3 Chefs Try to Make Mac & Cheese with No Recipe _ Epicurious

This might be a disaster .

But you know what , I'm having fun .

This is gonna be good .

There's like a pound of butter and cheese .

So there's no way it's not gonna be good .

I don't have no recipes .

My recipes are in here in here shells , three cheeses .

It's definitely mac and cheese .

I see .

Mac and cheese .

Mac and cheese .

I love big shells .

It like catches the cheese the best elbows .

Number 81 it took them a lot of tries but they got it right .

Well , evaporated milk .

That'll be fun .

Why not ?

A little bit of Velveeta , classic American cheese stuff .

And for my crumbs , I'm gonna use this .

This is what I'm gonna use because I have so many at home .

I don't even know what to do with them .

I'm taking this over here .

We're gonna get started .

It's not all fitting on the tray .

I made mac and cheese for my every day , all day .

No , no , no , not all day .

I haven't made a lot of mac and cheese .

In fact , I never do , but I have some ideas .

Ok , let's cook .

Let's do this .

So , first I'm gonna start the cheese sauce .

I got my sauce pan .

It's perfect pan for sauce and add some butter .

I'm gonna do half a stick and I'm gonna throw some flour in , not measuring anything .

This is probably a bad idea , but that's how we do it at home .

I love mac and cheese .

I don't really make mac and cheese .

I know what's supposed to be done .

I just don't know if I'm doing it right .

The first thing I'm gonna do is just cut my veggies and grate the cheese .

This is all gonna go into the cheese sauce that I'm making .

First pasta and the boiling water .

I'm using a little bit of kosher salt and then I'm using this pasta .

Why you choose this ?

Because it looks fancy and that's what professionals do .

We use fancy stuff to impress people basically is like two elbows in one do this .

I have all my ingredients here because I'm gonna use them very quickly .

There's some milk .

Now , I don't know if I'm adding the right amount of any of this stuff I chose .

Cayenne pepper and garlic powder is my seasonings along with some salt .

I'm gonna use jalapeno peppers and a red Fresno pepper because I love spicy things .

I'm gonna do two different colors just so that it's a little more fun to look at .

I'm gonna do garlic and some parsley .

I'm gonna mix it in with the , I'm actually gonna add in some of the Velveeta Velveeta got me through my younger years .

What is this ?

Milk ?

What the , oh , it's a cheese product .

I'm not using this cheese product .

Velveeta will add , um , just the general cheese flavor .

It'll be something where you'll taste it .

You'll be like I recognize this .

This is , this is food .

I'm gonna grate my cheeses .

I'm gonna start with the , we'll do the cheddar and I'll probably finish off with the Parmesan .

Yeah , that's a good amount of cheese .

My past is in the water and now it's time to make the sauce .

We're gonna start with onions .

I'm gonna sweat out my garlic and onions with a little bit of the butter with a little bit of salt .

Oh , this onion is spicy .

I'm gonna sweat the onions and that's gonna add some sweetness .

I gonna put some salt and some olive oil .

This looks pretty good .

It looks awfully thick , thicker than I was expecting .

I don't want it to be too much .

This might be a disaster .

But you know what I'm having fun .

I don't know if this is the way I should have done it .

But we'll see .

I really think like , the thing about cooking is like to not be afraid to just like , try it .

You know , I'm gonna add garlic .

My daughters , they don't love garlic .

They don't love onion .

So when I do this part I kind of hide because I don't want them to like , I don't like onion daddy .

That's how you get your vegetables into your kids by lying to them .

The garlic is just gonna make this pasta delicious because that's what the flavor is .

You know , you gonna put a little bit of butter .

The is gonna add a nutty flavor because you know nutty is good .

So I want the to release all the flavors into the butter .

OK ?

Now , very important thing right here , we're gonna lower the heat .

Remember you control the heat , the heat doesn't control you .

I'm going to add a little bit more butter and some flour to make a roux , which will be a thickener to make this nice and creamy .

