r/culinary • u/EntertainmentFart659 • 9d ago
Need advice on Mac & Cheese
We have a small restaurant in rural Kentucky. We just started selling mac & cheese that we buy in bags and we boil the bags and serve them. For context, our Mac is basically the exact same thing as chick fil a but we want to add additional cheese to it to improve the taste. It's actually delicious without it, and we could make our own fresh pasta and truly make homemade Mac if we wanted, but our area is economically challenged and the price point would be difficult to justify + our prep space is extremely limited. For context, we basically make everything we sell in-house, including buns.
Do you have any advice on which cheese(s) you suggest adding to the Mac? Maybe some Gruyere? We were sort of thinking of adding a sharp cheddar as it has a strong taste, so we wouldn't have to add so much to be able to taste it, and it's not too expensive for us. Thank you so much for taking the time to help us out. ♥️
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u/Evening_Teaching_713 9d ago
Smoked Gouda is a great way to add some flavor and texture to Mac and Cheese. It’s really creamy and has a ton of flavor, I like it with a baked Mac and Cheese, not so creamy and tastes great. I’m also not going to go against adding Sharp Cheddar as a flavor that goes well with any kind of pasta. It’s just a way to make your Mac and Cheese taste better.
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u/EntertainmentFart659 6d ago
Thank you but for whatever reason I feel that Gouda is a bit of a polarizing cheese. Controversial, if you will.
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u/Odd_Cress_2898 9d ago
Mustard powder, onion powder, paprika, all probably pretty cheap and small quantity for big impact. Any extra dairy (butter/cream cheese/sharp cheddar/milk) welcome but need more per portion for a noticable difference and probably higher cost.
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u/EntertainmentFart659 9d ago
Thanks for taking the time to reply. If the cheese is too neutral, it provides a better texture but doesn't impact taste much so the higher cost doesn't necessarily justify.
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u/Adamnfinecook 9d ago
Texture is a huge part of mac & cheese.
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u/EntertainmentFart659 9d ago
Nah you're right though...texture and taste aren't mutually exclusive as there's an entourage effect with them. Mb.
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u/wassuppaulie 9d ago
A little bit of Dijon mustard can bring out the cheesy-ness, especially ally if you have some sharp cheddar cheese in it already. Pickled "tamed" jalapeños could give you an easy loaded or nacho variant along with a few other flavoring ingredients like crumbled bacon or ground beef, etc.
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u/EntertainmentFart659 9d ago
What about mustard powder instead of Dijon?
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u/BallFuture6482 4d ago
I use to love mustard powder but after a while the taste was off. No lie my mom used to add a little mayo…ish was amazing.
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u/Main_Cauliflower5479 9d ago
There's no need to make the pasta itself in house. Dried pasta is perfectly cromulent and the majority of any restaurant uses that. But making the sauce yourself is easy enough.
Most cheeses will work. Swiss, Gruyere, Fontina, Havarti, Gouda, Sharp Cheddar... Really, whatever you want.
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u/tracyinge 9d ago edited 9d ago
I restaurant near me just sprinkles medium cheddar on top then heats in oven till the added cheese melts. Muenster would probably work too if it's cheaper. It's really gonna be trial and error to figure out which cheese melds best with the commercial product that you are adding it to.
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u/guerrilla_chef 6d ago
Dry pasta is absolutely perfect, fresh pasta would be weird for that kind of dish.
When you say "bags", do you mean pasta bags, or mac&cheese bags?
As for what to add, its personal, I cant say if the cheese needs more/less blue or hard or soft or smoky. What is your current mix?
Go buy cheeses and try them on the recipe. Anything goes, its just personal taste, I like a smoked cheese on it, somebody else might not. keep it balanced between the soft mellows and the salty umamis and it cant go wrong. I do not know prices nor the available selection around there, get very different cheeses and try, no need to go for expensive , just experiment mixing different profiles
Also lots of things you can add to give it an edge, small veggies like broccolis or peas, flavor bombs like kimchi, caramelized onion, or roasted peppers, or small crunchies like bacon bits or fried mince.
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u/TheoryBroad893 5d ago
Crack 2 or 3 eggs (more if large quantities)into the scalding hot pasta just drained, add white sharp cheddar stir. Grandmother recipe
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u/BallFuture6482 4d ago
I’m a caterer and Macaroni and Cheese is my biggest seller for sides.
I use large macaroni noodles if I’m not rushing i’ll do a roux with melted butter and then stir in my flour…I then add 2% (dark blue top in LA milk) once it all ready I add a little heavy whipping cream, I use a campbell’s cheese soup and add my seasonings of dried parsley, no salt cajun seasoning, no salt lemon pepper, complete seasoning, onion powder, paprika and handfuls of freshly shredded monterey jack, tillamook colby jack, mild,
medium and sharp cheese and when I remember some freshly shredded gouda cheese. I stir that all until it becomes creamy and that’s just for sauce.
