Classic Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

About This Recipe

Macaroni and cheese has no single point of origin, but its long story begins with a simple idea: pasta, fat, and cheese made more comforting by heat. European cooks were combining those ingredients in different forms for centuries, and an English cookbook published in 1769 included a baked macaroni preparation. The short elbow pasta and creamy casserole familiar in American kitchens came later, shaped by changing ingredients, ovens, and household habits.

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century recipes were wonderfully flexible about the pasta and the cheese. Some used long pieces or dried pasta from Naples, while others layered the noodles with butter, cream, Parmesan, Gruyere, or whatever a household could afford. Thomas Jefferson helped bring pasta-making knowledge into the American story, but the surviving record does not support calling him the inventor of macaroni and cheese.

The people who cooked these dishes deserve as much attention as the names that survived in famous kitchens. James Hemings trained in French cooking in Paris while enslaved by Jefferson, and his skill helped shape the food served in Jefferson's household even though the evidence cannot prove he invented the dish. Mary Randolph's 1824 cookbook and other nineteenth-century sources helped carry macaroni preparations into a wider American cooking tradition.

Macaroni and cheese also grew through African American and Caribbean foodways, where baked versions are sometimes called macaroni pie and appear in family, church, and community cooking. In the twentieth century, packaged macaroni and cheese added another chapter when Kraft introduced its boxed version in 1937, an especially useful low-cost meal during the Great Depression. The casserole, the stovetop pot, and the boxed dinner now sit alongside one another as living versions of the same broad comfort-food idea.

This recipe uses a butter-and-flour roux to give whole milk enough body to carry sharp cheddar and Parmesan. Paprika adds gentle warmth and color, while cooking the macaroni just until al dente keeps it from becoming soft after the sauce and oven finish their work. A short bake creates bubbling edges and a lightly golden crumb topping without asking the cheese sauce to survive an unnecessarily long stay in the heat.

Let the dish rest for a few minutes before serving so the sauce can settle into the pasta instead of running across the plate. A crisp salad, steamed broccoli, roasted green beans, or sautéed greens brings freshness beside the rich casserole. The method leaves plenty of room for a family's preferred cheeses and add-ins while keeping the spirit of a classic American comfort-food table.