The flour is gonna make the sauce thicker .

I don't really measure anything .

I kind of just eyeball it .

I know that like with um supposed to get it to like sort of like smell like bread and that's when you know it's kind of done .

We're gonna stir stir stir and then we're gonna add some .

So I'm adding my evaporated milk and I actually just read about this recently that evaporated milk makes it creamier .

So I'm gonna try it .

So we're gonna add the milk as we go little by little .

See , but you have to keep moving it because otherwise you have crumbled sauce .

So we already cook the flour .

The sauce is getting thicker and thicker and thicker .

I'm gonna add a little bit more pepper , of course black pepper and I'm gonna add a little bit more salt .

I'm gonna add some fresh nut bag into the sauce .

Oops , my little nutmeg .

I can hear my daughter be like dad is the food ready .

I don't want the onion .

Well , this is cooking .

I'm gonna add a little bit of as the peppery jalapeno taste , but without being too spicy and now I just need my Mac Elbow macaroni number 81 .

I like to use the larger shells because I think that it'll be a better way to catch the sauce .

Um I definitely prefer it actually to um macaroni , which I know is mac and cheese .

But I think that the shells are gonna be really , really great pasta cooks for five minutes according to the according .

Uh according to them , it cooks for five minutes .

I don't know how to say that I am actually gonna set the timer for a little bit less than what it says on the package because I'm gonna bake this in the oven as well .

So I don't want it to get too overcooked .

Now , I am checking in on my sauce .

It's looking pretty good and thick .

I tasted it and I feel like it needs a little more Velveeta .

Uh I don't know who else cooks like this , but I just kind of keep tasting things until it tastes like how my mouth wants it to be .

The pasta is about to come out .

You know , we want this if you see this white part right here in the middle .

That means it's definitely , now we're gonna shut it off because we don't want this to be cooked anymore .

We're gonna add the pasta with a little bit of pasta water .

I'm gonna wait for the cheese to add it in the end because I don't want the cheese to break down .

I'm doing this double strain thing to make sure I get as much water out of this as possible .

Since I'm baking this , I want this to be nice and saucy .

I don't want this to be all dry because otherwise it will break time to add some cheese .

Is I'm using craft Sharp cheddar and Cabbit .

Extra sharp .

I'm keeping it simple .

I'm going like straight down the middle .

You know what you expect from , you know , if you ever had a parent who didn't know how to cook .

Now , I am ready to add the cheese .

I'm gonna fold all of this in .

So I have eight cheddar cheese , my Parmesan cheese , but I think I need one more cheese .

So I'm gonna , I'll be right back .

I'm gonna mix two cheddar .

A simple and this , let's see how good it is .

Hm .

Oh , shut up .

Beautiful .

Shut up .

Delicious .

You need a lot of cheese for this .

It's the only way .

Well , look at , look at this .

It is super gooey .

Look at that .

It's so thick .

Hey , it's gonna be good .

All right , let's check on my noodles .

I mean , they look , you know , they look like noodles .

All right .

I'm gonna start taking my noodles out .

Now I'm going to merit the pasta with those cheeses .

Throw in some regular sharp cheddar and we're gonna mix it around and let these uh Cheddars melt .

Look at that cheese is melting up beautifully .

This looks really good right now .

Ok .

Before we bake it , we're gonna make sure you try it .

Oh my gosh .

On the rare occasion when I cook mac and cheese , I don't have fancy cheeses and now I do .

So I'm gonna choose to add a fancy cheese because I wanna win .

So I'm gonna go with the grier when chef tastes mine .

And he's like , why is this so fancy ?

I , I don't know , it's just a , it's just a thing I do .

Don't worry about it .

So now I'm gonna add in my diced jalape o peppers and Fresno chili .

I'm gonna sort of slowly fold in my sauce .

I'm OK .

Just um , sometimes , you know , it takes a little muscle to cook who says that you're not working out a little bit .

