Make it reheats worse
–
More milk or cream holds water in the crumb, so it eats chewier and stays soft longer.
Costs you: No side effect showed up in the reviews.
strongest lever we measured · 97 bakes
Compared by formula
Macaroni and Cheese
117 recipes, read so you don't have to.
Every published macaroni and cheese recipe is a different answer to the same few questions. We resolved all 117 of them to grams, then read what cooks said happened when they changed something.
117Recipes
101Sites
7,485Reviews read
45,765Cook ratings
Start here
The one most cooks reach for
Nothing picked yet, so this is simply the most-trusted of the 117. Pick a style and the answer changes.
Tonight: these change the pick
The recipe
Make it
Weights are ours, converted from the published measures.
Ingredients
Method
Start here
Find the fix for your macaroni and cheese
Pick the texture you want, or the problem you are having. Each one is a full page with the numbers behind it.
Roux or no roux?Six sauce routes, actually comparedGrainy sauceThe mechanism, not the mythsThe best cheese for mac and cheeseMelt score, not chef quotesSodium citrate mac and cheeseThe chemistry, honestly placedBaked mac and cheeseThe sauce route underneath the crustStovetop mac and cheeseWhat you gain, what you give up, measuredWhy it dries out, and how to reheat itThe mechanism, not a splash of milkCottage cheese mac and cheeseThe mechanism, not “blend it, it's magic”
Why this one
How this recipe compares to the rest
Two of these decide which style it is. The rest are just where this recipe has a personality of its own.
Every recipe in the same group, measured the same way. The shaded band is the middle half of the group; the line is its midpoint; the dot is this recipe.
middle half of the group
the group's midpoint
this recipe
Change it on purpose
Three edits, written for this recipe
Each one is measured across all 117 recipes and then converted into this recipe's own amounts. Every edit costs something. The cost is on the card.
Make it richer · sharper
–
More cheese keeps the fat and water bound together, so the sauce stays smooth instead of turning grainy.
Costs you: No side effect showed up in the reviews.
strong lever · 198 bakes
Make it smoother
–
More thickener thickens the sauce and steadies it.
Costs you: No side effect showed up in the reviews.
strong lever · 235 bakes
The map
How all the recipes compare
One dot per published recipe, placed by what it is actually made of, not by what its title claims. Dots that sit together have near-identical formulas.
Positions are worked out from the formula, not measured in a kitchen. Good for comparing one recipe to another, not for reading an exact value.
other recipes
most-reviewed alternatives
your pick
What cooks found out
What cooks reported after making these
What people actually changed, and what they said happened. Where cooks contradict each other we kept both sides rather than averaging them into something nobody said.
Reserve some of the starchy pasta cooking water and stir it into the sauce to loosen and stabilize it.
33 cooks reported this
Use a 9x13 dish when doubling the recipe.
30 cooks reported this
The recipe easily doubles or triples for larger gatherings.
26 cooks reported this
Make it in advance and follow the recipe's reheating instructions for best results.
24 cooks reported this
Prepare through step 7 the day before, then bake fresh the next day.
24 cooks reported this
Warm the milk in the microwave first before whisking it into the sauce.
15 cooks reported this
Substitute Greek yogurt or sour cream for cream cheese or part of the dairy for a tangy creaminess without extra heaviness.
13 cooks reported this
Doubling the recipe adds about 30 minutes to the cook time.
12 cooks reported this
Add a bit of milk and mix it in just before reheating.
10 cooks say yes · 10 say the opposite · we kept both
Shred cheese fresh from a block instead of buying pre-shredded bagged cheese, for a smoother and more stable sauce.
15 cooks say yes · 3 say the opposite · we kept both
Boil extra pasta and stir it in to soak up sauce that came out thinner or soupier than expected.
