Featured Wisconsin Cheeses: Smoked Cheddar, Havarti
By Sugar Plum
Macaroni and cheese was one of the first foods I cooked. In the beginning I started with the boxed stuff and then graduated to a Baked Macaroni & Cheese recipe from my mom’s Linda McCartney cookbook. I loved that recipe. I bet you there are butter stains on that page.
Whenever I craved macaroni & cheese (which was often), I would just whip up a huge dish of the stuff and live on it for a week. In fact, I think I lived on macaroni and cheese all through high school. Some people would pick steak as their favorite food. Many prefer pizza. But me? Oh nooo, buddy. I want mac and cheese and I want it to be loaded with butter, cream and cheese.
And don’t forget the bacon. I didn’t start adding bacon to my mac and cheese until two years ago when I created a recipe for Food Network’s Ultimate Recipe Showdown and used bacon in it. Now I can’t live without bacon in macaroni & cheese.
When the Wisconsin Milk Marketing board contacted me and asked if I would like to create a recipe for their 30 Days 30 Ways with Macaroni and Cheese blog, I jumped at the chance. I knew I could create a recipe that would knock their socks off.
The secret ingredients?
- A stick of butter
- Lobster
- Bacon
- Smoked Cheddar Cheese
- Havarti Cheese
I picked Wisconsin Havarti as the cheese of my choice because I have had a slight obsession with it over the past few months. It’s so… it’s so… I can’t even get the words out. It’s just so gosh darn buttery and delicious.
Let’s walk through the process of making this mac & cheese, shall we?
First you should do a little prep work. It’s all about mis en place, baby. Grate your cheese. Havarti gold. Cook your bacon. I used my indoor grill and got it nice and crispy.
Cook your pasta. I used cavatappi pasta… they’re calling it “twists”. Who are they kidding? Salting the pasta water is important as they say. I drained the pasta in a salad spinner basket. Shhhh.
Now that the prep work is done you can start to assemble everything. You make the sauce by melting butter in a saucepan before whisking in and cooking some flour. Then you whisk in half and half, along with smoked paprika, a dash of hot sauce, salt and pepper, before bringing the sauce to a simmer.
Now reduce the heat to low and whisk in cheese until melted and smooth. It looks like this creamy concoction. The secret to good mac & cheese is using a lot of cheese sauce – otherwise it will be dry.
All together now. Stir together the pasta, cheese sauce, chopped bacon and cooked lobster meat. You could leave the lobster out if you wanted to. I made half of the macaroni and cheese with lobster, the other half without.
Then divide the creamy macaroni and cheese into buttered ramekins. Top with panko bread crumbs and a drizzle of melted butter. Isn’t the crunchy topping kind of the best part about baked mac and cheese?
After baking for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, you have success. Best macaroni and cheese ever? I think so.
Lobster and Bacon Macaroni and Cheese
Serves 6-8
Ingredients:
3/4 pound (12 ounces) cavatappi pasta
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, divided
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups half and half
2 teaspoons hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
8 ounces (about 2 cups) grated Wisconsin Havarti Cheese
4 ounces (about 1 cup) grated or chopped Wisconsin Smoked Cheddar Cheese
1 cup coarsely chopped lobster meat
1/2 cup finely chopped cooked bacon
1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
Directions:
Heat oven to 400°F. Coat 10 ramekins with butter and place on a cookie sheet.
Cook pasta according to package instructions.
Melt 1/2 cup butter in a large saucepan, over medium heat; whisk in flour and cook 1 minute. Whisk in half and half, hot sauce, smoked paprika, salt and pepper and bring mixture to a simmer, whisking frequently. Reduce heat to low and whisk in Havarti and Smoked Cheddar Cheese until melted and smooth.
In a large pot, stir together pasta, cheese sauce, lobster and bacon until combined; divide evenly into ramekins. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top. Melt remaining 1 tablespoon butter and drizzle on top of bread crumbs. Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly.
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Macaroni & Cheese, Recipe, Wisconsin Cheese
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Looks delicious!
Thank you for very interesting recipe. I will definitely try to do this in weekend.
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I’ve been a fan of Sugar Plum for a long time. As a Wisconsin resident and wife of a dairy farmer I’m happy that WMMB picked Emily for the 2nd annual 30 days 30 ways!!
umm yummy I just love mac and cheese and this sounds like the best! I cant wait to try it and eat and eat and eat it up! lol
This looks wonderful! How can you go wrong with bacon and lobster?
[...] SMOKEY HAVARTI, LOBSTER & BACON MAC N’ CHEESE via 30 days 30 ways with macaroni and cheese [...]
Go you! Stopping by from your blog… I am a loyal reader and wanted to check out your post for this. This looks so good! I may be alittle too broke to buy lobster but I will definitely try this without the lobster for now, and maybe with the lobster for a special occasion
what a beautiful recipe, and so “chic” with the lobster !! yum yum
Thanks for the recipe. It’s perfect! I was looking for something since I bought havarti and jumbo lump crab meat for my mac and cheese, and bacon for my brussel sprouts!
I did it this weekend. Only used 1 cup of half and half and a 1/2 stick of butter. It was insanely good.