Mac and Cheese just might be the ultimate comfort food. Creamy, cheesy, carbalicious… there’s just so much to love. But there’s certainly more than one way to make it. For starters, there are limitless combinations of cheese — are you using sharp cheddar and gruyere? Is there some parm in there? Something crazy like gorgonzola? There are even more questions — Do you start with a béchamel? Add breadcrumbs? Throw in some bacon? We set out to try out some different techniques, answer those questions, and find the very best Mac and Cheese recipe out there.
We took four popular celebrity Mac and Cheese recipes — each with their own distinct flair — and put them to the test. Read on to see if we found the ultimate one!
The Contenders:
We chose Mac and Cheese recipes from four different celebrities — some chefs, some not so much. Here’s why we chose each one:
Bobby Flay:
Bobby has a long track record for reliable recipes that are a little more interesting than the status quo. For something like Mac and Cheese, a Bobby Flay recipe is a no brainer.
John Legend:
Let’s be real — John Legend’s wife is known much more for cooking than he is… so we wanted to see what this legendary crooner had to offer.
Rachael Ray:
As a cook, Rachael is known for bringing fun to approachable recipes. You expect the unexpected with her and we wanted to see what she could bring to Mac and Cheese.
Patti Labelle:
She’s the “Godmother of Soul” but does that cross over to comfort food too?
The Methods:
In one day with two chefs, we made four different Mac and Cheese recipes. (It was a really great day of work.) Chef Dom took two recipes and Kristy took the other two. Along with the crew, they taste tested each recipe and compared methods. Here’s how each method differed:
Bobby Flay:
Bobby’s recipe is carbonara inspired and so begins with browning some pancetta and then making a roux with the pancetta fat. He has you then whisk in milk to build the sauce, but also add eggs too. I guess that’s the carbonara angle coming in as well but we couldn’t really see what it added to the sauce in this application. There are five cheeses involved — Asiago, Irish white cheddar, American cheddar, fontina, and parmesan all get whisked into the sauce — and then it’s flavored with thyme, cayenne, and parsley.
You can find Bobby’s recipe here: Bobby Flay’s Mac and Cheese Carbonara.
John Legend:
John Legend’s Mac and Cheese is largely based on layering, which I hadn’t seen as a technique before. He has you cook the macaroni and then drain it and toss it with a stick of butter while you heat up evaporated milk, skim milk, and eggs in a pan that you season with seasoned salt, garlic powder, and salt and pepper. You layer the buttered macaroni with the cheese (which is a combo of extra sharp cheddar and Monterey Jack) and you pour that evaporated milk/egg mixture over the whole thing, top it with paprika, and bake.
You can find John’s recipe here: John Legend’s Macaroni and Cheese.
Rachael Ray:
Rachael’s starts with rendering some chopped bacon and then cooking down onions (or shallots!) and garlic in the fat. You then build a bechamel in the same pot (bacon, onion, garlic removed first) and then stir in Gruyere, dry mustard, and either truffles or truffle oil (or even both). She then has you top the mac and cheese with just parm and then bake it for thirty minutes. There are no breadcrumbs, but instead there are fresh herbs, which you sprinkle over the top after it comes out the oven and let it sit for ten minutes or so.
You can find Rachael’s’s recipe here: Rachael Ray’s Ultimate Mac and Cheese.
Patti Labelle:
Patti’s recipe is definitely the easiest of them all. She has you stir butter into cooked macaroni and then add in shredded cheese, cubed Velveeta, eggs, half and half, and seasoned salt and stir it all together. There’s no building of a sauce really… you’re just stirring everything into the macaroni and then transferring it to a dish to bake. She uses five different kinds here. There’s muenster, mild cheddar, sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack, and Velveeta.
You can find Patti’s recipe here: Patti Labelle’s Mac and Cheese.
The Verdict:
Bobby Flay:
The combination of cheeses doesn’t taste like carbonara to me but it did taste good and that’s all that really matters. Our other taste testers found the thyme overpowering here but I quite liked the herbiness! I also liked the addition of the pancetta. I’m generally not one to add “mix ins” to my mac and cheese but Bobby just might have changed my mind.
You can find Bobby’s recipe here: Bobby Flay’s Mac and Cheese Carbonara.
John Legend:
We were all pretty shocked at how great this was. It was perfectly creamy, had plenty of cheese pulls, and actually tasted like cheese. Nothing else overshadowed that cheese flavor… that was the star here, along with the consistency. And while it might look a little liquidy in our photos, I can promise you that if you let it sit long enough, the consistency is delightful. But sometimes with food photography you have to strike while the iron is hot, literally!
You can find John’s recipe here: John Legend’s Macaroni and Cheese.
Rachael Ray:
The cheesiness does get lost a bit amongst the strong flavors of the bacon and the truffle and such, so it reads as more of a casserole to me than a true mac and cheese, but in any case, it’s a delicious one. The herbs add brightness to the indulgent richness so it’s balanced and it really does taste “ultimate” even if it ultimately doesn’t feel like mac and cheese.
You can find Rachael’s’s recipe here: Rachael Ray’s Ultimate Mac and Cheese.
Patti Labelle:
Five cheeses is a lot of cheese! But even with all of that, the main flavor you get is Velveeta. This actually tastes very similar to the Velveeta Mac and Cheese from the box, which I’m not complaining about! There’s only a half cup of each of the shredded cheeses so their flavor gets lost a bit but the consistency is delightfully creamy. If I make this again, I’d probably go ahead and use two cups of sharp cheddar for flavor and pair just that cheese with the Velveeta. That being said, this is classic tasting Mac and Cheese, through and through.
You can find Patti’s recipe here: Patti Labelle’s Mac and Cheese.
The Winner:
John Legend!!!
Everyone in the studio that tasted this was amazed at how good it was. As Chef Dom said, “That’s why they call him legend.” It’s a truly outstanding Mac and Cheese!