Smoked Brisket Mac and Cheese

Hey , it's Matt with Meat Church today .

Let's make brisket , mac and cheese .

Mac and cheese is the number one most search term on meat church dot com that returns no results .

So you've asked for it also in a recent Dr pepper chicken video where we asked you guys , what do you want us to cook ?

There was a ton of people saying mac and cheese .

So here we are , there are so many ways to make mac and cheese .

Uh We're gonna go with one that we're ultimately gonna bake because I want a crunch element in it and the more cheeses the better .

So I wanted to say , don't think this is the end .

All be all .

This is a great recipe .

I love it and I'll tell you why in just a second .

But as I always say , make recipes your own , you can tweak it , you can change the cheeses , you can make it creamier , you can not bake it , do whatever you want .

But what I'm about to show you is gonna be freaking delicious .

So where did this come from ?

You guys know I work with Trager .

One of the reasons I love Trager is , they have a massive culinary staff of amazingly trained chefs and one of the first events I did with them , I ate this mac and cheese and I've loved it ever since .

So I started with their recipe .

I made a couple tweaks and then we're gonna add a killer ingredient , brisket to make it even more awesome .

But it also has a secret ingredient that I'm adding , uh that we'll get into here in just a second .

So let's jump right in first things .

First .

This is gonna be a smoked mac and cheese even though we are gonna bake it .

Ultimately .

And I there's a few ways that we're gonna get there .

So I'm gonna bring in a dish because we're gonna smoke some of the liquid that we put in the mac and cheese .

So starting out , I've got 2.5 cups of half and half .

Some people use milk .

Some people use heavy cream .

I think heavy cream is a bit heavy for my liking .

But use what you want .

You can also use a little more than 2.5 cups if you want .

Now we've got to dump in a little bit of seasoning .

So I've got a teaspoon of ground mustard and I'm going to go with about a tablespoon of holy cow , which is salt pepper , garlic .

I'm not measuring it clearly .

You can use salt and pepper .

I never use salt and pepper .

I always jump straight into holy cow .

Right off the bat .

Let's get into one of our secret ingredients .

I said it was gonna be a four cheese mac and cheese .

Well , let me bring out that secret ingredient over here in my Trager .

I've been smoking a block of cream cheese .

This is the first cheese that's gonna go in .

Why is it such a secret ingredient ?

Well , first off , a lot of people don't put cream cheese in their mac and cheese .

I love the tanginess that it adds .

But the secret that I added is that I smoked it .

So you can see that I cut it up into , into little little squares here .

Uh Just to get some more surface area for smoke .

I lightly seasoned it with my Texas sugar .

I had it rolling 2 20 for , you know , 90 minutes or so .

And then I'm just gonna , I'm gonna break this up and drop it down in here as well .

Obviously , you don't have to smoke your cream cheese .

Um You can just go with regular cream cheese , but this is gonna help start to impart some smoke in this dish .

I also like to put a little hot sauce in mine .

So this is not intended to burn you out and you just have to put a little bit in here .

So I've got yellow bird jalapeno hot sauce , use whatever hot sauce you want .

This is not gonna end up resulting in something that's overly hot .

Uh , your kids will eat this .

This just is a nice little flavor addition .

Well , here's what we're gonna do with this .

We're gonna go 180 degrees .

I'm using a Trigger Timberline XL .

I'm gonna hit super smoke on it .

Let me address this real quick .

I thought it was pretty obvious that you can cook my recipes on whatever you want .

Pay attention .

I'm teaching you time and temperature so you can cook on whatever type of cooker that you want .

You could even do this in your oven inside .

It's just not gonna be nearly as fun .

So , what we're trying to do is we're trying to get some smoke um on this cream .

So I'm gonna let it go for about 30 minutes , stir it around here and there uh while we're making our pasta .

So basically , I'm just gonna smoke it while I'm doing other things .

Next step is we've got to boil our pasta .

So we've got an induction burner on the timber XL .

Um I've got some salted water boiling over there and then you need £1 of pasta , which you see that I have here .

So I'll meet you guys over here .

All right , we've got our beautiful Heston pan here .

Water is already boiling .

So we're going out dente since we're , we're uh are going to bake this pasta later .

So two minutes left in package instructions .

