Everyone loves macaroni cheese, and baking it into bite-size portions makes it loads easier to pick up and eat AND loads less messy. #doublewin The basic recipe simply involves making macaroni cheese, dividing the mix into individual muffin cases / muffin trays and baking. I have added a few extra ingredients to mix it up a bit - extra vegetables for nutrition, some tuna for variety and protein, a crispy herby topping for flavour and texture and also an egg to help them set and hold their shape. So feel free to mix up the ingredients and flavours too! Ingredients... - macaroni pasta, cooked - plain flour - unsalted butter - milk - cheese, grated - breadcrumbs - fresh rosemary, finely chopped - 1 egg, beaten - 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder - olive oil Optional extras - carrot, grated - courgette (zucchini), grated - spring onion, sliced - tin of tuna To make the sauce... - melt some butter in a pan - add the flour and garlic powder to the butter a bit at a time stirring until it has formed a rough paste - continue to stir the butter/flour mix on the heat for a couple of minutes - start to gradually add milk, bit by bit, stirring or hand whisking continuously until you have a smooth white sauce - stir through the grated cheese until it has melted - add any additional ingredients (eg. grated carrot, courgette, spring onions etc) - (At this stage I split the mix in half and added the tuna to only one bowl so that I had two different flavours) - leave the sauce to cool slightly To make the crispy topping... - mix the breadcrumbs, some finely grated cheese, some olive oil and chopped herbs together To assemble... - mix together the cooked pasta and slightly cooled sauce - stir through the beaten egg (if the sauce is still hot it may scramble the egg) - divide the mix into muffin cases/trays (silicone muffin trays are great for this) - top each with some of the breadcrumb mix - bake in the oven at 180’C until golden and bubbling - leave to cool slightly before serving Eat fresh, refrigerate or freeze. Enjoy x
