Mac 'n Cheese with Cauliflower, Leek and Bacon
A dinner you will love just as much as the kids will
This is a combination of mac ‘n cheese and cauliflower cheese, with a bit of a twist. It’s a great way to get some veggies into a mac ‘n cheese and I think makes the dish a whole lot more interesting. It’s a firm family favourite.
You can mix this recipe up in all sorts of ways. Leave any elements out you don’t like or don’t have. Or even add in others to make your own version. Essentially it’s a cheesy pasta bake. I’ve added broccoli in the past – it’s quite good if you steam or boil it and then blitz some into the sauce – it turns the sauce green and you get veggies in without it being obvious. You can also add some wilted spinach to the sauce and blitz in the same way.
I’ve added bacon here which is delicious. But you can omit it for a vegetarian version. Or put less in – even just a couple of rashers of bacon will give this dish the hit of umami only meat can really provide. In terms of which bacon to use – whatever you have in the fridge. Smoked or unsmoked, lardons, pancetta, streaky or back. Anything will work just fine.
Don’t scrimp on the cheese. If you don’t put enough in or don’t use a good strong cheddar, it will be pretty bland and tasteless.
It doesn’t freeze brilliantly. Of course, I do freeze it and eat it later because I hate waste but it’s a lot drier and not as sumptuous as when it first comes out of the oven, with it’s oozing, sizzling sauce. But it will fill a hole!
As with most pasta dishes, you can serve this with a green salad if that’s what you like or with some garlic bread or focaccia if you want a carb fest. Most of the time, I serve this on it’s own though.
Serves 4, generously
INGREDIENTS
2 tbsp cold pressed rapeseed oil or olive oil
2 large leeks, cleaned and sliced quite thinly
240g unsmoked back bacon, chopped into pieces about 1-2cm square
1 large or 2 small cauliflowers, broken into florets
350g macaroni pasta (or any pasta shape you have)
50g butter
4tbsp plain flour
1 litre whole milk
300g mature cheddar cheese, grated
½ tsp Dijon mustard
100g fresh breadcrumbs (optional)
50g grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
METHOD
Pre-heat oven to 180C
1. Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions. If you have a very large pan, do it in this and then add the cauliflower florets for the last 5 minutes. Or boil/steam the cauliflower in a sperate pan. Once cooked (see note below), drain.
a. Note on cauliflower: It’s hard to say how long to cook it because the time depends entirely on the size of the florets. When it is raw, you need to use quite a lot of force to push a dinner knife into cauliflower. You don’t want to boil it until it’s completely soft and easy to push a knife into – or it will be complete mush by the time you get it out of the oven. You want to cook it until the dinner knife will go into the florets but there is still some ‘bite’ in the centre. It needs to be slightly under-cooked at this stage.
2. Heat the oil in a large sauté or frying pan. Fry the bacon on a medium to high heat for around 2-3 minutes until it is cooked and there is some colour on the fatty parts. Keep stirring it around so that it doesn’t stick and burn.
3. Add the leeks to the pan with the bacon and stir to coat in the oil and bacon. Turn the heat down to soften the leeks (on my cooker which goes from 1-9, I turn them to around number 4). Stir them occasionally. This will take about 10-15 minutes. You want to get them to the point they are all wilted and soft.
4. To make the cheese sauce, melt the butter in a medium saucepan and then add the flour 1 tablespoon at a time. Keep the heat low to medium. Use a wooden spoon to combine the melted butter and flour until all the butter has turned into a paste and the paste is quite thick – it should look quite dry. Keep it moving so it doesn’t stick to the pan. Stir it around for a minute (this cooks off the flour so the sauce doesn’t taste floury).
5. Then slowly start to add the milk, 1 ladle at a time. After each ladle of milk, stir well to fully combine. Make sure there are no lumps before adding the next ladle of milk. Keep going like this until you have a smooth sauce the consistency of double cream. You need to keep stirring or it will stick to the pan. If at any point it gets a bit lumpy (usually because you walked away for a moment!), use a whisk to get the lumps out.
6. Simmer the sauce gently for 10 minutes, stirring regularly. It will thicken during this time. I guess you want it the thickness of a good custard!
7. Add ¾ of the grated cheddar cheese and stir until it’s meted into the sauce. Add the mustard. Taste and then season with salt and pepper (cheese can be quite salty so you might not need much and remember the bacon is also salty).
8. Tip the pasta, cauliflower florets and bacon and leek mixture into a large oven proof dish and then pour almost all of cheese sauce over the top. Mix it all together then pour over the last bit of cheese sauce across the top. Sprinkle over the breadcrumbs and the rest of the grated cheese (cheddar and all the parmesan).
9. Put in the oven for 45 minutes until golden on top and bubbling.