How to Make New Orleans Mac and Cheese

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Switch up the elbow macaroni for some bucatini pasta in this take on a beloved Southern comfort food! In this video, Chef John shares his take on how to make New Orleans mac and cheese, where he adds in the "holy trinity" of onions, bell peppers, and celery. The smoked paprika and cumin give the dish a rich, smoky taste packed into each bite.

Transcript

00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with New Orleans Mac and Cheese.

00:08That's right, I'm very excited to show you my version of this,

00:12which is not necessarily how they make it there, but rather how I think it should be made there.

00:17Since I'm going to add a few ingredients that, quite frankly, I'm shocked are not already being commonly used.

00:23And I think they make this even more special than it already is.

00:26And to get started, we will add some diced onions to a little bit of olive oil

00:30that we have in a pot set over medium-high heat.

00:33And after tossing in a nice big pinch of salt, we will cook those stirring for about two minutes,

00:39just to give them a head start, before we add our celery and our diced bell pepper.

00:44And in New Orleans, these three ingredients are referred to as the Holy Trinity,

00:48and they are the aromatic vegetable base for many of the city's most delicious recipes.

00:52And what we'll do is continue cooking our Holy Trinity stirring for another three or four minutes or so,

00:58or until our onions turn translucent and our pepper and celery just start to soften up.

01:04And when I heard there was a thing called New Orleans Mac and Cheese,

01:07I was 100% positive the Holy Trinity would be involved.

01:10But much to my shock and surprise, it was not.

01:14But I am so glad I included them here, since I thought they did wonderful things.

01:18But anyway, once we're happy with how our vegetables look, we will toss in a generous amount of butter,

01:24followed by some smoked paprika, some freshly ground black pepper, a little bit of garlic powder,

01:31as well as some ground cumin, and then finally the rest of our salt.

01:35And we'll go ahead and stir all that together and cook this for another minute or so,

01:39or until our butter is melted and the spices are fragrant.

01:42And that's it. Once we've cooked that stirring for a few minutes,

01:47we'll go ahead and toss in our flour,

01:49and we'll stir that in and cook that for about two minutes

01:52to form what's known as a roux, R-O-U-X.

01:56And once we've cooked the raw edge off that flour,

01:59and it's kind of toasting and sticking to the bottom of the pot,

02:02we'll go ahead and transfer in some cold heavy cream,

02:05followed by some whole milk.

02:06And once that's in there, we'll take a whisk,

02:09and we'll give that a thorough mixing,

02:11and we will keep mixing until all that roux dissolves in,

02:15and we can't feel anything still stuck to the bottom of the pan.

02:19And then what we'll do is wait for this to come back to a simmer,

02:22which is probably going to take a few minutes.

02:25And you'll see as your mixture starts to boil,

02:27it's going to thicken up,

02:29and if everything goes according to plan,

02:31it should look something like this.

02:33And once it does, we'll reduce our heat to medium-low,

02:37and we'll let this simmer for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

02:41And during that time, because we added that paprika,

02:44and some of my bell peppers were red,

02:46this cream sauce is going to take on a beautiful warmer color.

02:49And once it does, and this is simmered for about five minutes,

02:52we'll turn off the heat,

02:54and we'll whisk in whatever cheeses we're going to use,

02:57which for me is going to be half sharp cheddar and half Monterey Jack.

03:00Okay, apparently mozzarella is also a popular choice.

03:04But I'm sorry, I'm just not a big mozzarella fan in mac and cheese.

03:08All right, it's all stretched, no flavor.

03:10But anyway, use what you want.

03:13I mean, you are, after all, the dochi of how this should be.

03:16Oh, and by the way, we're only adding 75% of the cheese at this point,

03:20since we want to reserve 25% for the top.

03:23And that's it.

03:24As soon as that cheese melts in, our sauce is done,

03:27and we'll simply reserve that until our pasta is cooked.

03:31And while spaghetti is by far the most popular choice for New Orleans mac and cheese,

03:35I personally think Bucatini is a much better choice,

03:39and from what I hear, the original choice of the Italian immigrants,

03:42who inspired this amazing variation on an American classic.

