- 6 weeks ago
Ever wondered which celebrity makes the best mac and cheese? In this video, Nicole cooks and reviews five star-studded recipes—from Patti LaBelle’s ultra-rich four-cheese classic to Dolly Parton’s down-home version straight from her family cookbook. Along the way, she ranks each recipe out of ten, breaking down flavor, creaminess, and whether these comfort food favorites actually live up to the hype.
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00:00I'm putting five celebrity macaroni and cheese recipes to the test to see which one is the best.
00:05This might be the perfect time to find the perfect recipe, and I feel like trying something new.
00:09So we've got five female celebrities, and we're going to see which mac and cheese queen reigns
00:14supreme, starting out with a soulful stage legend, Patti LaBelle. Recipe calls for four cheeses.
00:21It calls for Monterey Jack, Munster cheese, sharp cheddar, and mild cheddar, but it's only like a
00:28half a cup of each. I just feel like you don't want to have to buy another block just for half a cup
00:33of cheese, so we're just going to do a sharp cheddar. I'm going to give each mac and cheese
00:37its own score, but then we're going to have an overall winner at the end, so you're going to
00:41have to stick around to find out. All right, recipe calls for one pound of macaroni to be cooked eight
00:47minutes in the salted boiling water. My gut tells me that's going to be a little bit long because we
00:53are going to bake it again. I'll go like seven to eight. I'm going to be getting lots of good facials
00:58today. Add your pasta to a big bowl. Seven and a half to eight minutes seems perfect because it is
01:05al dente. I did not rinse it with cold water per the instructions, but now we pour over a stick of
01:12butter, and we're going to stir it to coat. I've never made my mac and cheese like this. We add in two
01:18cups of half and half, and this will cool off our noodles so when we add our eggs they don't
01:24scramble, which brings up a situation. Eggs in your mac and cheese, yes or no? To me it was always a no.
01:33My mother-in-law is a big egg in her mac and cheese. The person in her mac and cheese is delicious,
01:39although sometimes you get bits of scrambled egg in there, and I don't always know how I feel about
01:45that. We're going to add half of our shredded cheese blend. Now we add in the Velveeta, a cup.
01:52There's just no real replacement for Velveeta sometimes. You know, there's a time and a place,
01:56and this just is that. This is what's going to make it the creamiest, and no one's going to care
02:00that it's processed when it's in this delicious mac and cheese. So this is going to be slightly more
02:04than a cup, but if you like to think of eight ounces as a cup, then we're good. All right, and then two
02:11eggs. It's only two for this much mac, so I don't suspect there to be a lot of scrambled egg going
02:16on. Seasoning is just salt and pepper and Old Faithful. Actually, there is no salt. It's just
02:24seasoned salt and black pepper, and it only says a quarter teaspoon. I know Patty is using more than
02:30a quarter teaspoon. And then some pepper, says an eighth of a teaspoon. That's like that much,
02:34not enough. All right, and that is the mac and cheese. Will it come together? We shall see. We
02:41pour in a baking dish now, and if this does turn out so beautifully, then why am I over here wasting
02:46my time with the cheese sauce? All right, and then the rest of our cheese. At this point, it's only a
02:51cup. My heart says add another cup. 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Bubbly, buttery, cheesy. I'm
03:00noticing several noodles without cheese on it, and that concerns me just a little bit, but I think
03:06if I dig in and kind of stir it around, hopefully there's enough on the inside. See the little bits
03:13of Velveeta that are kind of like spilling over and melting? You can see the little like bits of
03:19egginess, but I don't think it's too much. Mm, the flavor. Spot on, thanks to the seasoned salt.
