brown butter miso mac and cheese

brown butter miso mac and cheese

• 2.22.2019

One of my intentions of 2019 is to waste less food... so what does that mean for right now? I'm putting miso in just about everything. I purchased the miso for the miso banana bread and now I'm intending to use every last drop of it.

I had all the ingredients for this dish for nearly a week but just never quite got the drive to make it. I had the same feeling the last time I made mac and cheese from scratch. It feels like a lot. Make the pasta. Make the roux. Melt the cheese. But it is not. It's very easy. I was eating incredible homemade mac and cheese before I knew it.

Candidly, I skipped the whole crunchy panko topping step too. I was so hungry and once I tasted the cheese sauce there was no stopping me. That being said, this would be unstoppable if you could make it through to the end. Crunchy mac and cheese topping can cure everything.

A few things:

• Pick your pasta // You might as well pick something that is fun - but also that grabs the cheese a bit. I was at Trader Joes and they had Gigli - which is hard to describe but a little extra special. Nothing the matter with rotini, macaroni, or rigatoni.... but it cost about 50 cents more and was 200% more fun.
• Cheese // Original recipe suggests a blend of cheddar, Pecorino, and Gruyère. While I was at Trader Joe's over the weekend, they had a cheddar + gruyere blend on the shelf. I'm all about keeping things easy so I went for this one. Added bonus? It cut the recipe cost in half. Buying one cheese versus two.
• Brown the butter // This was an unintended bonus. I hadn't planned for this but browned butter adds such a great flavor - especially when combined with the miso.

1. Preheat oven to 375° F.
2. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to boil. Add your pasta and cook until a minute or two shy of al dente (do not cook it all the way to al dente!). Drain (don't rinse) and set aside.
3. In a large pan, heat the butter until it melts. Add the flour and cook, whisking constantly to break up any clumps, for a minute or two.
4. Whisk in the warm milk and bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. This can happen very fast.
5. Remove from the heat and stir in 2 cups of the cheese and miso paste.
6. Add the cooked pasta to the cheese sauce and stir to coat.
7. Pour the pasta into a greased baking dish and sprinkle the top with the remaining 1/4 cup cheese and the panko.
8. Bake the pasta for about 25 minutes. The pasta should be bubbling and the breadcrumbs should be browned.
9. Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, and serve.

Shopping List (serves 4 hungry people, 6 non-hungry people)
8 ounces dried pasta
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk, warmed slightly
2 1/4 cups shredded cheese (I like a mix of cheddar, Pecorino, and Gruyère), divided
1/4 cup sweet white miso paste, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 cup panko breadcrumbs