I tried baked mac-and-cheese recipes by Ina Garten, Ree Drummond, and Martha Stewart. The winner had an unexpected ingredient.

As summer transitions into fall, nothing says cozy weather quite like a gooey, baked mac and cheese.

Celebrity chefs Ina Garten, Martha Stewart, and Ree Drummond all have their own recipes for baked mac and cheese, so I decided to put them to the test.

Stewart’s recipe kept things classic with four kinds of cheese and sautéed yellow onion, while Garten’s instructions called for tomato. I thought Drummond’s was the most fall-appropriate with the addition of roasted butternut squash and caramelized onions.

All of the recipes cost under $50 to make and include many pantry staples you probably already have. 

Here’s how to make each celebrity-chef-approved baked mac-and-cheese recipe.

Up first was Martha Stewart’s creamy mac and cheese.

Stewart’s recipe calls for four different kinds of cheese and adds sautéed onion to the dish.

You can find the full recipe here.

I started by melting a few tablespoons of unsalted butter in a pot on the stove.

I chose a midsize pot to make the cheese sauce. 

After the butter had fully melted, I added the yellow onion to the pot and gave it a stir. The smell of butter and onions filled my kitchen.

The recipe calls for a quarter-cup of diced yellow onion and says to sauté the onions until they become translucent, which should take about five minutes. 

While the onions were cooking, I set about the somewhat grueling task of grating all the cheeses.

It took quite a bit of effort to hand-grate the cheeses. It was also difficult to measure out each cheese exactly, so I ended up estimating somewhat.

However, in the end, I had the right amount of each cheese to make the sauce, plus some cheese left over to sprinkle on the mac and cheese before putting it in the oven. 

Next, I cooked the macaroni noodles.

The noodles took about five minutes to cook, as they’re supposed to be slightly undercooked before going in the oven. 

After the onions had reached the point of being translucent, I added in the flour.

It quickly thickened the onion-and-butter mixture. Per the recipe’s instructions, I stirred the onions, flour, and butter together and left it for a few seconds until the mixture began to bubble in the pot.

I then added 3 cups of whole milk. The mixture was now starting to resemble a cheese sauce.

After a few minutes, the mixture had begun to thicken. 

To finish off the cheese sauce, I added in the four kinds of cheese — fontina, Gruyere, cheddar, and Parmigiano Reggiano — as well as the seasonings. After stirring the cheese sauce until all the ingredients were completely melted and combined, it was time to add it to the macaroni.

By the time I poured the noodles into the larger pot and added the cheese sauce, I had been prepping and cooking for about an hour.

However, the steps were easy to follow and I was able to sit down once the mac and cheese was ready to be put in the oven.

You can make the mac and cheese in individual pans or in a larger 1 1/2-quart baking dish.

After scooping my macaroni and cheese out of the pot and into the dish, I realized I had a lot left over. I could have easily filled another 3/4-ounce dish. 

I then topped my macaroni-and-cheese mixture with breadcrumbs.

You can use homemade breadcrumbs, or you can use store-bought in a pinch. I didn’t have a food processor available to make mine homemade, but I found the store-bought kind didn’t negatively affect my end result, and I was happy to cut out a step and save myself some dishes.

After half an hour in the oven, my macaroni and cheese was done, and it was delicious.

The top layer of macaroni and cheese had a delicious, lightly browned crust, while underneath the macaroni and cheese was still perfectly creamy. It was enough to feed about four people, though I could have fed more if I had more dishes to bake the rest of the leftover macaroni.

Ultimately, this dish by Martha Stewart was really flavorful, with a slightly smoky taste.

Ina Garten’s recipe for baked mac and cheese calls for fewer ingredients.

The recipe only uses two types of cheese — extra-sharp cheddar and Gruyere — making this recipe a little less time-consuming and expensive to make. Perhaps to make up for less cheese, the recipe uses more butter and milk than Stewart’s version.

You can find the full recipe here.

The recipe calls for a whopping 8 tablespoons of unsalted butter.

Two tablespoons are reserved for the end, so you start off by melting 6 tablespoons in a pot on the stove. It’s important to melt it at a low heat — you don’t want the butter to burn or boil.

While the butter was melting, I started boiling the pasta. The recipe calls for a pound of macaroni or cavatappi pasta. The celebrity chef also recommends adding oil to the pot of boiling water, which prevents the pasta from sticking to the bottom.

While this recipe does call for fewer ingredients, it does require an extra pot.

After the butter had melted, I added a half-cup of all-purpose flour. The key is to whisk the mixture together until it does not clump.

Meanwhile, in a separate pot, I began heating up a quart of milk.

I then added the hot milk into the flour-and-butter mixture.

The next step was whisking it together until the ingredients were fully combined.

