Betty's Parmesan & Mozzarella Mac 'n Cheese

Hi , I'm Betty .

Welcome to Betty's kitchen .

Today , we're making Parmesan and mozzarella mac and cheese .

Now , usually when I make macaroni and cheese , I use uh sharp cheddar .

Uh Sometimes I use white cheddar .

Sometimes I use Velveeta cheese .

If I'm doing it stove top , this is gonna be baked in the oven and um lots of cheeses taste good in macaroni and cheese .

And I thought I would uh show you how to make Parmesan and mozzarella mac and cheese .

So we're gonna start by taking care of our elbow macaroni .

Now , you may use a different shape if you like , but you need eight ounces and I've got my water boiling .

This is about half full .

Uh So a large pot on the stove , a Dutch oven type uh pot , something like that and get your water boiling and I salt mine that might be the individual preference .

But I put one teaspoon of salt in .

I feel like that's the only way I can really get salt into the pasta as much as I want .

And then I pour my uncooked pasta in and just stir that around and that stops the water from boiling .

So it's gonna have to come back to a boil and then I will reduce the heat until it simmers .

And it doesn't take very long for that to get done .

So I'll keep checking it .

I want it to be uh , poured through a colander when it's still , which is uh chewy because it's going to the oven and gonna bake some .

And that's additional cooking that will be applied to the macaroni .

While we're making the macaroni , we can stir up a , a sauce .

I'm going to use a half stick of butter .

That's 1/4 cup butter and I'm going to melt that first on the stove .

Then I'll be adding 1/4 cup of flour .

This can be all purpose flour or self rising flour and I'll just stir it in and cook it gently .

Uh , while I'm stirring until it's nice and thick .

So to the stove with this and you can do this over , uh medium are low to medium heat .

But first mouth of butter here is the result of cooking the flour and butter and it's still bubbling .

I cooked it about two or three minutes and I stirred briskly as this was cooking because I didn't want it to lump up .

And this forms a white sauce .

Our best sauce .

But you'll see it's nice and creamy colored , but it should be thickened like this .

And then you can pour in your milk .

I have two cups of milk and I will be adding some seasonings and some cheeses .

But I first want to take this back to the stove and get a nice smooth sauce .

So this will form our white sauce when we get it together .

I have been cooking and stirring this white sauce for about , um , three or four minutes .

And really , as soon as it comes to a boil , it is nice and thick and smooth .

You don't want it sticking to the bottom if , if it is , it means you probably have cooked it at too high a heat or you haven't stirred properly .

Now , we're going to add one half teaspoon salt .

Now , that's in addition to the salt that got added to the macaroni in the water .

We're gonna add one half teaspoon of coarsely brown , uh coarsely ground black peppercorns and just ground those a minute ago that it's one half teaspoon , one half teaspoon of smoked paprika .

That'll give it a nice flavor .

And then our cheeses , we have one cup of Parmesan cheese and one cup of mozzarella cheese .

Now , we're going to stir this together and then take it back to the stove .

And the reason that it goes back to the stove is we want the cheese to melt and it might melt on its own here .

But we'll give it a little help .

Our cheese sauce and our elbow macaroni got done at about the same time , which is convenient if you are working on both of them at the same time , uh , the macaroni was cooked for six minutes after it came back to a boil .

And that gives it this , um , feel when you chew it .

And also you see that the color is a little yellow .

Still , if it were cooked to a mush , it would be white .

But you don't want that .

Uh , over here you can see we have a nice creamy cheese sauce and it has an interesting color because of the paprika .

What we're gonna do is mix these together and then have a casserole dish prepared and ready .

What I have here is actually it measures um nine by 12 at the top .

You can use eight by 10 .

You can use nine by 12 , just some ovenproof dish that you can fit this into and you'll see how mine works out with this particular choice of dish .

Once you get this poured into your baking dish , then just spread it out and take it to a 350 degree oven and let it bake our Parmesan and mozzarella mac and cheese is sizzling straight from the oven .

But I'm gonna be brave and take a taste for you .

Actually , I love macaroni cheese .

So this is not gonna be a problem .

I have a spoon for serving and I have just a tiny little plate to hold myself down a little bit .

And you know , I go for the corner pieces because I make a lot of macaroni and cheese , different varieties .

But , uh , this is what it looks like .

It cooked for 25 minutes at 350 degrees .

And that's exactly the texture you want it to have .

It's uh , moist but not runny and being baked in the oven , it's not hard .

It's not uh crispy , except there's a little crisp around the edges and that's why I go for the edges .

So I know this is hot but I'm going to um delve in and let this piece just cool a bit .

Try not to burn my tongue here and here we go .

Mhm .

I love those uh crunchy pieces which as I said , come from the edge but in the center it's just gonna be uh nice and tasty .

It is a very tasty macaroni and cheese .

It has more flavor in my opinion than what , when I put the equal amount of sharp cheddar cheese , I think it's the , the Parmesan is a little salty and um mozzarella just gives it a good texture .

So if you're getting bored with your same old mac and cheese , you might want to try this Parmesan and mozzarella mac and cheese .

I love it .

Hope you will .