Mac & Cheese For 20

Hi guys .

Hi guys .

Are you laughing ?

Ok .

You ready ?

Hi guys , I'm Laura Vitali .

And in this episode of Laurie in the kitchen , I want to share with you how to make a mac and cheese for 20 people .

Now , I share this a lot on Instagram stories .

Uh when I go to like a family party or like a barbecue or a holiday or whatever , um , they always ask me to bring mac and cheese .

Um I mean , it is really delicious and I usually make it for about 16 to 20 people and I've been getting a ton of requests from you to share with you how to do that because if you're having a big holiday , it's a little bit tricky to sort of like , figure out like how much do you need for something ?

Even though you can easily double or triple my regular mac and cheese um recipe .

I did wanna do this for you and I do have a couple other um a couple of other classic like holiday dishes like green bean , casserole , potato casserole , things like that , that I'm gonna share with you how to make for 20 people because that's the sort of the theme for this year .

Um So I'm excited to share it with you .

Let's talk about what we've got going on already .

I've got a couple of pounds of elbow pasta here that I've cooked until Al Dente in some salted boiling water , drained it .

I wanna cook a shy of a couple of minutes .

Uh because it's gonna go into the oven .

I drained it and I put it back into the same hot pot with a quarter stick of butter .

Now , if you don't like butter , if you don't like cheese , if you don't like an overload of deliciousness , then this might not be the recipe for you .

Um But if you like all things good and comforting , you'll love this .

I also have so this is a sheep pan , a high sided pan and I wanted to share this with you because this is the perfect vessel to make anything for 20 people .

Ok ?

The size of this uh this particular one is 18 by 13 by two .

And I love it .

It makes , you'll see how much of this it makes and it comes with when it comes to mac and cheese and things like that , you don't really need a big , big portion because it's very , very rich .

So I've buttered that with a little bit more butter and I'm gonna take this .

I also have my oven preheated to 3 75 by the way , add the pasta .

See how much it makes .

And that's just a couple of pounds of elbow and you can really use , um , any pasta that you like , add that right in and it's been buttered , as I mentioned , level that out a little bit .

Now in the same big pot we're gonna make our sauce .

Here's another tip I wanted to give you if you're gonna be doing this for a holiday season and you think to yourself , what can I do ?

What , what can I do to do this ahead of time or whatever ?

You can cook your pasta , run it under cold water to stop it from cooking further .

Put it in a container or whatever , you're gonna store it in the fridge with a little bit of olive oil .

So it does , it all stick together and then the next day , all you gotta do , you can actually just even put it in the same container you're gonna bake it in .

Uh , if you have the space and then the next day you just make your sauce , you pour it over there and you pop it into the oven .

It's very simple .

Very easy .

I'm gonna go ahead and melt the butter completely .

All right .

That's all almost where I want it .

I'm gonna go ahead and add my flour .

I'm just gonna cook this .

You wanna cook your root , your thickening agent here until you can no longer see raw flour .

You just wanna cook that out for maybe like a minute or so .

Don't be too , um , hasty and add the next ingredient too quickly because this , it is , even though it's like a quick , you know , a quick step , it is an important one .

So , just go ahead and cook it .

You see how it's getting really velvety and soft and it's not lumpy .

That's what you want .

Ok .

Now I'm going to as carefully as I can manage , add all the milk .

There you go and my cream and I'm just gonna carefully stir this and cook it and whisk it just until it sort of starts to simmer and thickens and it becomes thick enough to coat the back of my spoon .

Don't be tempted to , you know , increase your heat too much to let this happen faster because all you'll do is scorch the bottom of your sauce .

That looks perfect .

And I wanna show you , you see how I stay separate .

That's how , you know , it is ready at this point .

You wanna salt it uh pretty aggressively .

You are feeding a lot of people .

Then you're gonna add lots of black pepper , dry mustard and paprika , stir that all in .

That makes a big difference .