03:29Kind of just gives it like a savory, rich note to it. That, I guess, combined with the stick of
03:35butter that's in there, but it is really good. I didn't think it was going to be cheesy enough,
03:40but it is, and I think I'm just getting like just the right hit of Velveeta mixing with those other
03:45cheeses because it does kind of tie it together. It's a great baked mac and cheese, and for the ease
03:51factor of not having to make a cheese sauce, love that, but I think that seasoned salt hits you in just
03:57the right like MSG way that keeps you coming back for more patty. I mean, it's a solid eight. We're
04:04going from southern soul to some country cooking with Dolly Parton's mac and cheese. This is a good
04:10time to break out your food processor with the shredder attachment. It's definitely the fastest
04:16way to do it. Dolly Parton wrote a cookbook with her sister, and so I do believe these are really
04:20their recipes. Cheese shredded. Now we got to cook our macaroni. The ratio here is going to be quite
04:27nice. It's definitely, I feel like it's going to be like a 50-50 cheese to macaroni. Now these
04:32instructions specifically state to cook the macaroni two to three minutes less than what it says on the
04:38box, so I'm going to go six minutes here. Drain the pasta and then just return it to the pot per the
04:43instructions and toss it with a little olive oil. So in goes the milk. Cool down that pasta a little
04:50bit, and then a half a cup of sour cream, which I love this ingredient in here. Sour cream in here,
04:56besides adding some extra creaminess, it just kind of gives a little bit of a tang to it, kind of
05:01balances out the richness from the cheese and butter. I feel like Dolly is really doing it right.
05:06All right, and then two eggs again. This calls for an eight ounce block of Elvito, which is half of this.
05:13So Dolly is not skimpin' on the cheese. I wonder if it's going to be too cheesy. Like that's a thing.
05:19She says you just got to add a little Velveeta for some extra creaminess, because my southern accent
05:24isn't southern enough. All right, this one gets a teaspoon of mustard powder, which is classic if
05:31you are making a cheese sauce. Like if you do the bechamel cream sauce and you're turning it into a
05:37cheese sauce, it's a good thing. It's just going to add a little bite to it. All right, I just noticed my
05:41first little red flag is there is no like salt, pepper. Good thing I salted the macaroni. Last
05:47ingredient, two tablespoons of melted butter. She only saves a half a cup of cheese for the
05:52topping. That's for sure not enough. And the rest goes in. Heck, it might even be more cheese,
05:58the macaroni. All right, this goes into a nine by 13 buttered baking dish. Creaminess factor is on
06:05point. All right, then we put the rest of our cheese on top. I saved like about a cup. This
06:11bakes at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, and then it says to let it rest for about 15 before serving,
06:17if we can wait that long. Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen.
06:21This is a pan of mac and cheese. The creaminess factor, I mean, it's a 10 out of 10. I haven't even
06:33dug in yet. The difference between this one and patties right off the bat is like all these macaroni
06:39noodles are covered in cheese. Working nine to five. I hope this is as good as I think it's going to be.
06:44That's some creamy mac. You can actually see a little more egg because there's less pasta.
06:54Sour cream changes this from the other one. There's less like buttery savoriness than patties,
07:00but you'd only get that tang from that sour cream. There is enough saltiness, despite the fact that we
07:05didn't go in and add salt. There is definitely more cheese than macaroni going on in here,
07:09and I'm not mad about that. The ease factor is still amazing. I really love this method of making
07:16mac and cheese. Slightly a little, I didn't think you could really say too much cheese. It's not that
07:21it's too much cheese. It's just that it's not quite enough pasta for the cheese. These two legends on
07:26stage are legends with their mac and cheese regardless. I'll give this, I mean, it's really
07:32basically a tie, but I'll just go 7.999. Going a little untraditional with the next one,
07:37Giada's mac and cheese. I've seen her do this with multiple pasta shapes in multiple baking dishes
07:43and et cetera. However, the cream sauce is the same. So she uses fontina cheese as well as mozzarella
07:51cheese. So this is your kind of twist on the classic cheddar mac and cheese. For the pasta, now she
07:59and her like original mac and cheese recipe uses an egg noodle, but then she also sometimes adds ham,
08:03which she says is optional. So to me, that's a, that's a whole other dinner. I'm trying to keep it
08:08consistent with mac and cheese. And so I've seen her use all different kinds of shapes of pasta. So I found
08:14a unique cut called shell bows. It's a cross between a macaroni and a shell. So it has that hole that's going to
08:22hold like so much sauce in each bite. Fontina is a super creamy cheese. I mean, it's going to like do the same
08:30magic that the Velveeta does. It calls for two packed cups of fontina and then it's just three quarter cup
08:36of mozzarella. So it's going to be a little less than half a pack. And then she also adds Parmesan
08:42cheese in there. So these two are going to be for the creaminess. And then the Parmesan cheese is going
08:46to like add a little bit of a salty bite to it. Okay. So this is so interesting how she makes her cheese
08:51sauce. She puts everything in a bowl and then we'll add the pasta when it's cooked. It's two and a half
08:56cups of milk and two cups of heavy cream. And then we're going to whisk the flour right into this
09:01mixture while it's cold. This is going to achieve the same goal as a roux does. But when you make it
09:06as a roux with butter, you have to cook the flour down. The only other way to get the flour to dissolve
09:10is to do it into cold liquid. And then when it heats up later, when we go to bake it, it will activate
09:16its thickening power. So she just puts two tablespoons and then it's a half a teaspoon of salt and some
09:22pepper. I'm going to whisk that together until that flour is dissolved. This is interesting,
09:27Giada. Now we add in our cheeses, about half of the fontina, and then a half a cup of the mozzarella
09:33and half a cup of grated Parmesan. I sure hope this works. I mean, it has high ratings and surely she
09:40knows what she's talking about. All right, that's it. And then we'll just stir in the pasta,
09:45throw it in the baking dish. It's going to be 12 ounces of pasta. Now we're going to cook this
09:50until it's al dente, of course. I just feel like it's a lot of liquid for this amount of pasta.