10 cooks say yes · 6 say the opposite · we kept both
Popular advice is not always advice we can measure. Cooks described
60 different changes in these reviews. Only 3 of
them show up as a difference we can actually detect when we compare recipes
side by side. Where an effect does not show up, that is not proof it does
nothing. It means any effect is smaller than we can measure.
The counts on each card come from an earlier, smaller reading of the reviews. They undercount how many cooks said each thing, so treat them as a floor rather than a total.
What varies
What actually changes your macaroni and cheese
Some ingredients are argued over from recipe to recipe. Others every author already agrees on. Knowing which is which saves you the experiment.
| Ingredient | What changing it does | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Cheese | More cheese keeps the fat and water bound together, so the sauce stays smooth instead of turning grainy. | recipes vary this |
| Milk or cream | More milk or cream holds water in the crumb, so it eats chewier and stays soft longer. | recipes vary this |
| Butter | recipes vary this | |
| Thickener | More thickener thickens the sauce and steadies it. | recipes vary this |
| Egg | More egg gives the browning reaction more to work with, so it colours faster and tastes more toasted. | recipes vary this |
| Salt | recipes vary this | |
| Aromatics | recipes vary this | |
| The topping | More the topping gives the browning reaction more to work with, so it colours faster and tastes more toasted. | recipes vary this |
| Cheese variety idx | recipes vary this | |
| How meltable the cheese blend is | More how meltable the cheese blend is keeps the fat and water bound together, so the sauce stays smooth instead of turning grainy. | recipes vary this |
| How aged the cheese blend is | More how aged the cheese blend is makes the cheese taste stronger. | recipes vary this |
| How stretchy the cheese blend is | More how stretchy the cheese blend is gives longer protein chains to pull on, so the cheese strings when you lift the spoon. | recipes vary this |
| Portion | recipes vary this | |
| Acid | nobody turns this knob |
Why it works
Why these changes work
Every change above works through one of these. None of it is magic and none of it needs a thermometer.
Moisture retention
Invert sugar in molasses binds water and holds it in the crumb after baking. Retained water is what chew is.
Maillard browning
Reducing sugars plus amino acids from egg and flour, under heat and favourable pH, produce colour and the toasted flavours that read as 'baked'.
Cheese emulsion stability
Heat makes casein proteins clump and squeeze out the fat and water they were holding — that is what grainy, broken sauce is. Young moist cheese resists it; aged dry cheese, whose protein is already fragmented, gives way soonest. Starch or an emulsifying salt is what holds the two phases together.
Casein chain length
Stretch comes from long, intact casein chains bridged by calcium. Ageing chops those chains, so aged cheese melts smooth but will not pull. Emulsifying salts — in sodium citrate and in American cheese alike — dismantle the same calcium bridges deliberately, which is why the silkiest sauces are also the least stretchy.
Flavour concentration
Sharpness comes from proteolysis during ageing — free amino acids built up over months. It can be diluted by liquid or physically masked by starch, neither of which removes any cheese.
The whole set
All 117, grouped by the kind of macaroni and cheese they make
Grouped by measured texture rather than by title, which is why a few recipes sit in a group their own name would not suggest. Sorted by how many cooks have rated them.
Baked · 57
Show the other 49 baked recipes
Stovetop · 38
Show the other 30 stovetop recipes
Pressure cooker · 11
Show the other 3 pressure cooker recipes
Slow cooker · 11
Show the other 3 slow cooker recipes
Honesty
What we can't tell you
The useful half of any measurement is knowing where it stops.
Comparisons, not scores
We can say one recipe reads further along an axis than another. We cannot put a number on it, and we do not pretend to.
Direction, not magnitude
Where we can name something that measurably changes the result, we can say which way it pushes. We still cannot tell you where your own macaroni and cheese will land, because that also depends on your kitchen and your equipment. here is what we can tell you when it goes wrong.
Some sites give ratings but no words
A few publishers load their reviews from somewhere we cannot read. Their star ratings count toward how trusted a recipe is; their comments could not tell us anything about what cooks changed.