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Where we call it KD after the biggest producer of it, Kraft Dinner.

In the US, the same product is labeled "Kraft Macaroni & Cheese", and in the US everyone calls it "macaroni & cheese" or "mac & cheese". It's the identical product as Kraft Dinner. I wish that branding caught on in the US, because it's so much easier to say "KD".

We have kettles and water boils in about 2 mins.

Easy. You set the water to boil on the stove. While that's going you start the roux, which is just butter and flour. That takes about two minutes to cook, then you can add your milk and salt and turn down the heat. Add your pasta to the water. Now add your cheese to the sauce. I know how much I need so I just cut off a hunk and crumble it up into pieces into the pot. Once the cheese has melted, your pasta should be done so drain it and stir it into the pot with the cheese. You are done, enjoy your mac and cheese.

The box stuff is easier because it's less steps, but doesn't take any less time to prepare.

Yup. I grew up on Kraft Dinner, but this is what I make for my kids now. It’s an easy, fast, cheap pantry meal, up there with curry lentils on rice and spinach quiche.

I've still never figured out why people bother making a roux, unless it's because they like that mediocre flavor.

Just using the same Kraft Dinner technique, except using real cheese cubed instead of the orange powder, is the best tasting and easiest method.

I think it might depend on the cheese you’re using! In my experience the roux makes a big difference. We use a blend of Gruyere, Fontina and Cheddar (in 1-2-2 proportion). The hard, soft, and middling textures mix best when they’re gently cooked together in our experience.

In the states most recipes will have you finish in a casserole dish with bread crumbs, but we find it actually tastes better if you skip that step, for whatever reason.

If anybody has suggestions on other cheeses to add/substitute in this mix I’m all ears!

The way my mom did it(and how I cooked it last night) does not even use a real roux: after dumping the pasta water, stir in chopped butter and then shredded cheese directly. The pasta's hot so everything melts in moments. This makes a non-creamy mac, but it's equally edible in my estimate.

You're almost done - just add evaporated milk, raw eggs, hot sauce, mustard powder, salt - you'll have the best mac and cheese ever (and still make the 20 minute deadline, you can just mix all things things in one bowl.)

That's almost exactly Alton Brown's recipe - he made it on YouTube a few months back. https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/stovetop-mac...

I'd argue you don't need salt if you salt the pasta water enough.

Since I didn't specify earlier when I wrote this post, if you're wondering the video he made it in - he and his wife have been live streaming on Youtube for the last year. They always make food (and mixed drinks), but its much more of an unstructured glimpse of their personal lives than a cooking show.

This is the episode where they make his mac and cheese recipe:

https://youtu.be/2aRzkIZna20

This sounds great. I usually Sriracha in my mac and cheese at the table, but I think I will try this. I am intrigued by the mustard powder. I bet it would go perfectly with some stir fried arugula/mustard greens and bacon.

If you want the creaminess with similarly low effort, then instead of just dumping the pasta water and stirring the "roux" ingredients directly into the pasta, use a slotted spoon to take the pasta out of the water instead of the other way around. Pour out some of the pasta water, but not all of it. Now add your butter and shredded cheese, along with some sodium citrate ("sour salt"; it's an emulsifier), in a ratio of about 2-3% (by weight) of the total mass of butter and cheese. Stir it up until creamy, and then add the pasta back. It adds about 2 minutes' time to making it, but I personally like the result a whole lot better, even when I'm super super short on time. Sodium citrate is really just magical stuff.

> I am not sure how you make macaroni and cheese that it only takes 20 minutes. Just getting the water boiling, adding the macaroni, cooking it, and draining it is going to take at least 15.

While the noodles are draining you take some of the noodle water, some milk, and some cheese and mix it together in the still warm pot over the lowest heat setting on your stove top?

But seriously what were you doing those 15 minutes? You could have your cheese sauce ready to go and put the noodles almost directly into it.

I think to answer the op's question, the reason boxed mac & cheese is so popular is two part. American's don't have the time or energy to prepare a meal, and they don't know how to.

Making a single dish is easy, making multiple dishes for a meal is tricky when you're not familiar with the kitchen. Americans don't cook anymore.

> American's don't have the time or energy to prepare a meal, and they don't know how to.

As someone who occasionally ate mac 'n cheese and top ramen in college, I think it partly comes down to what tools and ingredients are available to you. I did not have access to a stove/pots/pans/colander. I had access to a shared microwave that was in the lounge in my dorm. So making my own mac 'n cheese was not possible (never mind the fact that we didn't have ready access to ingredients, and that cheese would go bad or be stolen from the fridge).

As an adult, I enjoy making mac 'n cheese for my kids, using a yogurt-based recipe and incorporating riced cauliflower to make it somewhat less unhealthy. But college-student-me didn't have access to the ingredients/tools to make that possible.

At university in London, we had a good kitchen with two stoves, two ovens, a lockable part of a huge fridge each, a lockable cupboard each, and a cleaner every day. (She would not clean up dirty dishes, but would do normal cleaning.)

