Dr Mobeus
Macaroni Cheese
Macaroni cheese is the dish every budget cook should have in their back pocket. A 250g bag of value macaroni and a modest block of cheddar turn into four proper portions of bubbling, golden comfort for around £2.30, which is less than a single chilled ready meal from the supermarket.
The whole thing hinges on a homemade cheese sauce, which takes about ten minutes and costs a fraction of anything from a jar. A teaspoon of English mustard is the secret here – it sharpens the cheddar so you can use less cheese without losing any of the flavour.
At roughly 58p a portion this beats the shop version on price and taste, and the crispy breadcrumb top makes it feel like a proper dinner rather than a student standby.
Macaroni Cheese
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/Gas 6. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the macaroni for 2 minutes less than the packet says, then drain.
- Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat, stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute to make a smooth paste.
- Add the milk a splash at a time, stirring well after each addition until smooth, then pour in the rest and simmer for 3-4 minutes until you have a thick sauce.
- Take the sauce off the heat and stir in the cheese, mustard and plenty of black pepper until melted. Taste and add a little salt if needed.
- Stir the drained macaroni into the sauce, then tip everything into an ovenproof dish and scatter the breadcrumbs on top if using.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and bubbling. Leave to stand for 5 minutes before serving.
Tips and Variations
The mustard is doing real work – it lifts a cheap cheddar so 150g is enough. Undercook the pasta by two minutes so it finishes softening in the oven instead of going mushy. Stir through cooked bacon, leeks or sliced tomatoes before baking if you want to bulk it out, and any stale bread blitzed into breadcrumbs gives you the golden top for pennies. If you have no oven, simply serve it straight from the pan – it loses the crispy top but none of the flavour.
