Hello again! It’s mid-April and hopefully beautiful where you are sitting right now. I have an amazing view of the ocean as I am saying hello from the beaches of Maui today! And while we planned lots of down time to lay on the beach while we are here, I planned this delicious Pesto Mac and Cheese for all of you! (I know, you can’t really compare Pesto mac and cheese with Maui, but it’s all I’ve got! I’m sorry!)
This was actually a pretty quick process for this mac and cheese. I boiled the noodles and made the cheese sauce at the same time, which helps speed it up. Plus, I never really have a very good result from draining my noodles and “setting aside”. Typically they end up coming out of the pan in one big clump and who wants that? Not me! So doing both at once really works great!
I love adding the cheese and seeing it all come together, thickening up. Yum! I really just want to take a big bite out of it!
Just whisk it around until all the cheese is melted.
Then you will put your noodles into your dish, pouring the cheese mixture all over the noodles. Next, put in your pesto and stir until mixed.
I will tell you this about the original recipe. It called for an 8 oz jar of pesto. That is a LOT! I grabbed my jar out of the fridge and saw that I only had about 2 tablespoons and of course I thought it wasn’t going to be anywhere near close to tasting like enough pesto, but it was surprisingly more than enough. I can’t imagine how strong it would have been had I used the entire 8 oz! And last, top with your bacon bits!
Ingredients:
- 1 16 oz package dry elbow pasta
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 3 cups milk (I used non-fat)
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 2 tablespoons prepared pesto
- 1/4 cup cooked, crumbled bacon
- Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
- Put butter in saucepan and cook on medium heat. Once butter is melted, whisk in flour, salt and pepper. Whisk until bubbly and thick. (About 1-2 minutes)
- Whisk in 3 cups milk until combined. Keep whisking until thickened, 2 minutes.
- Reduce to low heat and mix in cheeses until melted.
- Put cooked pasta into a large pot. Pour in cheese sauce, stirring until mixed. Stir in pesto.
- Add bacon for garnish.
- Serve warm.
This Pesto Mac and cheese sets really fast, so serve immediately. If it gets too thick you can add a little milk and stir to thin. I would probably add a little more because for me it was pretty thick! And one thing I didn’t think about until after I was looking at my pictures was that I should have tossed this under the broiler for a moment to brown the top.
Serves 8- This recipe was adapted from Picky Palette
So what do you think? Would you try this spin on your classic Mac and Cheese?