03:46And since the pasta is hollow, it does an amazing job of soaking in the sauce.

03:50But no matter what you use, we're going to boil that in salted water

03:54until it's just barely cooked.

03:57All right, this package said cook at 9 to 11 minutes.

04:00So I set my timer for 8 1⁄2,

04:02and that's going to be just about perfect,

04:04considering we're going to bake this in the oven for about a half hour.

04:08And that's it.

04:08Once our pasta is cooked, we will drain that very well,

04:11and we'll go ahead and transfer that into a casserole dish.

04:14And then before it gets too sticky and hard to move,

04:17we'll grab our tongs,

04:19and we will quickly distribute that as evenly as possible.

04:22But we don't have to get it perfect yet,

04:25because we're going to do this again once our sauce has been poured over,

04:29which I'm going to do with a ladle,

04:31even though you could probably just pour everything over the top.

04:34But my theory is by ladling this,

04:36I'm going to get better distribution of that Holy Trinity,

04:39which may or may not make any difference.

04:42But I've always enjoyed a good ladling,

04:44so just dump it all on at once if you want.

04:47But this is how I did it.

04:49And once that was finally accomplished,

04:51I grabbed my tongs,

04:53and I gave that bucatini the old shake-a-shake-a

04:56to help settle that sauce down in.

04:59And we'll also try to make sure that pasta has been distributed

05:02as uniformly as possible.

05:04And then once we're finally done fussing around,

05:06we'll go ahead and sprinkle over the rest of our cheese.

05:09And then if you want,

05:11you could add the traditional breadcrumb topping to this,

05:13but I decided not to.

05:16All right, it didn't look like most versions used one.

05:18And since I had already made a couple other major changes,

05:21I did not want to temp fate.

05:23Although after the cheese was down,

05:25I did sprinkle the top with cayenne.

05:27So I guess this technically counts as a topping.

05:29But in any event,

05:32once we're done,

05:33this is now ready to transfer into the upper center

05:35of a 425-degree oven

05:38for about 30 minutes or so,

05:40or until our top is golden brown

05:42and our sauce is bubbling around the edge.

05:45And yes,

05:46this does look amazing.

05:47And you really want to start eating right now.

05:50But do yourself and everybody else a favor

05:52and hang tight for about 10 minutes

05:54so this has a chance to set up texturally

05:56and cool down just a touch.

05:59And while I waited,

06:00I garnished with some chives

06:01since I had some in the garden.

06:03And after letting this cool for about 10 minutes,

06:06I grabbed a spatula and cut out a piece.

06:09And I went ahead and served that up.

06:11And that, my friends,

06:12was every bit as good as it looks.

06:14And every bit as delicious as you would think.

06:17All right, forget about my controversial inclusion

06:19of the Holy Trinity

06:20in those Cajun spices,

06:23or as they're called in Cajun country,

06:25spices.

06:26All right, even without those additions,

06:28this is a beautifully creamy,

06:30just decadent enough world-class mac and cheese

06:33and you might not think that using a long noodle

06:35like spaghetti or bucatini

06:37would make that big of a difference

06:39compared to like an elbow macaroni,

06:41but it really, really does.

06:43So to summarize,

06:44I absolutely loved how this came out.

06:47And I think that Holy Trinity

06:48vegetable component we added,

06:50along with that little touch of spice,

06:52really did elevate things.

06:54And I'll just say this one more time.

06:56I'm really not sure

06:57why it's not already being added.

06:59And if you know the reason,

07:00maybe leave it in the comments.

07:02But anyway,

07:03if you're looking for a new

07:04and I think very exciting addition

07:06to your mac and cheese recipe rotation,

07:09I really do hope you give this a try soon.

07:12So please follow the links below

07:14for the ingredient amounts,

07:16a printable written recipe,

07:17and much more info as usual.

07:19And as always,

07:22enjoy.

07:23Love you.

07:34Love you.

07:38Love you.

07:48Love you.

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