09:55Trust the process, Nicole. Trust the process. I just don't want this to mess up. But I swear
10:01her mixture looks thicker than this. There's no way this is going to work. There's no way.
10:07I feel like I need to watch the video. Hers is pretty liquidy. It's not as liquidy as mine.
10:14I feel like I have to take a little bit out. Maybe egg noodles have a little more volume,
10:18so maybe it would be a little less liquidy. I'm taking out a cup of liquid. Okay, then the rest
10:24of the cheese. A little more parm. Don't let me down, Giada. You never have. I don't think today's
10:31going to be the day. 450 degrees for about 20 minutes. Guys, it worked. Look at that brown and
10:39bubbly cheese. Yes, please. It smells good. I mean, this is not your southern mac and cheese. But look,
10:46I thought it would be a liquidy mess. I don't know about if I had another cup of liquid in there,
10:51though. I am going to let it sit for about 10 minutes to come together. But the way this smells,
10:56I mean, you can smell the parmesan cheese, that fontina. It's, you know, it's a whole different
11:01experience. Maybe this is the special holiday mac and cheese. Maybe this is the one you do
11:05for Christmas or New Year's. It's giving Alfredo right now. And I think when we see the macaroni
11:11noodles, then we'll know. Giada, I never doubted you. I mean, never. Not even for a minute.
11:16The cream has settled because now you can see kind of like the texture in here. Will it be soup
11:21or will it be mac and cheese? What did I do wrong, people? I mean, the only thing I could do is let it
11:29sit longer, but I don't think it's going to change that much. Let's just ignore what's going on in the
11:33bottom of the pan right now. What happens on the top is glorious. There's some good cheese pulls.
11:40Mmm. The fontina offers like a sweet nuttiness. The parmesan gives it that, you know, sharp kind
11:45of salty bite. Mozzarella is just, you know, lends to the creamy texture. Good choice of noodle.
11:51It is thickening even as I just sit here. You can see like the sauce right here and then get it into
11:56that, what did I call these things? Shellbows. The shellbow pasta. Texture of the pasta is cooked
12:03perfectly. I just need to fix what's going on at the bottom. I predict with almost 100% certainty,
12:10if you just cut the milk down to one cup and leave everything else the same, this is going to work
12:15beautifully. And I challenge you to try that. Seven out of 10. But don't think I'm not about to pour
12:21off this liquid and serve this to my family for dinner. Because I am. You know, good and well,
12:26I can't do a celebrity mac and cheese episode without including another chef turned celebrity,
12:32Ina, the Barefoot Contessa. This is one of her many mac and cheese recipes, but I think this is the
12:38original. And it starts with Gruyere cheese. Lots of it. So we have two blocks of Gruyere and one block
12:47of sharp white cheddar. Her mac and cheese is white in color. So this one standing next to Giada's
12:54would be the ones you might choose for your fancy holiday dinner. This is the classic method with an
13:02elevated flavor twist. Now one thing about Ina Garten is she's not going to take any shortcuts.