So I'm adding this all now together and actually I was thinking a little bit of fresh herbs would benefit .

This is really nice in there .

I'm gonna add an egg yolk .

The reason why I had an egg yolk just in case the pasta gets overcooked , this will hold it together .

Yeah , I'm crazy .

So what you don't want to add the egg donut egg .

Let me be .

Did I tell you how you live your life ?

No , this is how in my pasta this looks really good .

Dare I say perfect .

And it's ready to go into the oven with some bread crumbs and get baked .

I have a bacon dish right here .

I'm gonna scoop my mac and cheese into there .

I don't know how everybody else eats their mac and cheese , but I like it a lot of cheese real sticky , real thick .

I'm going to place this into a buttered dish , spread it around evenly .

Now I'm gonna put this in a cast item .

I'm gonna add a little bit more cheese just a little bit more .

And now the this is gonna add , I would say a salt element .

I have had the oven preheated to 3 75 .

I'm gonna pop this in there .

I got the bread crumbs Italian style .

I'm gonna add them to the macaroni to give it that authentic Italian flavor .

Just to give it a little bit of a variety and texture .

That might be a little too much .

But you know what , when you mix it in , it's gonna be just right .

Nothing can go wrong for me .

So um I have my panco and I am just gonna add actually some dry spices now and because I want everything to be spicy and my , like I said , I don't really measure anything .

I just kind of go with what I think looks good and then I'll just taste it .

Oh , wait , very small .

It needs a little after the mac and cheese has been in the oven .

I'm gonna spread this on top and then toast it in the broiler for about two minutes .

Oh , it looks good .

I'm gonna try one which is really good .

I'm really happy .

This will just add a nice crunch to it , to the top .

I'm gonna kind of watch it just to see how long it takes to toast .

I'm sort of unfamiliar with what it , what it's gonna look like .

So , you know , I'll take a look and see how it goes .

I got it in the bacon dish .

This is ready to go in the oven .

I'm gonna put it in at 3 50 for , you know .

Oh , wow .

I'm gonna broil this for like 345 minutes .

You have a nice caramelized crust .

Then dinner is ready .

Guess what ?

It's time to get my mac and cheese out of the oven .

It's ready .

It looks so good .

I'm really excited .

It's exactly the kind of like browning that I wanted it to have .

I wanted the bread crumbs to get browner .

They didn't get as brown as I would have liked , but I didn't wanna overcook the mac and cheese itself , which is the star of the show .

So I had to pull it out .

Uh , I think they'll still be nice and crunchy .

No , there you are .

Look at this , look at this .

Come through , it looked like a mac and cheese cake .

Now , I just have to play this and eat it and then we go into the competition .

It's not a competition , but no , my plating method is called the slop .

Uh I learned that at , on blue .

I just take the spoon .

I take it out and I just slap it .

I want some of the crispy stuff .

That looks awesome .

I'm so happy with it .

Sorry .

Wow .

Look at you guys .

Wow .

Wow .

Ok .

All right .

Let's start with those judges .

I prepared for you .

A mac and cheese with bread crumbs that like what I did .

So I'm like a chef .

You have kids ?

I don't have kids .

Well , I think you're ready to like , yeah , I mean , they will be very happy with this .

We're gonna try now .

I can't wait for you guys to try this .

Wow , that was really good .

It's my kind of mac and cheese .

This is amazing .

Feels so good .

Right .

My turn .

I made this for my daughters all the time also .

I did a , I didn't even know what to do with those .

And even though it looks spicy , but I don't think it's spicy .

It's really good .

That's so good .

And it's like perfect creamy and I use the double elbow pasta because it looks like that one .

But it's twice as good .

I don't know about you guys , but I really appreciate mac and cheese on a new level .

Now .

You cook it a lot .

But maybe for us .

Yeah , I think I might have you put it in the repertoire ?

Yeah , I probably won't .

I still go , I'm going back to the box after this , but I'm real proud of myself .

Yeah , it's really good .