Easy Cooking: Evaporated Milk Mac & Cheese

In my first post, Theophilus, I dealt with all that you need to know to make a simple tomato sauce. Now we will tackle an even simpler dish which is honestly just as delicious. I feel compelled to say, I called the prior post Bachelor Frog Cooking because I remembered that meme as fairly tame. Unfortunately, Know Your Meme calls it Foul Bachelor Frog, bringing another meme to mind. I know you are not foul, dude readers.

Macaroni and cheese comes down to texture. Think about it: Melting cheese on noodles would just be pasta nachos or maybe hot pasta salad. So how do you get the cheese to coat the pasta? The basic answer is emulsification, getting the watery cheese to stick to the starchy pasta. Pasta water is a good start. Milk is an emulsion of sorts but is too thin. Behold, I proclaim to you the good news of evaporated milk!

It comes in a can but may be frozen in an ice tray, giving you the power to quickly transform pasta into great mac and cheese. We learned the good news from an Instant Pot recipe, but Instant Potsta (?) easily ends up too watery. The stovetop’s simplicity and lower temperature greatly simplify the process.

There are obviously other ways to make mac and cheese, even on the stove. A common method is making a roux, basically a whisked mixture of flour and butter (or other fat), then incorporating milk and cheese. There is also a “one pot” method of cooking pasta in milk then adding cheese to the starchy byproduct. It is tough to pull off and not that tasty, so I do not recommend it.

Notes on Cheese

From our tinkering with the Instant Pot recipe, sharp cheddar produces the best or certainly most consistent result. But you can experiment. Monterey Jack is nice. Goat cheese is cool. Though gouda is always a bit disappointing. Gruyere has a reputation for melting well. Blue cheeses are also worth a shot!

We always have a frozen bag of grated Costco Pecorino Romano on hand, a stronger alternative to Parmigiano (parmesan is a fake word, stop using it). Finishing off your mac with a generous amount of dry, aged cheese puts it over the top with a bit of extra flavor and saltiness.

Pre-shredded cheese has anti-caking agents like cellulose, which some folks insist they can taste. I just know that we like saving money and enjoy grating our own cheese. Plus common sense says it is less oxidized. And cleanup is easy if you do let the residue dry on the grater (ask me how I know).

Cheese melts better the more water content it has, but only as a general principle. For example, pasta al burro is just pasta coated in butter and Parmigiano thanks to lots of pasta water. The most artful version is the original fettucine alfredo.

One thing to avoid is shocking cheese with heat so that its water separates out … like if you are using a superheated pressure cooker. That leaves you way too much extra liquid and a rubbery clump of curds. This is not a big concern for stovetop pasta since you can actually run out of residual heat.

A solid trick from food YouTuber Adam Ragusea (and the catering at a fancy backyard cookout we attended) is adding some American processed cheese product so the special salts in it to help the other cheese melt on the mac.

Ingredients

• Kosher or sea salt
• 1 pound dried pasta (good options: penne, farfalle, elbows, shells)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• ~1/2 cup pasta water, set aside or drained directly into the butter
• ~1/4 cup evaporated milk (freeze any extra in cubes for future use)
• 1–2 slices American cheese (optional)
• 2–4 cups shredded cheese (sharp cheddar or similar)
• ~1/4–1/2 cup Parmigiano, Pecorino Romano, or Grana Padano

Preparation

1. Generously salt water and bring up to a boil. Add your dried pasta, stirring a few times to avoid sticking or clumping. Set timer four minutes less than the minimum time written on pasta’s packaging.
2. Cut the butter up for better melting and put it into a serving bowl or pot.
3. Once your timer goes off, fish out a piece of pasta and taste it for doneness. Continue doing so periodically, about every one to two minutes.
4. When your pasta is done or almost done, reserve about half a cup of pasta water and pour into the serving bowl to melt the butter. Then drain the cooked pasta and add to the serving bowl, mixing so it is fully coated.
5. Mix in the evaporated milk so that it coats the pasta.
6. This is the stage where you would add spices, covered below!
7. After the pasta has cooled a bit, add about half of the shredded cheese.
8. Once the shredded cheese is fully integrated, mix the rest into the pasta.
9. Finish the mac and cheese off by mixing in the grated aged cheese.

To kick it up a notch, add two cloves of sautéed diced garlic at step 5. BAM!

Bonus: Spices for Mac & Cheese

I usually add at least some of these spices to this basic recipe (see step 6):

• Black pepper (fresh cracked is way better, as with any spice, technically)
• Turmeric (more than you might think, but not too much!)
• Cumin (a little goes a long way when it is not cooked out)
• Paprika (smoked or not, I cannot say I really know the difference)
• Granulated garlic (garlic salt is even easier to overuse)
• Dried mustard (the Instant Pot recipe includes it, possibly as an emulsifier)
• Sea salt to taste (a shake or two is fine if you are adding pepper)

I hope you enjoy this macaroni and cheese as much as our family does. I am still figuring it out myself, but it just keeps getting better and better!