I used:

Homemade Creamy Mac -n- Cheese
Makes eactly 6.5 servings!

8 ounces elbow macaroni
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
4 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 Cups milk
8 ounces cheddar cheese, grated
Pinch of salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Cook elbow macaroni according to package.

2) In a pot over medium heat, melt the butter. Once melted, whisk in the flour to form a roux. Cook for a few minutes on medium heat until the mixture turns a light tan color.

3) Slowly whisk milk into roux. Whisk continually until milk is incorporated. The mixture should get nice and creamy. Try to whisk out any lumps that form.

4) Add grated cheese to sauce and season with a tiny pinch of salt and pepper.

5) Once cheese is melted, stir in elbow macaroni and stir until well combined.

6) Serve immediately!

I’d love to hear what people think about this post and if you have any ideas for future Homemade Trials, leave a comment!

Yum.

One of my favorite things to see at a restaurant is a good macaroni and cheese dish that’s baked in individual cast iron dishes. The cast iron distributes the heat well so the mac and cheese is baked evenly and the edges are really crispy and delicious.

The problem of course is that I don’t have any mini cast iron dishes laying around to bake my mac and cheese in.

But I do happen to have one really large cast iron skillet that I figured would work just as well! You could put a ton of add-ins in this dish to make it your own. Lobster? Poblano peppers? Go crazy. I kept this version pretty standard though.

Cast Iron Mac and Cheese

Yield: Serves 6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 pound elbow macaroni
8 ounces bacon
1/2 medium onion, diced
5 dried arbol peppers, crushed (or 2 Teaspoons red pepper flakes)
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
4 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 Cups whole milk
16 ounces cheese (I used 8 ounces of Monterey Jack and 8 ounces cheddar cheese)
1/4 Cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 Cup bread crumbs (optional)
Salt and Pepper
Maybe a drizzle of olive oil

Helpful Equipment:
A Cast Iron Skillet

Directions:

1) Cook macaroni according to package instructions and set aside.

2) Cut up bacon into 1/4 inch cubes and cook in cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until very crispy and browned. If bacon appears dry, drizzle with a bit of olive oil.

3) Remove bacon from pan and add onions and crushed peppers or red pepper flakes. Cook until onions are soft, about 5 minutes, stirring continuously. Remove onion mixture and combine with bacon.

Do not wash the skillet, but set it aside for later.

4) In a medium saucepan, melt butter and whisk in flour over medium heat. Cook until the roux is a light brown mixture, about 5 minutes. Continue to whisk and slowly pour in milk. Once all the milk is incorporated, whisk until smooth and turn the heat down to low.

5) Whisk in shredded cheeses and a pinch of salt and pepper to taste.

6) Combine cheese sauce with elbow macaroni and stir in bacon mixture. Pour the macaroni and cheese back into the cast iron skillet and top with grated Parmesan and/or bread crumbs.

7) Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes until cheese is browned.

8) Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Prepping the Ingredients

I used some bacon and spicy Arbol peppers to give some flavor to the macaroni and cheese. Cooking all this stuff in the cast iron skillet that you eventually bake the mac and cheese in also seasons the skillet.

Start by chopping your bacon into pieces and then cook it in a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until the bacon is really crispy. If you want, add a drizzle of oil to the pan to get the bacon sizzling.

While the bacon cooks chop up an onion and also crunch your dried peppers if you’re using them. You can also just use red pepper flakes though.

The flavor party.

When the bacon is crispy, take it out of the pan and add your onion and dried peppers. Cook them in the bacon grease until the onions are soft. Then mix everything together and set it aside. Whatever you do, don’t clean or wipe out the skillet! That said, if there’s a pool of grease left over, pour out some of it. You just need a coat of oil.

Lots of flavors here.

Also, while this is happening, cook the elbow macaroni according to the package. I would recommend under-cooking it by a minute or two or else your mac and cheese might be a bit soggy.

Making the Cheese Sauce

This cheese sauce, like any good cheese sauce in my opinion, is based on a Roux which is just a mixture of flour and butter.

Start by melting the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once it’s melted, add your flour to the butter and start whisking! It’ll bubble a bit and start to turn slightly tan. If you’ve never made a roux before, it isn’t that hard. Just remember not to let it sit for too long or it’ll burn.

After about 4-5 minutes of cooking your roux should be a nice light tan/brown color. Like this:

The Roux is on!