So please don't leave it out .

Ok , the mustard , you really don't even taste the mustard , but it gives you a really lovely edge to that really sort of silky smooth .

Um almost one note cream sauce situation .

Speaking of , I use three cheeses .

Not because I wanna be excessive but because they all serve a purpose sharp cheddar because I love its flavor American , which I just get in my deli and then I just put it apart , pull it apart with my fingers and mozzarella .

American .

So cheddar .

I love the flavor American really silky .

It really gives you a silky smooth , delicious , delicious sauce and gives you a nice sharp cheese flavor .

Then I use some shredded mozzarella because I love its pull .

I love its cheesiness .

I love its stringiness .

So yes , it looks like it's a very complicated , maybe too many cheeses too if you want .

If it's too many for you just use all cheddar .

I wouldn't use all American because it'll be too bland and I wouldn't use , I'm sorry , I wouldn't use all mozzarella because it would be too bland and I wouldn't use all American because it would be way too strong of a flavor .

So I think all of them combined .

Uh make this quite perfect .

So you can just use all cheddar if you feel like it's way too much .

OK .

I'm almost done .

I'm just melting it and it doesn't have to be really perfect because we are popping this into the oven .

So at that it stir stir , stir , beautiful , beautiful , beautiful again .

Doesn't have to be perfect .

This is done .

The only thing I'm gonna do is just taste it for seasoning .

Hm .

Oh , that's good .

Now , where's my ?

OK .

I'm gonna pour my sauce over the pasta .

OK ?

And I just take my spoon here and I just do one of these .

Now , it looks very wet at this point .

Very saucy , very thin .

But you gotta keep in mind that this is gonna go back , you know , it's gonna go into the oven .

So it'll be back to cooking .

OK ?

But before I do that because it's not rich enough , I'm gonna make a little breadcrumb topping , crunchy situation .

OK ?

And I do that by using two ingredients , which I'll share with you in just a second .

I'm just gonna put this out of the way .

The crunch comes in the way of fruits , crackers .

Now you can use bread crumbs if you want to .

Of course , you can do whatever you want .

But there's a magical thing that happens when you add Ritz and Butter together .

The rit are very buttery , they're very , almost sweet and salty .

So on top of that , it's perfection .

I just add them to a food processor .

OK ?

Just trying to break them up as much as I can with my hands just to give them a head start .

Really ?

You can bash these up in a Ziploc bag if you want to .

But this is just easier .

OK ?

Along with a bit more butter because butter makes it better top on and just pulse until coarsely grind a little bit more fine .

You know , I take this and Sprinkle it all over the top Right .

Right now , I know this is gonna go into a hot oven .

3 75 maybe a half hour , maybe longer , maybe less .

Just gotta keep an eye on it until it's a lovely golden brown on top and real bubbly and delish .

And I'll show you what it looks like when it is done .

I know this is why they asked me to bring it to every party .

I brought it to my , um nephew's first birthday party not too long ago and it was the first thing to go because it's just so good .

This baby was in the oven for about 30 minutes .

I've let it cool a bit .

It is very hot .

Should let it cool way more but it's hot .

Look at this .

Look it in here .

OK .

Oh , I love mac and cheese .

You know what I'm saying ?

With mac and cheese .

It's the best mac and cheese on the planet .

Very hot though .

Wow .

That is the best mac and cheese on the face of the earth .

It's so delicious .

It's so creamy but it's not like bland .

It's got a good note with the different cheeses .

The top is like buttery and delicious .

What do you know ?

I know you could be serving this to a lot of people , but you could also just make it for yourself and keep it in the fridge that we can .

What ?

As a moneymaker , it's beyond delicious .

It's easy .

Doesn't require a ton of different ingredients and it is always a hit no matter where I take it to him or no matter what party I'm serving it to in the , to get the recipe .

I hope you enjoy spending your time with me and I will see you in the next one .

Bye bye .