Make-Ahead Mac and Cheese

Sometimes people work themselves into a frenzy over what to feed vegetarians at Thanksgiving..."oh no, they won't get to eat the turkey!" Really though, vegetarians tend to see lack of turkey as a solution, not a problem. Many meat eaters consider the turkey to be secondary anyway--an obligation that, when satisfied, allows for the real fun to commence (sides! pies!).

When it comes to real fun, I think mac and cheese is pretty hard to beat. For indefinable cultural reasons, it can also be considered a main dish in a way that stuffing and potatoes just can't. With its toasty brown top and general deliciousness, it answers the question of what focal-point main dish to serve the vegetarians that will be well-liked by a broader audience and can be made well ahead of time. For festive occasions, I make it in an opaque casserole dish, not the clear pyrex you see in the picture. It's a little prettier that way and goes straight from the oven to the table.

I never used to make macaroni and cheese for Thanksgiving. I reasoned that with stuffing, sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes, we really didn't need another starch. This same reasoning prevented me from serving bread or rolls, until the year our Thanksgiving expanded to include friends instead of just family. It turns out that despite the super-saturation of starches, guests not raised by my mother looked forlorn if we did not also serve bread. No one should look forlorn on Thanksgiving, so let them eat rolls. And mac! At least there is enough protein in the cheese that we can wink at it.

The only problem was that my trusty Cooks Illustrated mac and cheese recipe uses chicken broth. In their characteristically verbose style, Cooks Illustrated notes that using only dairy for the sauce makes the mac and cheese taste cloudy and milky with muted cheese notes. I wanted the dish to be vegetarian but I didn't want to give up the savory punctuation that the broth provided.

With some fear and trembling, I decided last Thanksgiving to substitute Imagine's No-Chicken broth for the chicken broth in the white sauce. No-Chick is, as you might surmise from the name, the best vegetarian substitute for chicken broth I've found. Unlike most packaged vegetable stocks, which are murky brown and oddly sweet, No-Chick is more onion-y than carrot-y and is light in color. I already had a box on hand from Co-Opportunity for the vegetarian stuffing, so I decided to go for it.

doubling the recipe makes enough for Swap & Thanksgiving

When I looked at my lovely sauce coming together though, I hesitated. What if the weird vegetarian broth ruined the whole thing? Was Thanksgiving really the time to be experimenting? The recipe called for 2¼ cups of chicken broth, which was almost half of the liquid in the sauce. Hedging my bets, I added 1½ c. No-Chick broth and filled in the rest of the volume with additional milk.

After a lot of nervous hand-wringing, I was astonished to discover that the mac and cheese actually tasted better with the No-Chick broth. My carnivorous husband agreed! After Thanksgiving I made it again with the chicken broth just to make sure we weren't suffering from some kind of holiday delusion. The version with chicken broth was tasty and classic--nothing wrong with it--but the cheese flavor was duller and less pronounced. Who knew? I suspect the subtle onion-y note, much gentler that what you would get from adding actual pieces of onion (please don't do that), is what puts the recipe over the top.

No-Chicken broth has nothing scary in it (no MSG). In Santa Monica it is available at Co-Opportunity and probably Whole Foods, but not at TJs or Vons. Whether we're having vegetarians to dinner or not, I pick up a box every year when I order my turkey at the Co-Op. It makes a better mac and cheese.


Make-Ahead Macaroni and Cheese
adapted from Cooks Illustrated's The Best Make-Ahead Cookbook


1 recipe Toasted Bread Crumb Topping (see below)
1 lb elbow macaroni (Barilla Plus with chickpea flour works well in this, if you want to make it healthier)
6 TB (3/4 stick) butter
1 medium garlic clove, minced or pressed
1 t. dry mustard powder
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
6 TB all-purpose flour, preferably unbleached
1 1/2 c. Imagine No-Chicken vegetable broth
4 1/4 c. 2% milk (or whole milk)
1 lb colby cheese, shredded (about 4 cups, prefer Tillamook; I used Jack once but didn't like it as much)
1/2 lb extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (about 2 cups, prefer Tillamook or Cracker Barrel; do not use a crumbly aged expensive cheese, as this may cause the sauce to break)

Toasted Bread Crumb Topping

4 slices white sandwich bread, quartered (can substitute wheat)
2 TB butter, melted
2 TB minced fresh parsley leaves
*optional: if you want to add some dry aged cheese (gruyere, parmigiano), add it to the crumb topping rather than the cheese sauce (to avoid the chance of breaking it and also get more bang for your buck)

Adjust oven rack to middle position, heat to 300 degrees. Pulse bread and butter in food processor to coarse crumbs (6 pulses). Spread crumbs over rimmed baking sheet. Bake, stirring occasionally, until golden and dry, 20-30 min. Let cool then toss with parsley; season with salt and pepper to taste. If you double the recipe, you can keep the extra crumbs in the freezer for several months and use to top other casseroles.


Mac and Cheese Directions

1) Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in Dutch oven over high heat. Stir in 1 TB salt and macaroni. Cook until just beginning to soften, about 5 minutes. Pasta will not be done yet, but should not be overtly crunchy. This should give you just enough time to run the cheese through the food processor. Drain pasta and set aside.

2) Wipe pot dry, add butter, set over medium heat until melted. Stir in garlic, mustard, and cayenne and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Whisk in flour and cook, whisking constantly until lightly golden and fragrant, about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in broth and milk.

3) Bring to simmer and cook, whisking often, until large bubbles form on surface and mixture is slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. If you turn your back and turn around to find it has foamed up, that also means it's ready. It will be thicker than when it started, but thinner than a custard. If you are planning to eat the mac and cheese right away, preheat oven to 400.

4) Off the heat, gradually whisk in colby and cheddar until completely melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir the drained pasta into the cheese sauce, breaking up any clumps, until well combined. Pour into 13x9" baking dish and sprinkle with crumb topping.

5) Bake uncovered at 400 until sauce is bubbling and crumbs are crisp, 25-35 minutes.

Make-Ahead Directions, up to 2 days in the Refrigerator: Wrap dish tightly with plastic wrap and then foil and refrigerate. When ready to serve, heat oven to 400. Remove plastic but cover tightly with the foil. Bake under foil until hot throughout, 40-45 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake until crumbs are crisp, 15-20 minutes longer.

Make-Ahead Directions, up to 1 month in Freezer: Wrap dish tightly with plastic wrap and then foil and freeze. Thaw casserole completely in refrigerator, about 24 hours before serving, then follow instructions above (40-45 minutes under foil, then 15-20 minutes longer uncovered).

Supersized Mac and Cheese: You can double this recipe, but when you do that you need to increase the mustard powder to 1 TB (not 2 t.) I don't know why this is, but it does seem to be important. I use the bulk mustard powder from Co-Opportunity (Frontier) but Cooks Illustrated probably used Colmans. When you double the garlic, make sure to use 2 medium cloves rather than 2 large cloves. I used 1 large and 1 medium for Swap and thought it hovered perilously close to being too garlicky. If you are using whole milk instead of 2%, consider increasing the broth ratio slightly.

If you double the recipe, it makes enough for 5 Swap-sized dishes (the clear ones in the picture, roughly 8" rounds) and 1 larger holiday side dish (the white one in the picture, 2½ quarts). The original recipe makes enough for 2 8x8" pans (or 3 Swap containers) so you can bake one and freeze one (or two) for later.

When using 8-9" dishes (instead of 9x13): Cut initial baking time in half and check to see if heated through (20 minutes if dish was refrigerated). Crumbs will take roughly the same amount of time to crisp (about 15 minutes).