This is a dish I make quite frequently, but tonight I made a few changes that turned out way better than I expected. Usually I begin to make the cheese sauce by making a roux. I add a tablespoon of butter, 1/4 cup of flour and stir it around for a minute, then I add 3 cups of skim milk and cook for 10 minutes until bubbly and thickened. But, I started to melt the butter in the pan and realized that with all the baking I have done recently, that I didn’t have any flour of any kind in my house. I thought of corn starch, but I didn’t have that either. As I was looking in my pantry, I saw potato flakes. Hmmmm… I wonder if that would work? So, I added 1/4 cup of potato flakes to the melted butter and it started to thicken up, I added the skim milk and it made a nice sauce. Then, for whatever reason I thought, “What if I put in a can of cream of celery soup to make it even creamier?” So that’s what I did! Next, I added salt, pepper, a few squirts of spicy brown mustard, and 4 oz. of cheddar cheese. In a separate pan I cooked 3 cups of uncooked elbow macaroni. I added the cooked macaroni to the sauce, added about 4 oz. of diced ham cubes and bake it at 350 for about 20 minutes.
This whole dish contains 1834 calories, 68 grams of fat and 4.5 fiber.If you eat 1/6th of this dish, you would be at 305 calories, 11 grams fat and .75 fiber. The most fat was from the cheese, but adding the cream of celery soup gave it a really creamy consistency and another layer of taste, but it wasn’t overpowering.
With some pineapple chunks, it was a very comforting homemade style dinner. I will definitely be making this version again. Click here for the two other mac and cheese recipes I have posted about macaroni and cheese.
So to recap here are the ingredients again:
3 oz. uncooked macaroni
1 tb. butter
1/4 cup flour (or potato flakes!)
3 cups skim milk
4 ounces cheddar cheese
a few squirts of spicy brown mustard
4 oz. ham cubes
salt and pepper
1 can of cream of celery soup
Mmmm totally love this comforting meal!
Growing up, my mom would let us pick our favorite meals and she’d cook them for us on our birthday. I always chose ribs and my brother always chose homemade mac n cheese. She made hers the same, with a roux beginning, adding ham, and finishing by baking! Looks very much like “comfort” to me… mmmm. I love love love your resourcefulness w/ the substituting!!! I’ll have to give the potato flakes a try in the future!!
I love mac’n’cheese! It is totally a childhood favorite and yours looks delicious!
Those are good methods to get a creamy consistency without too much extra fat. Thanks for those good ideas! Love that you give nutrient info!
Man, we must be on the same wavelength – the mac-n-cheese one. I just made mac-n-cheese this week, too. The cream of celery soup idea is very creative. I’ll have to try that the next time I need a dose of comfort in a casserole dish.
wow – so many fun components! potatoes and cream of celery! Fun stuff.
I love love love love mac’n cheese…