I had a colander and a grater, which people probably borrowed. We bought a couple of utensils throughout the year, like a large roasting tin for Christmas Dinner. I bought scales for baking. The university gave international students a pan and other basic stuff.

There was a fancy supermarket nearby (though they had the cheapest spirits), a normal one about 15 minutes walk away, and a cheaper one 10 minutes beyond that. I usually went to the normal one.

Cooking together was great. Sharing that kitchen were people from England, Wales, Hong Kong, Jamaica, China, Italy. Friends who came by added Japan, Germany, France, Thailand.

The Welsh guy and his boyfriend were most organised, and about once a month got everyone who wanted to to help cook (or at least clean) for ~10-15. Normally, ~4 of us cooked in alternating pairs for the other 2.

Macaroni cheese would have been a bit disappointing for the lack of vegetables.

If I only had a few minutes and was eating myself, I'd prefer to use those 2 minute ramen things.

All of this seems fairly normal to me. The large group meals were only possible in 1st year with the large kitchen, but everything else continued in later years, renting houses or apartments.

> American's don't have the time or energy to prepare a meal, and they don't know how to.

Speak for yourself (or maybe there's data on this that you can cite). I personally very much enjoy cooking and prepare nearly all of my meals from scratch. I've seen friends I never would have imagined cooking pick it up as a hobby they enjoy during the pandemic. There are actually a few countries where eating out is more common: Spain and Canada, according to this data [1].

[1] https://www.prestigeonline.com/my/wine-dine/dining/which-cou...

> But seriously what were you doing those 15 minutes? You could have your cheese sauce ready to go and put the noodles almost directly into it

One thing this thread has taught me is that what I would consider mac & cheese, which involves baking the cooked macaroni with cheese and roux, is not what other people are doing.

I now see why 20 minutes for prep can work, though I’m not sure I would be much more interested in eating that.

> what I would consider mac & cheese...

That type is fancy and reserved for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Baked macaroni and cheese is sacrilegious, in my opinion - it's in it's most perfect form already, baking only makes it worse. People tell me that baked macaroni and cheese done right isn't bland and dry, but ever one I've ever eaten has been - even from people who think they make "the best macaroni and cheese"

I guess people have different tastes.

That being said, a lot of restaurants will cover the macaroni and cheese in breadcrumbs and place it under the broiler for couple minutes, that is great and nothing at all like baked macaroni and cheese, it creates a nice crust and still preserves the creamy, tasty qualities of the product.

> Just getting the water boiling, adding the macaroni, cooking it, and draining it is going to take at least 15.

Really depends on the heat output of your burner (for the get it boiling part); most elbow macaroni is, IIRC, 7-10 minutes cook time, draining takes seconds, and most of the sauce can be done while the noodles are cooking. 20 minutes total is perfectly reasonable.

OTOH, where the box saves you is in how busy you are, since it doesn't take multitasking, and cleanup, since it's one-pot, while sauce and noodles in parallel takes two.

Ach! I forgot you don't have electric kettles in the US because of some crappy power supply issues! When making any kind of pasta, I boil the water in a kettle first, then pour it into a pan on the hob (aka stove) - so pasta starts cooking in 3m or so.

Anyway, without a kettle I guess it's still doable around the 20m mark, as long as you have a gas or induction hob, and while the pasta is cooking you grate the cheese and make the sauce.

And on the sauce, I make a roux, add full-fat milk, add the cheese and season - easy. If you want to get fancy, chopped onions and chunks of pre-cooked (or tinned) ham mixes things up.

Electric kettles aren't that rare here in the states...

Electric kettles are much less powerful on a 120v circuit (US household) than a 240v circuit (ie uk). A quick look at an online retail shop confirms british kettles are rated at 3000W, while american ones are 1500W.

I actually have a bit of a hack when I'm in a major rush - I'll put half the water I need in the electric kettle, and half on the stovetop.

My 120v kettle is definitely faster than itself plus some stove-top boiled water, strangely enough.

Yeah, the maximum rated output for a standard US electrical outlet is 1500W. Alec Watson of the YouTube channel Technology Connections[1] did an interesting video a while back about the fact that basically all plug-in electric heaters sold in the US output 1500W.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-jmSjy2ArM

My induction stovetop (in the states) can get a big pot of water boiling in less than a minute.

As a Brit in the US, one of the first things I got 'straight off the boat' was an electric kettle. Surprisingly they work exactly like you'd expect. :)

Kettles are noticeably slower in the US (heating at about half the power.) Still more convenient than the hob for a cup of tea but not much faster timewise for heating a pan of water.

I have an electric kettle on my kitchen counter-top that I use for tea every day. In America!

> Ach! I forgot you don't have electric kettles in the US because of some crappy power supply issues!

We do have electric kettles, although I take it they don’t heat as fast as yours due to the difference in power supply.

That said... I’ve never seen one (in the UK) big enough to heat enough water to properly boil pasta. They’re like one quart or 1L at the most...?

I've normally had 2-litre electric kettles...

UK kettles are normally about 1.5L to 1.8L