13:09So we have a little more going on here. But is it worth it? Probably. I'll let you know at the end,
13:15but I can almost guarantee this one's going to be a solid winner. Starting out with getting the pasta
13:21going. Pound of elbows. I'm using the regate ones, the ones that have a ridge, because it's just like
13:28slightly fancier. And it just kind of holds the sauce a little better. She also suggests you could
13:34use cavatappi, which are the spiral noodles, but we're keeping all these macaroni elbow of some sort.
13:40In this pot, I'm going to heat up my milk. You could also do that in the microwave. When you're making
13:45a cream sauce, a classic bechamel, you don't want to pour just cold milk into it. So you want to just
13:51kind of get it heated. You don't want it to boil or anything. And then this is the pot where we will
13:56actually make it all. So we're going to start by making a roux, which is butter and flour cooked
14:01together. So I'm just going to cook this for about two minutes. That's going to cook some of that starchy
14:05taste out of the flour. This is like back to basics. You can take this technique and apply it to
14:10other mac and cheese recipes. After that's been cooking, we're going to take our slightly warmed
14:15milk and you're going to whisk this in gradually. Just keep whisking until all that flour is
14:21incorporated. You could tell there's no, you know, chunks in it. This is the way I make mac and cheese
14:26nine times out of 10. However, those first couple recipes, I really love the technique of not having
14:31to do this every time and still getting a creamy texture. So it's all incorporated. And now we're going
14:37to bring it to a simmer. You'll see the thickening power of that roux. Once it's come to that boil,
14:42you'll see how thick it's going to be. You can't judge the thickness right now until it gets to that
14:46simmering point. So we're just going to let it do its thing. All right, it only takes a few minutes and you
14:51can see how thick this is. And you know it's right when you can run your finger through the back of the
15:00spoon and it sticks. It's not running back together. That's a thick, beautiful white sauce. Now let's make it a
15:07cheese sauce. At this point, I'm going to turn off the heat and add in the cheeses. We're going in with
15:12all the cheese at this point. I don't need to save any for the top. That's a cheesy sauce. And we're
15:18going to season it up. She says a tablespoon of salt. That feels like a lot. I'm just going to do like
15:23two teaspoons first. Half a teaspoon of pepper and some nutmeg. Nutmeg is also classic in a bechamel
15:30sauce. A little bit goes a long way. However, she uses a lot a bit. Half a teaspoon. This is company
15:37worthy. You can already tell. Drain these noodles. While it is a lot of cheese, it's also a lot of
15:43macaroni. To me, this is the proper proportion. I feel like one had too much pasta, not enough cheese.
15:50One had a little too much cheese, not enough pasta. One had too much liquid to everything else. And this
15:57feels like the proper ratio of cheese, milk, and pasta. All right, into our baking dish. She would never put
16:06her name on something that doesn't work, though, y'all. You could stop here, but Ina would never.
16:11We're going to make a topping. Topping is breadcrumbs and butter. I'll do it as she says. Fresh breadcrumbs.
16:16Now, I just happen to have some day-old French bread. So I'm going to pulse these to make breadcrumbs.
16:22If you are using some from the pantry, I would suggest the panko because they're just going to be
16:25a little crunchier. They're a little bit of a larger grind and a little closer to homemade or what's more
16:32desirable on these kind of casseroles to be in the oven by now if we use ones from the pantry. Okay, so
16:38something else she puts on top of this, but I'm not going to, is fresh tomato. Just like I didn't put the ham
16:44in giottas. I'm not going to put tomatoes on here. Keeping it strictly as mac and cheese. Give it a toss and
16:52then right on top. Now, this is all still pretty warm, so it's not going to take that long in the oven. All right,
16:58then this bakes at 375 for about 30 minutes. Golden brown and delicious. However, like all the others,
17:05I'm going to let it sit and quit bubbling before I take a bite. Creamy, smells delicious. It does have
17:12that nutty smell from the Gruyere. My son might turn his nose up to this because he'd rather it just be
17:18plain cheese. That's what he would say. Can it just be plain cheese? Mm-hmm. I feel like the Gruyere is
17:24an acquired taste a little bit, so if you want a milder version, I would probably sub that out,
17:29but the seasoning, it doesn't need salt. It doesn't need pepper. You taste that nutmeg also, which is
17:34a pronounced flavor, so this one you could easily dial back if you have pickier eaters, but if you're
17:39looking for like grown-up mac and cheese, this is that. The little breadcrumb topping, that is a must-do.
