Cheesy, creamy and savory- what better meal to have on a snow day? I’ll go ahead and say right now the secret to a good batch of mac and cheese is- DUN NA NA. . the cheese. That and a good solid bechemel. Once you get your bechemel recipe down, your mac and cheese options are LIMITLESS.
Bechemel is also known as “white sauce” and is roux-based, meaning it’s made with butter and flour. My favorite and go to Bechemel “recipe” comes from the “Mac’n’Cheese” cookbook, by Laura Washburn.
This book was a little day prize from my sweetie, and while I’ve never actually made any of the exact recipes from this book, I love to look through it for ideas and the food styling and photography is amazing and inspiring. If you’ve never made mac and cheese from scratch- this book is a must have for you!.
ALWAYS use freshly grated/shredded cheese. Do not use pre-shredded, in the bag cheese. Pre-grated cheese is always dryer, doesn’t melt as well and often has some form of preservatives in it causing it’s melted texture to differ as well.
Here you can see I used fresh grated medium Cheddar and Pepper Jack. I had left over bacon in the fridge- so I decided to toss that in too. I always buy shrimp that’s NOT pre-cooked. I feel the texture and flavor is so much more fresh than pre-cooked. Yes, it takes a little longer but I think the end results are well worth it. (I know the pictured shrimp are pink- making it seem like they are cooked. However, this particular type of shrimp are red prior to cooking, not grey.)
For this recipe, I de-veined and de-shelled all the shrimp in the bag, and sauteed them with some olive oil, Old Bay and the jalapenos. I only used 1 1/2 cups of the cooked shrimp for this mac and cheese and saved the rest for lunch this week.
And with the most magical ingredient of all time. BACON.
FTW:
Okay,
This dish is perfect for a cold winter day, and makes a ton of left overs! (WINNING! Y’all know how I love my left overs.) We’ll all just have to do a little extra cardio this week. . .eh?
Enjoy! Kelli