Simple Four Cheese and Asparagus Mac and Cheese
Bro week continues today with a super easy mac and cheese dish. The main barrier to entry when it comes to making and mastering mac and cheese is the bechamel sauce. Making a nice thick cheese sauce requires a bit of effort that most bros are not willing to put in, so the blue box reigns. THIS mac and cheese however requires no such thing! The secret is the mixing of soft and semi-soft cheeses to form a perfect gooey creamy and tangy cheese sauce without all the effort!
Not many ingredients.
The types of cheese are important to the sauce, more on this later.
Mix in the hot pasta and the sauce comes together right before your eyes!
bake in the oven for a bit with some extra cheese on top. Yum.
The key to this mac and cheese is the 4 types of cheese used. Marscapone is sort of a binder here, the camembert adds the gooey, jack adds the stringy, and parm adds the sharpness. in place of marscapone you could use a soft goat cheese, or cream cheese. In place of camembert you could use bre or a soft taleggio. In place of jack you could use mozzarella or colby, and instead of parm you could try pecorino, but you need to have these 4 pillars of cheese to make this mac and cheese work without the roux.
Simple Four Cheese and Asparagus Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
- 8 Ounces Marscapone
- 8 Ounces Camembert
- 8 Ounces Jack grated
- 8 Ounces Parm grated
- 1 Cup Cream
- 2 Tablespoons Butter
- Fresh or Dried Oregano
Instructions
- In a bowl, mix the marscapone, camembert, half the monterey jack, and half of the parmesan. Add cream, butter, oregano, and a chopped veggie of your choice. I used asparagus today, but tomato, bell pepper, broccoli, or cauliflower are all awesome choices. Bring water to a boil and boil some pasta. Make sure you undercook the pasta by about 3 minutes, as it will finish cooking in the oven. Just before you strain your pasta, add a large ladel full of the starchy pasta cooking water to your bowl-o-cheese. Now strain your pasta and mix it with the cheese until a nice cheesy sauce is formed. Place in a baking dish and top with 4 more oz each of parm and jack cheeses. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes until its bubbly and delicious. Broil at the end to brown the top if it hasn’t browned up by itself.
That looks awesome!
Yes please. I would like some of this.
Mac and cheese without a roux is awesome! You can prob sub ricotta for mascarpone too…
Dan – loving these bro week recipes…Anne and I may actually try one. I have to confess though that until i read this post i thought a mascarpone was a type of kangaroo so even this may be too much of a challenge for me
Dan – i think you are thinking of a marsupial
do i spy a bottle of busch?
Bro. So you’re saying I’ve wasted hours of my life making bechemel sauces?!
That hurts bro.
That looks incredible! Love how it’s loaded with cheese. And it looks really easy too.
I love these bro food recipes! I’ve been emailing them to friends of mine who seem to subsist on packaged food. This looks super tasty!
Matt – it is in fact a busch light bottle. After all, it’s bro week right?
I’m a huge fan of the traditional mac and cheese method, but my wife always finds it a bit bland. This might be more up her alley. I’ve never found a bechamel to be too much work, but the different flavors you have on display here might get her to come around to m&c.
While I’m not a bro, I needed this recipe. Now I’m going to be stingy with my cheese at my party saturday night so that there is enough leftover cheese to make this pasta on Sunday. Yummy.
I made this last night! By far one of the best macs I’ve ever had. I loved that you didnt make a roux, which I as not prepared to handle as a new chef. I only left it in the ovenfor 30 minutes, next time I may even consider a few minutes less or baking below 400. Personally, I loved the gooey dryness but I can’t say the same for other in my party. Thanks for the best Mac and cheese building block ever!
looks interesting ^_^ just what is that type of Cheese Jack? never heard about it in Europe