So seven minutes in this case , let's go get our cheese .

Going from here , the recipe needs three cups of cheese and you can use whatever you like .

So I'm going one cup of three different cheeses .

I'm starting with smoked Gouda .

That's another way to put a smoked element in the dish .

Uh I'm using Grier , which I love and then sharp cheddar .

So you want some melty cheeses .

Some people like a hard cheese .

I enjoy that as well .

But this is a combination that I know is really , really good .

So I'm just gonna shred these into one cup each when possible .

Shred your own cheese .

It melts easier .

It actually tastes better than prepackaged cheese .

But I always say use what you got .

So I'm just gonna , like I said , grade up uh about a cup here and then we'll move on to the next step .

Got all my cheeses shredded up .

I love all cheeses .

So , you know , like I said , use what you want , but this is gonna be awesome .

Let's get the cream cheese off the trayer .

It's been going for about 30 minutes .

I mentioned I was gonna whisk it on the way .

Now , I'm gonna pour it in another pot .

Council .

Now , when you smoke the cream cheese , it makes it a little bit harder to get it completely broken up and dissolved .

So that's a really important step .

So I'm putting it in a pot so that I can use my whisk to press up against the edges .

Um of this pot again .

I whisked it in there a little bit , but I want to break it up even further .

If you feel like you need to put this pot , uh , back on the induction or on your stovetop , whatever you're using to heat it up further to break it down , then that's completely fine .

Ok .

So that's good .

We're gonna set this aside .

We've drained our pasta .

Now we're gonna go in with all the various shred and cheeses .

So in with all that sharp cheddar air smoked Gouda .

Ok .

While that pasta is hot , I'm gonna , gonna stir around here a little bit with these cheeses and we're gonna come in with this nice hot sauce here in just a second .

Let's dump that in .

Yes .

One final secret ingredient brisket .

But what we've got here is some leftover brisket .

Uh , just put it in my made with meat vacuum sealer .

Any time I have leftover brisket , which is not all that often .

Um , I like to vac seal it .

This is chopped up from a previous event and we had , and then we put it in the made with meat .

So to reheat it , so is the absolute best way to reheat brisket , by the way , keeps it from drying out .

So we're gonna cut this open and at this point , you're just gonna put in however much you want .

Again , another smoked element in here .

So now we are incorporating meat that was smoked .

So this clearly is going to permeate this mac and cheese .

So it's at least a cup , stir this up really good right now .

That is nice and incorporated .

We're gonna be cooking today at 350 degrees .

So let me turn that up .

Uh I'm rolling hickory pellets today .

You can use whatever you want .

If you don't want too heavy of smoke , go lighter , not a big deal .

So this mac and cheese could be done at this point .

Had you boil the pasta two more minutes .

You could actually eat it like this and be super creamy .

I mentioned in the beginning that I want a crunch element .

So what we're doing is we have one cup of panco and we've been melting butter in the trigger .

This is basically half a stick of butter .

He put it all in there .

You know how many times I've told you I ain't here to help you lose weight .

I'm here to help you enjoy life .

That's what this dish is gonna be .

So , just incorporate that .

This is the topping .

So you're just gonna mix it around until it's all incorporated in that butter .

This is gonna be really nice .

Um If you've never had mac and cheese like this , I love the crunch element on the top , which is why I'm going this route .

I make a huge mess when I cook , apologize .

So I've got a 12 inch skillet .

You can cook it in what you want .

It's a beautiful pan .

Uh This usually will fit in a vessel or whatever you wanna call it of this size .

So that's why I'm doing this .

Oh Smells amazing .

I love when I do cooking videos and people in the comments get on me for wasting like you actually think I'm gonna waste anything here .

The clock is often just running in my head to try not to make these videos so damn long .

But I can assure you , I'm not wasting a thing and that right Dolly good .

Catch .

All right , smooth it out here and we're just going to add our topping .

Hell , I'm gonna use my hands , just make it nice and even try to 100% cover it and then you're gonna cook this until it's nice and toasty .

Clearly , this dish is already done .

It's gonna , you know , come together uh in the Trager and this topping is gonna start to brown and it's gonna be delicious .

So I'm gonna finish this up and the trigger will come up to temperature pretty quick .

Um But I'm not gonna throw this in until we're all the way up to 3 50 .

