How to Make the Ultimate Baked Mac & Cheese

There are just a few great things everybody should have in life .

They should have great dreams .

One should have great failures and one should absolutely have great recipes .

If there is ever a recipe you should have in your repertoire .

It is today super decadent and super cheesy macaroni and cheese .

Mine starts off making a classic white sauce and giving it a few insurance policies to make sure it all goes .

Well , I add tons of cheese .

I flavor the sauce and when the sauce is thick and luscious , I mix in a little sour cream .

It adds a great tame and keeps everything nice and creamy .

Trust me .

When I say this , this is the only mac and cheese recipe you will ever need .

And of course everything we do , you know , it's gotta be simple , delicious , easy and just good food .

So let's get started with really .

I mean , I gotta tell you this is like the ultimate , ultimate mac and cheese recipe .

One try this .

And I'm telling you you are all set to go when it comes to macaroni and cheese .

All right .

So I got a couple of cheeses here that I like to use and really any combination of , of , of cheese will work .

So I'm using a nice white cheddar .

I'm using a sharp cheddar .

I'm using a little bit of fontina , a little bit of uh and I'm gonna finish off with some of that processed sort of American cheese product .

Please don't frown at me .

Ok , I know what you're saying , but I gotta tell you what that does for the cream factor in mac and cheese I think is absolutely fantastic .

So I'm just getting my cheese all prepped up here .

I'm gonna go ahead and drop them in our food processor and get all the cheese grated and get it ready to go for a mac and cheese .

All right .

So there's a cheese that we got grated up .

Super simple to do .

I mean , the food processor is totally the way to go .

Plus what happens is that sometimes , you know , you get the cheese when you buy it in bulk , it's a lot cheaper because I don't know about you , but cheap is a little pricey .

You know , it's a little expensive , but this is great .

So put in your food processor , if it's slightly chilled , it's gonna go ahead and cook up and , and grate up just a little bit better .

But totally the way to work and listen , try any combination of cheese you like .

I'm using this combination just because I love the way the flavors mix together .

The cheddar cheese is and the fontina and the uh I think it's just fantastic .

So this is great .

And what we're gonna do to make sure it's super creamy is we're gonna add in some delicious sour cream .

I'm gonna use a light sour cream and I gotta tell you the reason I use the sour cream is because I remember I'm a grandmama's boy , you know , and I remember when my grandmother was uh sick and it was doing her last time , some of her last time here with us , she , um , you know , she was at home and she was sort of bedridden .

And , uh , her sister , my aunt , my aunt Trina , she would come over every day and she would cook my grandmother , whatever she wanted to have for dinner .

And I would just watch in amazement as this woman would come in the house and effortlessly just sort of rip up these fantastic , these meals .

And , uh , I gotta tell you it was so good eating .

And I remember watching her one time make macaroni and cheese and she put sour cream in the mac and cheese .

And I said , oh my God , what is that ?

But when you taste it , you don't really taste sour cream .

Yeah , a little bit of that tang that happens with sour cream .

The zippy stuff that happens .

But I gotta tell you what this does for the cream factor and that mac and cheese is , it's beyond phenomenal .

So that's what we're gonna do today .

I'm gonna pay a little bit of homage to my Aunt Trina at that time period and I'm gonna do a little sour cream and it takes me back to , to some really , really fond memories and that's what cooking is about .

You know , it's like , hey , do what works for you .

Go back to , you know , memory lane , go back to those time periods where you know , food takes you to that place cause that's what food does , right ?

All right , cool .

So our cheese is all cut up .

That was this uh processed American cheese product .

You know what it's called .

I'm not gonna say it cause they ain't paying me to say it .

You know what I mean ?

But you know what it is .

I love what that does for the mac and cheese as well .

All right .

Let me get my hands a quick wash and get started on our cream sauce .

All right .

So that cheese sauce is done and looks amazing .

Look at this .

Ok .

Hello ?

Like this is fantastic .

It smells great .

This is exactly what we wanna go for , right .

The last thing is really simple .

I'm just gonna go ahead and add in some sour cream to this because that's the way my aunt Trina did it and that's the way I'm gonna do it .

All right , it's gonna help with the creamy factor .

Help everything set up nicely .

I wish you could smell this .

All right .

Trust me when I tell you this , this is the only macaroni and cheese recipe you're probably ever gonna need in your entire life .

Right .

I've got some elbow macaroni pasta that I went ahead and boiled off in some super salty water .

I'm just gonna put it in .

Right .

It's been drained and cooled and it's ready to go .

So I'm just gonna drop it in just like that .

Right .

And then to this , I'm now gonna go ahead and add in this luscious cheese sauce .

All right .

Are you ready for this ?

Because I am .

Here we go .

Cheese sauce goes on just like that .

Look at that .

Mm mm .

Just take a moment and just take that in .

Oh yeah .

Smells great .

Looks great .

It's gonna taste fantastic .

Hm .

All right .

The rest .

I'm gonna bathe in later .

I just wanna give it a nice stir just to make sure everything's really well incorporated or this is it , you know , and this even reminds me of like growing up Thanksgiving , my mom would be up , my grandmother would be up making the macaroni and cheese .

This reminds me of the way that looked and the way it smelled right .

So just to finish it off , I'm just gonna do some cheese right on top .

I saved some of our cheese blend from earlier because I wanna put a little bit right on top and I wanna get this off into the oven .

The oven is preheated at 400 degrees .

Now this is already cooked .

So all we gotta do is let the oven do its thing , let it melt and brown up our cheese and then we're gonna be in the ultimate macaroni cheese heaven .

Right .

Look at this .

So here we go , this goes off into the oven .

All right .

Look at this .

This looks fantastic .

This is that macaroni and cheese .

That's super creamy .

Look at the top , the cheese we put on top is nice and golden brown .

It's bubbled up .

This takes me back to hanging out with my grandmother and her sister who's who's my aunt and uh making some delicious macaroni and cheese amongst other things , right ?

Super creamy because that's what that sour cream has done for us .

I'm going in for taste , right ?

This is hot .

OK .

Let's see what we're working with .

Going in for taste .

Look at that .

Want to grab myself .

Mm mm .

Oh Y'all .

Mm It's just all the way to go .

The pasta is still sort of nice in Al Dente .

We didn't go too far .

The cheese is burnt right on top .

So that's great .

Nice , golden brown new color .

Totally fantastic .

This recipe and so many more .

They're available on my website .

It's www dot Darius cooks dot com .

Two things I gotta tell you who is my life and life is my food .

Until next time I wanna wish you a happy cooking from my heart to yours .