Baked macaroni is a great comfort meal to enjoy with your loved ones. With meat, vegetables, tomatoes and cheese, this baked macaroni recipe is a fun and easy meal to make when you crave that little bite of comfort. The layers of flavor complexity of this dish are accentuated by how compact and assembled the finished product is!
Macaroniare very common pasta noodles, used in a variety of dishes. Many people enjoy eating macaroni in salads, with the extra ingredients depending on preference. For example, if you are looking for something quick and easy to make, you can enjoy this meat salad with cheese. This recipe does not require much cooking time; In 15 minutes you can have your own macaroni salad!
Another favorite, especially during the holidays, is the macaroni salad with chicken and egg. You can serve this dish when cooking, or cold, depending on how you like to eat it! Many people combine this salad with crispy fried chicken for that amazing combination of sweet and savory.
At first glance, baked macaroni may seem like just a combination of macaroni and cheese, like the popular American dish. But don’t be fooled! This baked macaroni recipe is like a cross between the classic macaroni and cheese and another pasta dish: lasagna. Just as cheese and elbow macaroni are important to this recipe, meat and other vegetables make it a more filling and nutritious dish, for consumers young and old!
Another important aspect of these baked macaroni is the Mornay sauce. Mornay sauce is composed of a combination of several cheeses. You can commonly find it in dishes like macaroni and cheese and lasagna, a white sauce full of delicious cheese flavors that you could choke on. Mornay sauce makes your baked macaroni recipe a little creamier, while the presence of meat and other vegetables gives it an opposite salty and salty taste. Combined in your mouth, you have a perfect bite of baked Macaroni!
There
are two sauces to make for this baked macaroni recipe: one is their meat sauce and the other, their Mornay white sauce. But first of all, we can’t forget to prepare the real macaroni! Cook your elbow macaroni according to package directions, but intentionally reduce cooking time so your macaroni are almost, but not quite well done. This is to prevent it from overcooking once we put it in the oven afterwards. Don’t forget to salt the water in your pasta! Once the time is up, drain the macaroni and set them aside.
Meat sauce Get ready to make your baked Macani
- beef sauce
by heating a pot and placing your butter inside. Let your butter melt, and once warm enough add your ground beef. Stir and cook your meat for 5 minutes, or until it turns medium brown, whichever comes first.
Add your diced onions, tomatoes and green peppers. Stir and then let them simmer for 3 minutes, or until your vegetables have softened. Add half a cup of tomato paste and a teaspoon of paprika and sit down again! Let your sauce cook for a minute, making sure to incorporate all the ingredients well.
The next thing you need to add is your bucket of meat and water, and from there you have all the meat sauce ingredients from your baked macaroni recipe in the pot! Stir until you have distributed all your ingredients well, and let it simmer for 20 minutes.
Add your sugar, salt and pepper to taste, and mix all your ingredients well once again. Turn off the heat and put aside your meat sauce, now it’s time to make the Mornay!
macaroni recipe” />Mornay sauce
- The second important sauce
in this baked macaroni recipe is creamy, cheesey Mornay. Start preparing by melting the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour gradually, stirring well and carefully for about a minute. The color we look for here is yellowish, not brown. Whisk your 2 cups of fresh milk until your sauce thickens and comes to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste, letting the pot simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.
Now it’s time to add your cheeses! A traditional Mornay sauce recipe would call for gruyere cheese, but for this baked macaroni recipe we’re using a combination of grated Parmesan and spicy cheddar. Acute cheddar in Mornay is what is most commonly found in macaroni and cheese, after all. Beat the cheese and incorporate well into the sauce until it melts completely; By now, the smell of creamy cheese and milk must be absolutely irresistible!
Once the ingredients are well mixed, set it aside for the time being. Now we are ready to move on to our next step, possibly the most important!
Of course, this
- baked macaroni
recipe
wouldn’t be complete without the actual cooking process! Now that all your pasta sauces and noodles are ready, it’s time to put this macaroon in the oven.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine your cooked macaroni and meat sauce in a baking dish; Mix them together, distributing the meat sauce well. Each macaroni noodle should absorb the meaty flavor of this sauce.
Arrange the fleshy macaroni and spread the Mornay sauce all over the plate! It is important that you cover every space of the macaroni and meat mixture with Mornay, almost as if you were adding another layer of lasagna. Once the oven is at 350 degrees, let your baked macaroni sit in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Take it out once the time is up, but be careful, it may be a little hot! Let it cool first. But once you’ve done that, voila, your baked macaroni are ready! Serve it warm and share it for all your loved ones to enjoy.
If you liked this baked
pasta, you can also try my Creamy Baked Spaghetti below, which uses spaghetti noodles instead of elbow macaroni. Both taste amazing!
Let us know what you think of this amazing baked macaroni recipe!
