A family dinner winner, baked bacon mac and cheese recipe. This recipe creates the perfect rich and gooey macaroni and cheese with the game-changing bacon crumb topping.
Enter the game-changing Bacon Mac and Cheese recipe
According to the news, America is in deep trouble. You know what I’m talking about, it is white or orange and sometimes is smelly as all get out. That’s right, America has a cheese problem. Apparently, there is something close to 1.4 billion tons of cheese sitting in cold storage units right now across America. That is an insane amount of cheese.
Macaroni and cheese or mac and cheese, it is one of those North American things, a combination of Italian immigrants with American cheese production and it is a match made in heaven. As a kid growing up, Mac and Cheese invariable always meant Kraft Dinner (which is what we in Canada called Kraft Macaroni and Cheese).
Especially on cold winter days, it was great to come home from school at lunch to have this waiting for you. And there is not a university student in Canada who has not survived on this at some point in the last 40 years. It was cheap, it was cheesy (kinda), it was salty, and you always believed it was going to taste good. I used to fool myself thinking it was great food for a Sunday after a late Saturday, it isn’t btw.
In any case, the recipe for Kraft Dinner was simply. Cook the macaroni, melt some butter and milk, add the neon orange cheese powder and mix together. Naturally, every child had their own interpretation about just how much milk you were to add. I usually opted for more milk for more ‘sauce’. It is just, that this wasn’t so much macaroni and cheese, as it is pasta and weird sauce. It had none of the gooeyness of cheese. Sure, you could splurge and upgrade to the Velveeta Macaroni and Cheese, but you still have a lot of ingredients on the box not commonly found on the spice shelf! However, the only time I can initiate my two little ones in this grand tradition is if we are back visiting Canada – the Brits don’t really sell these things.
About five years ago I found a copy of the Pit Cue’s cookbook. It is a good read, and I really liked their approach to ‘whole hog’ cooking. Something I would get in trouble if I tried it here. While reminiscing about BBQ’s in the past, I came across their recipe for mac and cheese. It looked nice but most intriguing was their use of a bacon breadcrumb mixture on the top. It is a game changer.
Using aspects of their recipes, and adding my own (especially the cheese combinations, spicing of the cheese sauce and adding some maple!), I managed over to develop my own bacon mac and cheese recipe. It had flavour, was filling, and most importantly had the cheesy gooeyness to it I craved. It also didn’t hurt that D, who declared his hatred of such a meal, finished his plate.
Nowadays, I will still on occasion make this for my family. It is rich and gooey but has a nice bit of attitude to it. This bacon mac and cheese recipe is an awesome recipe for the family or a crowd.
Pairings
Drinks – This is a rich dish, so you need something that will help cut through it. I suggest either a pilsner or some crispy lemonade.
Music – Sloan’s The Rest of my Life
Bacon Mac and Cheese Recipe
Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
- 6 strips of streaky bacon (or regular bacon for North Americans) about 100g
- 50 g salt
- 50 g maple sugar
- 2 sheets of Parchment paper
- 100 g Breadcrumbs
- 1 tsp Paprika
- 1 tsp Chili powder
- ½ tsp White pepper
- 1 tsp Garlic powder
- 500 g Macaroni or other pasta
- 600 ml semi-skimmed Milk
- 200 g grated Cheddar Cheese
- 125 g crumbled Stilton or other blue cheese
- 125 g Maasdam Cheese or Emmental
- 75 g Butter
- 75 g Flour
- 2 shallots
- 2 garlic cloves diced
- 1 TB dried Herbs de provence
Instructions
- Add the macaroni to boiling salted water, cook until al dente and then drain and quickly rinse in cold water to stop the pasta from cooking.
- To make the bacon crumble topping take the bacon and place it between two sheets of parchment paper and bake this in a 180 degrees oven for about 15-20 min. This will cause the bacon to be like shards of glass, and perfect to crumble. It should be very crispy but not burnt. Mix the crumbled bacon with the salt, sugar, paprika, chili pepper, garlic powder and the bread crumbs. Spread this out onto a baking sheet and return to the oven, turn it down to about 120 degrees and slowly cook until dried out.
- In a saucepan melt the butter and add shallots, garlic and herbes de provence. Once the onion is translucent, add the flour. Whisk to form a roux. Then gradually the milk, while continuing to mix. This should form a mildly thick sauce.
- Next, add the Stilton, Maasdam and all but 75g of the cheddar. Also add the white pepper and nutmeg. Whisk until all cheese is melted. Tip in the pasta and stir until fully combined. Evenly spread this into an oven safe dish.
- Top the pasta with about 3TB of the bacon breadcrumbs and the remaining cheddar. Bake in an oven at 180 for about 20min until nice and gooey and crispy.
Even though we’ve been living in Canada for 7 years, I’ve never tried this famous Kraft mac&cheese. Indeed, I’ve met quite a few folks who said Kraft dinner is the most delicious mac&cheese they’ve ever tasted. With all due respect, we know that a box mixture can never beat a homemade version, right? You’ve nailed this pasta, Matt! Love the addition of blue cheese and bacon breadcrumbs.
Oh man, those Kraft dinners from childhood are so suspect. What really was in that strange neon powder anyways!? Also, I had no idea that America has so much cheese in cold storage. That’s insane! I love cheese, so I clearly need to start eating more of it. I know dairy farmers here in America have had a rough go the past few years. Feed costs are up. Prices for milk are down. The combination just isn’t good. I hear the forecast is improving for next year, though. As much as I enjoy cheap milk prices, I do want our farmers to be able to feed their families, too!
Anyhoo, this mac and cheese recipe sounds insane. Bacon breadcrumbs!? The sweetness from the maple + the salty bacon + the creamy cheese means this dish would last all of about .5 seconds in our house. Well done, my friend, well done! Now why don’t you guys take a trip over and help us eat some cheese? 🙂