Once it gets that color, slowly start whisking in your milk. This is the only tricky part of making a cheese sauce like this. If you add your milk too fast, then you can’t whisk all the roux in evenly so you’ll end up with a lumpy sauce. Don’t worry about it too much though, just don’t dump in all your milk at once and you’ll be fine.

Once all the milk is in the pot, it should have the consistency of a light gravy.

Then whisk in all your grated cheese and season with salt and pepper. The longer you stir it on the burner, the thicker it will get.

This was a really good cheese sauce!

Maybe my best cheese sauce ever!

The Skillet

Remember that skillet that you cooked the bacon and onions in? I really hope that you didn’t wash it. Here’s my dirty pan ready for baking!

My favorite thing.

Back to the Macaroni

Once your cheese sauce is done, stir it into your drained macaroni. To be completely honest, this was very delicious just like this. If you don’t want to bake it or don’t have a cast iron skillet, it’s perfectly acceptable to serve it just like this!

You could eat it like this.

Baking the Dish

Assuming you do want to bake it though, stir in your bacon/onion/pepper mixture and then pour all of it back into your cast iron skillet. My skillet is a 15 inch skillet and it fit perfectly.

I didn’t have any bread crumbs around or I would’ve added some on top, but I did have some Parmesan so I grated some of that on top. I figured it would brown up nicely as well.

Accidentally no bread crumbs!

Bake this for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees. The mac and cheese should have a nice browned crust. Be sure to let it cool for 5 minutes or so before serving it up!

This is hard to beat.

If you’re intimidated by any part of this recipe, just remember that it’s really hard to go wrong with mac and cheese. Even if your sauce is a bit lumpy or if you overcook the macaroni a bit, it’s still going to be delicious. You’d have to work to make this dish not delicious.

I really liked baking it in a cast iron dish because of the crispy edges, but like I said, you could definitely just serve this up as a creamy style mac and cheese dish also.

Bust out your cast iron and give this a shot!

If you haven’t tried the cheese sauce that I made for the Mr. Crunchy recipe, here is yet another reason to master the Roux, milk, cheese sauce. It makes an absolutely perfect baked macaroni and cheese. In fact you can even use the exact same cheeses that I used in the sandwich. (Yea leftovers!)

The recipe I used for the above photo was from a Bon Appétit which means that it has a lot of ingredients. Sometimes BA tries to slam as many ingredients into a dish as possible. Meanwhile, there I am at the store pulling my hair out. Things like: This recipe originally called for “heirloom tomatoes.” While I love those things, they are expensive and you put so much cheese and other stuff in this dish, why would you need those?

Cauliflower Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Time: 40 minutes + 40 minutes baking time

Veggies
- 1 Full head of cauliflower, cut into flourets
- 1 14oz can diced tomatoes
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
Cheese Sauce
- 2 Tablespoons flour
- 5 Tablespoons butter, divided
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 cups good cheese (I used Gruyere, some swiss, maybe a bit of cheddar.) You don’t want to use all cheddar or cheeses that won’t melt well.
- 1/2 cup Parmesan
- 1 cup Sour cream (or Greek Yogurt. The original calls for Creme fraiche which is nice if you can get it).
- 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard (opt.)
Other stuff you need
- 10 ounces penne
- 1 cup breadcrumbs
- Salt

1) Boil your cut up cauliflower in a large pot of salted water for 5 minutes, until tender but still crisp. Pull out your cauliflower, but keep the water to make the pasta in!
2) Melt 2 TBSP. butter in large sauté pan. Sauté cauliflower for five minutes. Add tomatoes and onions. Cook for 1 minute just to combine all the yummy flavors.
3) In a separate pan, make your Roux by melting 2 TBSP. butter and whisking in 2 TBSP. flour. Cook for a few minutes and then slowly add in your cream. The mixture will thicken pretty quickly.
4) Add your cheese slowly until it is all melted, then sour cream, 1/2 of your Parm, and mustard. Season with Salt and pepper and remove from heat once it is thick and cheesy and awesome.
5) Cook your pasta in the cauliflower water. Drain the water.
6) Add your cauliflower mixture to the pasta and pour sauce over it. Combine well.
7) Pour into a buttered 13X9 baking dish.
8 ) Top with breadcrumbs and the rest of your Parm.
9) Bake at 350 for 40 minutes until golden brown.

It will be incredibly hard, but let this cool before you jump in. This dish is not the easiest that I’ve made on this site, but if you take things one piece at a time, it is very doable.

Have questions about any part of this? Leave a comment or send me an email!