All right .

That looks good to me .

So I mentioned 3 50 .

You go 30 40 minutes .

It should be done and brown within 30 to your liking to me .

I'm always like the less amount of time .

So it's like super creamy , but also brown up is kind of my goal so and we go .

All right y'all , the mac and cheese is done .

Let's pull it out .

Looks awesome .

It smells even better .

Um like smells like super good to be honest with y'all .

So no one ever complained about too much brisket .

So let's garnish it up here .

Oh yeah .

Ok .

I'm gonna go get myself something to drink while this cools off because I'm ready to eat it .

It's time .

Can't wait anymore .

Put some pretty little green garnish on here because you know , we gotta put it all on the gram .

All right , let's dig in .

Oh , smells , smells , cheesy .

Oh my Lord .

Damn .

It's gonna take 10 years off my life .

Holy sorry mom .

Oh That's good .

It was really good .

So that is rich and that is unbelievable .

Um Clearly I ain't mad at that .

So , all right , let me talk about this for a second since you don't know until you go home and make this .

It's smoky , which is awesome .

Smoked cream cheese .

You smoke , Gouda , put smoked brisket in it , smoke the cream .

So there's a lot of smoked elements in the dish .

It's creamy , it's rich .

Uh Even though this was , you know , in the trigger at 3 50 for somewhere just over 30 minutes , by the way , you can go longer if you were really looking to brown this up , but that's not my main goal .

I just wanted these crispy and this stuff is , is very , very crispy .

Um like it .

I don't know that there is a side dish that's better than this .

Um But all the different cheeses , by the way , the cream cheese gives some sort of like , like almost like a little twang .

I love sharp cheddar .

Uh I always go sharp and so you've got that aspect , some of the other cheeses , the go and the were a little more calm but you know , grier especially really good mel or cheese like this is uh this is epic like you have to make this uh for sure you guys have been asking for it for a long time .

Hope it was hope it was worth the wait .

So definitely like and subscribe .

Everybody always says that but your subscriptions are what help us continue to bring you these free videos .

Don't forget to stick around for the wrap up that we've been doing after I'll shoot a wrap up on this days later after I reflect on this and eat this entire thing myself .

And by the way , recipes is always down in the description but meat churchch dot com , that's where every recipe that we cover is located as well as our super fresh craft seasonings , the freshest seasonings in the market and that is a guarantee uh as well as all of our cool merch .

That's a big , a big deal for us here at Meat Church uh with everything that we've got .

So hope you guys make this um can't wait to see it on Instagram and social media .

If you do see you all next time , welcome to the video wrap up , which we're shooting about a week after uh we filmed this video .

So let me start out by talking about the reaction from my family on eating that mac and cheese after uh after the shoot .

So Mrs Meur said , I quote , this is the best mac and cheese I've ever had for me .

That's like winning the dang Stanley cup because I don't get that many compliments um from her , she's just real honest with things .

Now , my daughter-in-law Kate , on the other hand , who works on our crew , she said it's pretty good , so appreciate the confidence crusher there , Kate .

But it is very good .

The thing that I like about it as I thought about this .

Um since the video I mentioned in the beginning , so many ways to make , make mac and cheese , I think most people just make it really creamy and eat it like that .

But in this case , adding that or the bread crumbs .

I'm sorry .

At the end , the buttery bread crumbs gave us a really strong crunch element and just adds so much to the dish with that said this recipe was 2.5 cups of cream and I had mentioned you could add more if you want .

Just keep in mind if you are baking , you may want to add more , it would be fine to add three or so cups if you want it to be creamier because obviously , uh it's gonna kind of dry up as you as you bake that dish .

But this thing is a winner if you ask me .

Um I think it's definitely was worth the wait , hope you guys try it .

Hope your family loves it .

And little teas are coming up .

Uh We have a very delicious uh carnitas video coming .

Uh They have another video coming with some homemade barbecue sauce to kick off our famous hard core barbecue series .

This is gonna be the third season of that .

We'll put a card up here for that .

Uh If you guys don't know anything about that , it's like the most classic barbecue dishes that we did starting in 2021 2022 and now we're gonna do it again in 2023 .

Thanks for watching .

Don't forget to subscribe so we can keep making these videos and we'll see y'all next week .