Creamy Vegetable Macaroni and Cheese

More About This Recipe

• When making macaroni and cheese in a casserole dish, you’ll want to take care with how long you boil your noodles. Since baked mac and cheese dishes call for you to essentially cook your noodles twice, a common mistake is to boil them too long on the stove, leaving you with a mushy mess when the dish comes out of the oven. In recipes like this Creamy Vegetable Macaroni and Cheese that call for a significant amount of time in the oven, you’ll want to boil your noodles to just before “al dente.” Al dente directly translates to “to the tooth,” and basically means that the pasta is cooked, but is still firm. By cooking your macaroni for about five minutes, or before it reaches al dente on the stove, you’ll ensure that your baked mac doesn’t come out all mushy—the noodles will absorb more liquid when baked in the sauce! Now that you know the tips to cooking the best macaroni noodles, make macaroni and cheese all of the time with these simple recipes.