17:48This is the one you serve company. The fact that I don't know if my kid will eat it makes me want to
17:56just take off a slight little point, but Ina, nine out of ten. One more celebrity to go,
18:06Trisha Yearwood. This is celebrity turned chef because she even like had her own cooking show.
18:12Country music star turned chef. This is your most straightforward mac and cheese. This is the
18:21classic. This is how you learn to make mac and cheese. It's like the all-American way. I feel
18:27like I know exactly what I'm going to get. However, now we have so much competition because we've gotten,
18:32we've super creamy. We've had those like hints of elevated flavor. This one needs to feel like a warm
18:40hug at the end. Starting out with the roux again, we're going like half a stick of butter and a
18:45quarter cup of flour. Cook our butter and flour a couple minutes and then end with two cups of milk.
18:50See, Ina didn't want to break the rules. That's why we had to heat the milk for hers. That is the
18:55like right way to do it, but we're just going to go straight in with this one. I'm going to show you
18:59it still does work. You just have to add it gradually. You just don't want that milk to like make
19:04that flour seize up. After your first cup is in, then you're good. Also in goes a teaspoon of salt
19:11and then you'll see it thicken once it comes to that simmer. Meanwhile, we'll get the macaroni
19:16cooking. She only says to put two teaspoons of salt in this water. This is where I just have to go
19:23ahead and do it the right way. We're not going to waste a whole pan of macaroni and cheese because
19:26we didn't salt it. She calls for macaroni with ridges. It's just going to hold the sauce a little
19:31better. She does say to cook it for 12 minutes. Even the package says seven to eight. We're going
19:38to go about six, 12. It would be complete mush. Okay. Look how thick and creamy. That's it. Now we
19:46stir in the cheese, stir that just until it melts. And then the noodles will go straight in here.
19:52That's your basic cheese sauce right there. Pour all this in here. If you want to make your kids happy,
19:57you can stop right now and serve this straight from the pot to the plate. But like all good Southern
20:04Max, it's going into a baking dish. See, I really like the texture of it right now because it's nice
20:11and creamy. Too much time in the oven, it's going to dry out. So fortunately, the recipe only says to
20:17bake it for 15 minutes because ideally you're going in straight right now while it's still piping hot
20:23and you're just going to get that topping toasted. Unlike Ina, it just calls for breadcrumbs. We don't
20:30care if they're homemade or store-bought. Store-bought's just fine. And this has a nice butter to breadcrumb
20:35ratio. That's going to add flavor too. All right. So it's all hot. We're just going to try to toast
20:40that top a little bit. So it goes in 350 for just 15 minutes. Looks good. What I wish was happening
20:47was bubbly cheese. This might've been a time where we probably could have cut back the pasta a little
20:53bit or added a little more creaminess or just gone straight from the stove and skip the breadcrumbs.
20:59Hot and steamy, a little bit creamy. I probably would have just added a little more cheese,
21:04maybe a little more cream.
21:10This is the definition of comfort food. The macaroni is cooked perfectly. The flavor is just
21:15kind of mild and delicate. It's not that it's really bland, but I just feel like it could add
21:20just a little bit of like a punch of flavor. But Tricia, I think you know a thing or two about
21:26Southern cooking. Maybe not quite as much as Patty and Dolly though. You know. The lack of flavor is
21:36just going to deduct some points. 6.9.
21:42My personal opinion at the end of the day, whether you're team Ina, team Dolly or somewhere in between,
21:47the best mac and cheese is going to be the one that comes out of your kitchen.
21:50Okay. I really want you to see because I'm not the only one that's eaten all five of these mac
21:54and cheeses. The whole crew has two. And I want you to see like which one is their favorite. That way
21:59you don't just have my opinion. Camera man. Dolly. Dolly is your favorite? Okay. Payton.
22:06It's between Dolly and Giada. Ooh. Okay. Giada all the way.
22:12Ooh. Cause you liked that soupy mac. I love a soupy mac.
22:16Director extraordinaire. What's your favorite? Giada. See? It's all about flavor. It's all about flavor.
22:24They could care less about technique. I was just trying to be, you know, professional here. So
22:29while she may not have scored the highest, seems like Giada is the winner.
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