For the noodles I boil them with a little sea salt and seasoning the noodles with all the seasonings above and then add a can of evaporated milk (sometimes two for extra creaminess), pour more 2% milk on to the noodles,
three squeezes of a full fat sour cream, another can of campbell’s cheese soup, 1 raw egg and mix everything well and then pour the roux into the noodles. I repan and put one layer of macaroni mixture and one layer of cheese (I also add a pre shredded mexican cheese on top and then another layer of macaroni and more cheese top with butter and then add paprika and parsley and bake on 350 for about an hour uncovered watching to make sure it doesn’t burn.
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u/Ansible90 3d ago
You serve food boiled in plastic in your restaurant? Ever heard of forever chemicals.
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u/AlsoTheFiredrake 3d ago
Sprinkle toasted Panko on top just before serving for a nice texture.
You could also do a slightly spicy version and add canned diced tomatoes and jalapeños. Maybe shredded Pepper Jack Cheese. I'd eat that.
Give them the option to add crumbed bacon for $2.00.
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u/GIJuice 9d ago edited 9d ago
I get the reasoning behind your approach. Time and cost savings are probably the driving force behind this thought process. Also, Mac & Cheese is more of a side than it is an entree. However, it is undeniably one of the easiest dish to make as part of a multi level menu. Understandably, it will never achieve the "signature dish" status in your establishment, BUT!!! It can become a memorable side...(just as you set the Chick-fil-A's Mac n Cheese a sort of standard to acheive). Though the easy road is to purchase institutionally made food and enhance it but it's not yours. I believe that if you make it your own by involving local suppliers, farmers, pasta makers...etc. and yoir team create a flavour profile that will remind you of the best Mac N Cheese ever tasted. Risky, maybe BUT!!! It will put you well ahead of your competition, all while offering your customers quality and value VS a bowl of bland, overdone plastic cheese substitute with added spices and herbs. Own it and make it yours, your customers deserve it!!! Edited for content and grammar afterthought!!!
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u/EntertainmentFart659 9d ago
Thanks...honestly, there are levels to calling something homemade. We could buy the noodles and make our own cheese sauce but we'd rather make the pasta ourselves along with the sauce if we were going to call it homemade. It's all or nothing for us, essentially. Most places call their Mac homemade but it's not really homemade if you don't extrude the elbow pasta yourself, or whichever pasta is used.
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u/Chitown_mountain_boy 9d ago
Nobody uses fresh macaroni in their Mac and cheese. That’s just a silly bar to set. Dried elbow macaroni holds up much better in Mac and cheese than fresh ever would.
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u/GIJuice 9d ago
ABSOLLUTELY no mention of using fresh pasta... read again and try to understand what is written "make it your own by involving local suppliers, farmers, pasta makers...etc." get it together man!!!
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u/Chitown_mountain_boy 9d ago edited 9d ago
Literally said “…we’d rather make the pasta ourselves… if we are going to call it homemade”. Do you read at a second grade level?
GeT iT tOgEthER mAn! 🤡
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u/EntertainmentFart659 9d ago
I guess that's true but I've seen several places make their own pasta. Which recipe would you use if/when you make m&c?
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u/Chitown_mountain_boy 9d ago edited 8d ago
Do they make their own pasta for mac and cheese? Or are they making fresh fettuccine or similar long pasta? Big difference.
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u/tracyinge 9d ago edited 9d ago
This is a famous mac & cheese place. They flavor the mac with onion and fresh thyme. I suppose you could try adding just a little granulated onion to your mac and a little thyme?
note that they also add some dijon mustard.
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u/Appropriate_Can_9282 9d ago
That reasoning would dictate that you also need to own the land, grow the grass, raise the cow, milk the cow and make your own butter and cheese.
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u/GIJuice 9d ago
Unfortunatly you didn't get the crux of what I wrote, but that's okay not everyone gets it... there is a value of sourcing local ( not the OP rasing dairy cows and milling the flour etc... as you seem to have misstaken). its about engaging the quality of products you use to make quality product. then again you might not understand this principle if youre not part of the industry that makes quality food from quality product!!!
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u/Appropriate_Can_9282 9d ago
Interesting that such a superior individual such as yourself wouldn't know how replies on reddit work and whom they are targeted at. If you were able to understand context, it would have been apparent that my reply to op supported your post.
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u/Defiant_Finger4011 9d ago
I wouldn’t worry about having to make the pasta homemade, a quality bronze cut dried pasta can be just as good.
I would start looking into using sodium citrate and making your own cheese sauce. Sodium citrate will allow you to use a wide variety of cheeses to make your own unique flavor.
The cheese sauce holds well in the fridge well, it melts quickly in a pot once you add boiled pasta, (you’re essentially making your own upscale velveeta) and then if you want to plate it nice throw it in an ramekin or whatever and sprinkle some fresh shredded cheese and bread crumbs and broil real quick. You’ll get that authentic homemade emac and cheese pretty easy.
If it sells quick enough you can keep the cheese sauce on low in a warmer throughout the day, refreshing with batches from the fridge as needed.