While the mixture was off the heat, I started grating my extra-sharp white cheddar cheese. The recipe calls for 8 ounces, which ended up being the entire package. It took a while to grate, so I was thankful that I had bought pre-grated Gruyere cheese.

After adding in the two kinds of cheese, my sauce was beginning to thicken.

I seasoned the pot of cheese sauce with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Ina Garten recommends boiling the noodles fully before putting them in the oven, rather than leaving them slightly al dente. After my noodles were cooked, I poured the cheese sauce over them and mixed it all together with a wooden spoon.

The cheese sauce in the Garten recipe was slightly thicker and had a distinct “cheese pull.”

I scooped the mixture into a baking dish and waited for the oven to finish pre-heating to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Garten recommends topping the mac and cheese with breadcrumbs and tomato slices before putting it in the oven.

I made one side of my dish with tomatoes and one without so I could see which one I preferred. I topped both sides with store-bought breadcrumbs.

After about half an hour, the mac and cheese was bubbling and browned on the top.

The dish smelled heavenly, but I thought it could have been a little cheesier.

The tomatoes were slightly roasted and added a tart flavor to the dish and a unique texture, taking this mac and cheese to the next level. 

I thought this recipe was also much easier to make than Stewart’s. With the Stewart version, I had to prep onions and grate four kinds of cheese — for not that much more flavor in the end.

Ree Drummond’s recipe for butternut-squash mac and cheese takes less than an hour to make.

I started by prepping my butternut squash. Instead of pre-cut cubes, which I usually buy, Drummond’s recipe calls for a whole butternut squash cut in half.

I found it surprisingly easy to cut the squash in half. Since you only need one half, I set the other half aside for another day after cutting it.

You can find the full recipe here.

After cutting the squash in half, I removed the seeds with a spoon.

This only took a minute, but it required vigorous scraping to remove all the seeds and guts from the butternut squash.

After preheating my oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, I placed the prepped squash on a baking sheet and drizzled it with olive oil.

I then cooked it in the oven until it was fork-tender and slightly browned, according to Drummond’s instructions. This took about 30 minutes. 

While the squash was roasting, I started cooking the onions.

The recipe calls for two sliced yellow onions. I added them to a large, oven-safe skillet with 2 tablespoons of butter. I cooked the onions, stirring them occasionally until they were a deep golden brown.

This was easy enough to do, and I loved how the rich onion scent filled my kitchen — even my roommates commented on how good everything smelled. After the onions were done, I set them aside on a plate.

I used a fork to scrape out the insides of the squash, which was easy because it was so soft.

After transferring the scraped-out butternut squash into a medium-sized bowl, I mashed it lightly with a fork. I found that the squash was already so tender, it didn’t require much mashing to reach the desired consistency. 

After the squash was done and set aside, I prepared the sauce in the same skillet I used to cook the onions.

To get started, I added 4 tablespoons of butter to the skillet and melted it over medium-high heat.

The sauce also calls for 2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese. I used medium-sharp cheddar, but you can use whichever cheddar cheese you prefer. 

 

Once the butter was melted, I added the flour, cheddar cheese, and butternut squash.

I added the milk in bit by bit, folding the sauce together to evenly distribute all the ingredients.

Once the sauce was done, I added the cooked macaroni and onions and stirred it together.

I used my wooden spoon to fold the macaroni into the sauce, making sure it was well-mixed.

It took a little bit of effort to mix the onions evenly throughout the skillet — I found that they wanted to clump together in spots. However, I was able to distribute them throughout after a minute or two of folding and mixing. 

I then prepped the breadcrumbs, which were supposed to be sprinkled over the top of my mac and cheese.

After melting 2 tablespoons of butter in a bowl in the microwave, I added in half a cup of seasoned Panko breadcrumbs. 

I sprinkled the breadcrumbs over the mac and cheese and baked it for about 20 minutes.

I baked the mac and cheese in the skillet until the edges were a deep golden brown and the breadcrumbs were toasted.

When I served the macaroni and cheese with a spatula, I could see the onion interspersed throughout the dish underneath the layer of crispy pasta.

This was one of the most flavorful mac and cheese recipes I’ve ever made, and it’s definitely my favorite of the three.

I much preferred this recipe. I thought the onions packed a ton of flavor, although I thought the butternut squash and cheddar cheese were both slightly overpowered by the sauteéd onions, which cut through everything with their buttery, rich flavor.

However, I really enjoyed the texture of the dish, thanks to the thick, cheesy sauce and the layer of toasted breadcrumbs that added the perfect amount of crunch.

This recipe truly blew me away, and it made for the perfect dinner as temperatures get cooler.

The post I tried baked mac-and-cheese recipes by Ina Garten, Ree Drummond, and Martha Stewart. The winner had an unexpected ingredient. appeared first on Business Insider.