The rise of macaroni cheese!

Have you noticed that tv chefs will often say when preparing a pasta dish "mix pasta and sauce and serve immediately -pasta waits for no man"?

This doesn't make sense to me as I think that pasta is just a vehicle for sauce, My favourite pasta dish is one made yesterday, left to absorb the flavours of the sauce and reheated.

This thread inspired me to order macaroni cheese for lunch in a restaurant the other day and it was lovely. Even if the waitress did call it mac'n'cheese!?

We love it! Lots of mature cheddar and some English mustard in the sauce. Often put breadcrumbs and extra cheese on top, and whack it under the grill.

I also do a similar macaroni/cauliflower cheese combo. Have given it to unexpected guests when nothing much else in - there is never any left.
Usual reasons for it not being very nice, IMO are not enough cheese, or else mild cheddar used, not enough seasoning, soggy overcooked cauliflower.

I make a big saucepanful of cheese sauce (full cream milk, the tastiest possible fCheddar) then stir half into macaroni and half into cauliflower.
Then I freeze individual portions with extra cheese on top.

We have just had some, onion and bacon (precooked) stirred in, breadcrumbs and extra cheese on the top - lovely and crunchy. Some roast tomatoes and garlic bread, everyone enjoyed it.
Also left some without topping in a tub for son to take to work for his lunch tomorrow, he can reheat it but didn't think the topping would be nice so extra bit of parmesan gone on that.

Macaroni cheese was a great treat when I was a child as my mother didn't like cheese and never cooked with it. My grandmother used t o make it for lunch for me sometimes, baked in the oven with a lovely crunchy topping.

Referring back to marpau and her macaroni pudding, yes it is good as a dessert. I've also recently started to make semolina puddings (using Jersey milk and oven-baked) as a look-back to the 50s and 60s. My family loves it. Not sure if they'll go for tapioca though - 'frog's spawn' when I was at school.....and of course 'bloody eye' (rice pud with a dollop of stawberry jam in the middle.)

One of our favourite meals. Could live on it.

The one I remember from school days was like the tinned variety and reminded me of vomit as someone else has said. I think a baked variety with a crunchy topping sounds great though. Never tried it.
I did love macaroni pudding with milk and sugar and nutmeg, baked in the oven as a child! Yum!

my grand daughter calls it Grandmas Cheesy Pasta and says it is her favourite meal! x

Sorry, kittylester I always hated it but it was my sons tea of choice on CUBS night when they were children.

petal macaroni Scotch pie used to be one of my favourites before I went veggie. I miss the pastry from a Scotch pie!

I love it, but it's still called macaroni cheese in our family. None of this Mac business.

Might have some for tea tomorrow.

Had a fabulous Mac'n cheese in Costa the other day... was amazing :creamy and grilled all crispy on top and a great change from the normal sandwich/rolls on offer..... might just go again for another one! Love a Mac'n cheese but OH not...

I don't mind what it's called - it's wonderful either way. When I was a little girl I remember fantasising about a house with macaroni cheese walls, which you could dig a spoon in and eat a bit at any time and it would magically rebuild itself. I wouldn't have given tuppence for the witch's gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel. My American daughter-in-law still loves Kraft Mac'n'Cheese and has been known to eat it straight from the can as she did as a child when nobody was looking (she is amazingly fit and slim, unlike me!). It's a cosy orange colour, easy to reproduce in Scotland where much of the basic cheddar you can buy is coloured orange. And on the subject of Scotland, macaroni pie here is like a Scotch pie - it's macaroni cheese encased in shortcrust pastry. You get it at the butcher's and eat it out of the paper bag, particularly if you're a teenage boy (which I'm not).

Yes, mac'n'cheese is an Americanism, and that serves to differentiate cool, on-trend food for millennials from fuddy-duddy old-fashioned school dinners, but the pleasure for those of us who love the cheesy flavour and the silky texture is just the same whatever it's called.

Pity I'm now on a low-carb diet ... but courgetti in a cheesy sauce made with butter, Philadelphia, some single cream and grated cheddar with just a teaspoonful of cornflour to hold the sauce together is pretty good ... and since its quite rich I am not tempted to scoff it all down in one sitting.

My DM made a macaroni pudding a few times - but not often. I think we all preferred rice pudding.

I love it but always add some chopped sun dried tomatoes and shredded basil just before serving.

We call it macaroni cheese, too well established to be everything else. Make it with a good mature cheddar, onions, garlic, seasoned well, add a few chilli flakes, plenty of cheese on top to go really crispy, delicious. (DH likes the tinned variety too. I really cannot bear the sight or smell of that stuff, looks too much like vomit).

My American GC eat 'Mac n cheese' although it seems to consist of cooked macaroni with cheese grated chucked on tip and then grilled.

Mind you, even that is better than Kraft Macaroni Cheese, which is one of probably just three meals my Dh has refused to eat in 45 years of marriage. It's an abomination!

Interesting to see others who recall macaroni pudding. We still have it very occasionally and none of my dc have ever come across anyone else of their age who has ever eat a sweet macaroni dish.

When I googled recipies one came up with the idea of adding a tin of tuna.
Now that appeals to me, tuna pasta is one of my favourites, especially in a pub when someone else has made it.
I will go for that.

Macaroni cheese in childhood was a dull and boring dish because it was just after the war and 1 oz of mild cheese of uncertain origin was thought enough to make the sauce for portions for 50 school dinners ( or that is what it tasted like).

Nowadays, with the sauce made with cornflour, not flour and a large portion of a highly flavoured British hard cheese incorporated into the sauce, with more scattered on top, and, personally, with a pinch of mustard and paprika in the sauce, you have the food of angels. Adding other ingredients (bacon, onions, tomatoes etc) is just gilding the lily

... and I never call it anything but macaroni cheese any other name is only used for false impostors.

I agree with those who dislike the term Mac n cheese, it’s macaroni cheese!
My tip is to make more cheese sauce than you think you’ll need and less macaroni so it’s not stodgy.
I like to eat it with peas and Branston pickle.

When my mum used to work shifts, my grandma would "make" me eat mac cheese on toast... I hated it she knew I hated it and cannot even look at a tin without thinking how horrid she was.....!! (thast my dads mum, who never liked me anyway) the feeling was mutual..

I do a macchese similar to the one varian describes - many many vegetables along with the cheese. I add hot paprika, dijon or powdered mustard - it's grand to see so many other fans of mac cheese. It was often our go to Thursday evening meal when the children were at high school. Whoever cooked had to rustle something up from whatever was left in the fridge, often known as fridge bottom tea. If you have tinned tomatoes and dried pasta/brown rice, you can't go wrong

My DH objects to the ubiquitousness of the term which, until recently, was good old 'macaroni cheese'.