whether you are a person that cooks daily (like me) or a person that cooks once a week, i have found that pretty much every person has a go to dish that they love and are even confident enough to serve it to guests.  for me, that dish is a baked macaroni and cheese.

growing up in a household with parents and grandparents who cooked regularly, specifically, a grandmother with midwestern/southern roots, we were all about soul food.  when i was in fifth grade, i went to a friend’s house after school and mentioned i was hungry, she told me she could make us some mac and cheese “real quick”.  i was shook.  i had never seen mac and cheese take less than one hour start to finish.  this was the day i discovered that easy mac existed.  now, as a tipsy college student, easy mac definitely did the trick.  pushing 30, i now want something more substantial and would like to cook with ingredients that are actually easy to identify.  so over the years, i have tweaked the mac and cheese recipe my grammy and mom served to us as kids.

for me, meat is not a necessity to make something a meal.  i am happy having mac and cheese by itself or paired with a salad + some cornbread with honey butter. now, if i am cooking for guests, i normally pair this with both fried chicken and a baked bbq sriracha glazed chicken, something green (i lean towards steamed broccoli with garlic and lemon or a caesar salad with bacon and avocado) and the aforementioned cornbread.

while this is called mac and cheese, i actually use medium sized shells because i noticed they cup all of the cheesy goodness in a way the small elbow macaroni i grew up on could not.

*warning – i do not measure when i season – it is more of a feeling but i am happy to do this via instagram live if that is something you all are interested in at a later date

now, onto the ingredients/necessary cookware:

the recipe is fairly simple: