The Ultimate Five-Cheese Macaroni and Cheese | Lodge Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven

When I was a kid my favorite dish was my mom's

macaroni

and

cheese

, my dad did most of the cooking at home, but when it came to the holidays and my mom's

macaroni

and

cheese

, she definitely reigned supreme and passed this recipe on to me a few years ago. 20 years. It was and have since added a few tweaks to create what I now call my best

five

cheese mac and cheese. It's a recipe that I said I would never give away, but today I will share it with you. This is what We will need to start with the first sharp cheddar of our cheese, Monterey Jack mozzarella, grated Romano and grated Parmesan cheese, you will also need elbow, macaroni, eggs, butter, whole milk, sea salt, white sugar, Hungarian paprika, besan dry and extra virgin olive oil, let's get started, okay.

The first thing we are going to do is shred our cheese. I like to buy blocks of cheese instead of already grated cheese because when you buy the grated cheese it is covered with something that prevents it from sticking and I want just the cheese so I go through the trouble of shredding it myself and I think it's worth it, one minus two, now for our Monterey Jack. I've been working for quite some time trying to figure out which cheeses work together and these

five

seem to give the best flavor. The things about this dish are the variations that you can add on your own.

Okay, the Monterey Jack is ready and I'm telling you, shredding this cheese is truly a labor of love and now for the mozzarella, how much cheese you'll actually need depends on how big. of the dish you're making, I'm using about a pound of Monterey Jack cheddar and mozzarella cheese, okay, all the cheeses are great, now I'm going to put them in the refrigerator until I'm ready to add them to the dish, bring a pot of water to a boil, add a little sea salt, a little olive oil and add the macaroni. Once you add the macaroni, you may want to keep it moving so it doesn't stick now when cooking. your macaroni you definitely don't want to cook them to death, you want to cook them until they're barely al dente, it's best to taste the piece as you go, that's perfect, it still has a little chew to it, but it's not soggy, it's okay, come on to remove this, drain it and I'll show you what to do next after you drain the macaroni while it's still hot, add about 3/4 stick of butter and stir until it melts.

I'm going to set this aside for about 20 minutes just to allow it to cool a little. Now let's prepare our macaroni and cheese. Before doing this, preheat the

oven

to 375 degrees. I'm going to do this. today in my 3 quart

enameled

cast

iron

dutch

oven

, the first thing we're going to do is go in and butter the inside of this dish, go around all the corners and then pour a layer of macaroni on the bottom let it cover the entire bottom try not to fold the macaroni too much you want a layer of macaroni and a layer of cheese and a layer of macaroni a layer of cheese you don't want too thick a layer layer of macaroni, okay, it looks pretty good, and then we'll start with our cheeses.

Now I start with a white cheese first and then I move on to my sharp cheddar and then I do my other white cheese. I do it this way. I can see where I've been okay, so we'll start with the mozzarella and just put a nice layer of that on and it might be a good idea to do three layers, so it might be a good idea to divide the cheese into three small piles. I've done this a million times so I can get a good look at it, that looks good, now we're going to go in with our sharp cheddar cheese.

When you do this, you need a plate that's going to be at least three and a half inches deep and now our last white cheese and you can see what I mean by being able to see where you've been with each cheese. Okay, it looks good, we're going to take our dried basil and you're going to sprinkle a very thin layer over this, you don't want a lot, but just sprinkle it and you'll see I'm rubbing my fingers together to get a very thin layer of what you want. put it in a shaker or something that's fine, another layer of macaroni, you can start to see why you need a deep plate for this, a shallow plate, you might be able to get two layers and it will be good, but not that good. okay and then we're going to go down with our cheese again our mozzarella a sniper and the Monterey Jack and then once again we're going to go in with a thin layer of our dried basil one more layer of macaroni now you can actually look at why you need a plate deep for this, our macaroni cools a lot, so the cheese doesn't melt right away when we put this together, that's what we don't want in this last layer, we want a mixture of the white cheese into the yellow cheese on top, so let's go I'm going to alternate between the three cheeses, but I don't want the yellow cheese to be completely covered because I think it adds a nice color and improves the presentation of the dish. so put in some of our mozzarella, turned on a sharp cheddar and Monterey Jack and we keep alternating it so that there's a nice mix of cheeses on top that clump together and leave a little bit of room around the edges so that this cheese has a place to run without overflowing a little more sharp cheddar cheese which is nice, it's a good mix of the strong yellow cheddar and the Monterey and the mozzarella well, a last layer of basil and now I'm going to sprinkle very lightly the parmesan cheese and you just do this on top and now the Romano is fine and lastly I'm going to go in with my Hungarian paprika and give it a very very light sprinkle, okay, it looks great in a blender, combine four eggs, three cups of whole cheese. milk three teaspoons of sea salt and three teaspoons of white sugar and give it a good mix, okay, now we're going to pour our egg and milk mixture very slowly into the center of this, you don't want to dirty your hot cup on top and you're going to keep a Be careful on the sides you want to fill just below the macaroni starting to see them rise and for this dish this is a perfect amount.

How much of this you'll need again will depend on the size of a dish you're making right when I had to live for this if you don't have a lid use aluminum foil and now we're going to put this in our oven at 375 degrees for 30 minutes okay. , this has been in the oven for 30 minutes now let's find out. I see what looks amazing now that it's a little full, so we'll have to be very careful that this doesn't spill and drip into the oven if yours gets a little full like that. you can put some aluminum foil right underneath in case it drips, but I think we should be okay with this, but that's why you want to leave a little bit of space between the edge and the actual plate.

I'll go back in the oven uncovered for 30 minutes, when it gets to about 20 minutes, keep an eye on it because you definitely don't want to burn the top if it starts to brown before the 30 minutes are up, put the lid on. Replace or tint the plate with aluminum foil, okay, here is the finished plate and I promise you it tastes as good as it looks. I'm going to let it sit for about five minutes just to let it sit a little bit and then dive in when you make this dish you may have to add some adjustments to make it work for you.

I made this in

cast

iron

but I also make it in glass. I find that cast iron cooks much faster, so you may need to adjust your times if you use glass. One way to tell if your mac and cheese hasn't been cooked long enough is to grab something like a bamboo skewer, stick it in the center if it comes out liquid, it hasn't been cooked long enough, just cover it and put it back in the oven at the same temperature for about 10 minutes to check it again easy, simple and very good, thanks for watching.