Grandma Jeannette's Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Delicious warm and buttery baked macaroni and cheese that will feed a crowd!
Ingredients
- 1 16 ounce box of Elbow Macaroni
- 1 pound of shredded Colby Jack Cheese
- 1 pound of shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
- 2 sticks of salted butter and more for buttering casserole dish
- 2 Tablespoons of All Purpose Flour
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Cook the Elbow Noodles al dente, drain and set aside
- Cut one stick of butter into 6 even sticks and place in freezer
- Melt remaining stick of butter in sauce pan
- Add flour and stir until combined
- Add half of each cheese to the pan of butter and flour mixture
- Stir until melted and remove from heat.
- Salt and pepper the cheese mixture
- Butter a 5 quart dutch oven up the sides and on the bottom
- Layer 1/3 of cooked noodles in the buttered dutch oven
- Spread 1/3 of cheese mixture over the noodles and top with 1/3 of each shredded cheese
- Repeat layers 2 more times for three total layers of noodles, cheese sauce and shredded cheese
- Grab the cut and frozen butter sticks out of the freezer
- Place each frozen butter stick into the macaroni and cheese as evenly placed as you can. Some may break that is fine just push into the macaroni and cheese
- Your recipe is ready for the oven now
- Bake uncovered for 45 minutes
- The recipe is finished now but if you desire a brown and crusty top broil for 5 minutes. Enjoy!
Notes
Our Grandmother Jeannette Gamache Moersch 
This is a good day for Baked Macaroni and Cheese! I have a few words that will get your heart pumping. These words could arguably be some of the most important words in the entire world. Do you think you know what they are? Ready?
Baked Macaroni and Cheese! This is a love language if there ever was one.
My sister and I were blessed with two grandmas who each made a different version of Macaroni and Cheese. Grandma Jeannette made a buttery and dense dish while our Grandma Ila made a creamy and soupy version that takes us back to her kitchen in one taste.
The recipe I made this week was Grandma Jeannette’s butter busting, cheesy elbow macaroni delight packed into a dutch oven.
Our Grandma Jeannette died when we were young so we never experienced cooking with her. It wasn’t until I was a young adult that my dad, her oldest son, asked me to try and perfect her Baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe.
This recipe connects him to his mother, church picnics, and his childhood kitchen.
It’s this type of nostalgia that is invited in. I understood that I needed to take on the challenge of creating this recipe. My dad and his brother gave me as much information as they could remember. I also invited the recollections from a close cousin who grew up close by.
I had multiple failed attempts to get this recipe right and countless times this dish was rejected.
I failed so much but the consolation prize was to eat the rejects. Sometimes failures are winners. Eventually, I got the recipe right.
This Baked Macaroni and Cheese dish cooks in a dutch oven with a crunchy top and a soft cheesy noodle interior. My stomach is growling now. Today is a good day for the recipe my friends!
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