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Comment by hahamrfunnyguy | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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!

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