I hate when recipe posts start out with a long and winding story about how the author discovered the food and blah blah blah. So, let’s get right to the best Southern-Style mac & cheese recipe I’ve ever found, and I’ll talk a little bit about it afterward.
Ingredients
•10 ounces elbow macaroni
•½ cup whole milk
•1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
•2 eggs, lightly beaten
•1.5 tsp white pepper
•1.5 tsp sugar
•salt to taste
•1 stick butter cut into small pieces
•2 tbsp sour cream
•½ pound Velveeta cut into small pieces
•8 ounces shredded Colby-Jack cheese
•4 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese
•1 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Cook the elbow macaroni al dente, according to the package instructions.
3. Drain and place in the baking dish.
4. Make your custard mixture by whisking together milk, evaporated milk, and eggs. Season to taste.
5. Pour the custard mixture over the macaroni in the baking dish.
6. Add the butter as well as the sour cream and cheeses. Stir well to combine.
7. Top with grated cheese to taste.
8. Bake 35-40 minutes until bubbly with a lightly-browned top.
9. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving.
Recipe Notes
•Please don’t use a Velveeta substitute. It won’t melt the same way. The recipe won’t come out right.
•If you have the time and the inclination, shredding your own cheese will work better than buying prepackaged shredded cheeses. Your hand-shredded cheese will melt better and lead to a better mouthfeel.
•Any recipe with tons of real butter and cheese is going to be a bit oily after baking. If you’d like, you can blot the oil off the top with paper towels. I don’t think it’s necessary, but the presentation may be a little better.
•I like to make two of them at a time because mac and cheese freezes well. It’s easy to reheat, too. Trust me, if you bring a dish to a potluck, you won’t have any leftover. Good idea to make one to eat and one to bring to the party.
Recipe Origin Story
This recipe comes straight from my grandmother. I know – that’s kind of boring. But she was a fascinating woman.
My grandmother was born in 1925 in Beaumont, Texas. Beaumont was the country’s biggest oil boom town at that time, and life in the city was just as wild and wooly as you can imagine.
Anita was born the seventh daughter of a seventh son and she had a “veil” over her face at birth. Both of these were seen as omens that she’d have second sight or some spiritual connection throughout her life. And indeed, she did.
When my grandmother wasn’t telling fortunes with a crystal ball in bustling downtown Houston, she was playing in a Zydeco band at a house party and rubbing elbows with rum runners in county jails.
She was also, in the parlance of the time, a quadroon, having one black grandmother. That put her in an awkward position–not quite accepted by the whites, not quite accepted by anyone else. She managed her way by blending in whenever possible. She could switch codes and costumes and be friends with just about anyone.
Her recipe for baked mac & cheese (which I called Southern-Style to make it sound fancier) comes straight from that place of mixed identity.
It’s nothing like the blue box instant stuff that my parents fed me in the 80s.
If anything, it most closely resembles the mac & cheese sold at Soul Food restaurants.
It’s so typical of my grandmother to have completely rejected what polite society insisted on. In this case, she rebelled against the soupy cheese sauce and limp noodles she grew up with in favor of a flavor and calorie bomb that tastes like real food.
Conclusion
My grandmother passed in 2018. She was 93 wild and crazy years old.
I feel like I honor her memory every time I cook and eat this dish.
All sentiment aside, this is a darn good recipe. I’ve never brought this dish to a potluck and come home with any sort of leftovers. It’s really that good.
We all have those foods that take us back. We take a bite and we’re transported to a different time. For most of us, those are our childhood foods. We take comfort now in what we loved then.
My grandmother’s Southern-Style Mac & Cheese is a crowd-pleaser, and it puts any instant mac & cheese to shame.
