Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Healthified mac n cheese

I was trying to figure out what to eat for dinner one day when and I opened up the Home and Garden's that came that day and I came across a healthier version of mac and cheese. I am a big mac n cheese lover so if you can make a healthy mac n cheese taste good - you are my best friend! I thought I would try the recipe with a few adaptations:

Ingredients:
-Whole wheat pasta 1 and 1/2 cups - I used whole wheat shells
-1 and 1/2 broccoli florets and finely chopped carrots
-1/4 cup finely chopped onion
-4 tsp olive oil
-3/4 cup 75% reduced fat white cheddar cheese
-1/2 cup 75% reduced fat pepper jack cheese
-1/2 cup of parmesan cheese
-1 and 2/3 cups fat free milk
-1 tbsp all-purpose flour
-crushed red pepper and italian seasonings to taste
-some panko bread crumbs to sprinkle on top

Steps:

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees...while the oven is warming up cook pasta and add broccoli and carrots in the last 3 minutes of cooking...drain pasta and veggies and set aside.

2. While the pasta is cooking heat 2 tsp of olive oil in pan and cook onions until soft and translucent. Remove pan from heat and stir in parmesan cheese...stir until blended.

3. In a medium bowl whisk together milk and flour until smooth...add to onion mixture...cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly...reduce heat to low and add the rest of the cheese...stir until melted...add cooked pasta mixture and stir to coat.

4. Transfer pasta mixture to a cassarole dish...in a small bowl toss panko breadcrumbs with remaining oil and sprinkle on top of pasta...sprinkle with crushed red pepper and italian seasonings...bake for 15 minutes or until top of browned.

This mac and cheese is probably the best mac and cheese I have ever had...it had so much flavor and it was a much healthier option...until I ate almost all of it...and saw it was supposed to feed six...whoops!
If you want to see the original recipe it was in the March 2010 Better Homes and Gardens.
Some pictures of the finished product:

5 comments:

  1. Perfect for health conscious people like me. Plus I love cheese, so this does really excite me! Can't wait to make this one soon. If you don't mind I would like to guide Foodista readers to this recipe. Just add the foodista widgetfor pepper jack cheese to the end of this post and it's all set!

    Also, Foodista is inviting you to attend this year's International Food Blogger Conference in Seattle on August 27-29! There also are sponsorships offered that you can take advantage of! For more information, check this page out.

    Hope to see you there! Keep on blogging. :-)

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  2. Mac and Cheese with a kick, nice recipe!

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  3. What a great blog!

    This looks so delicious!

    Have a nice time!
    Paula

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  4. KD has nothing on this great looking recipe, can't wait to make for my family, thanks for sharing.

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  5. Thanks for my supper idea tonight, have been banging around the kitchen trying to figure something out, thank you so much.

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