Aged white, sharp yellow, choose your weapon. Last, you can use a firmer, sharp flavor such as cheddar. It’s also slightly nutty and smoky, creating one of the best pairings for this dish. It has a nice creamy consistency and pairs well with beer and mustard. I highly recommend using Gouda no matter what recipe you make. I’ve substituted Monterrey Jack, which has a sharper, tangy profile, and it does also work well. I’m highly recommending using cream cheese, which is what my recipe will show you. There are rules for this, and the first is that you need to have a melting cheese. Feel free to push it further and create a blond or brown roux for more complex flavors. This recipe works with a white roux, meaning the flour has cooked slightly and the roux has a very light color. This recipe uses 1.5oz each: 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, and 4 1/2 Tbsp flour. Use equal parts of flour and butter measured by weight to create your roux. Here’s a great article to break down the details of different types of roux.įor this recipe we’re going to use 1.5oz each: 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, and 4 1/2 Tbsp flour. Most recipes will measure out equal parts of flour and butter by volume, but those “equal parts” should be measured by weight. Start out with melting butter and whisking in flour, cooking out the rawness of the flour to create the thickening agent for the beer cheese sauce. Simply put, this is going to be a version of the classic mornay sauce, but with some beer added in. Make the beer cheese sauce and then salt at the very end, right before you add the pasta. Your pasta will be salted while cooking, and the cheese will vary with levels of salt too. Salt – Seems like a funny thing to point out, but the truth is that it’s important to discuss.Use mustard powder or yellow mustard if you’d like, but smooth dijon is my preference. The mustard has properties that tell the liquids and the fats to hang out and bond, helping the beer cheese sauce to stay smooth and creamy. Mustard is a must for this sauce, as it compliments the flavor of beer and acts as an emulsifier. Dijon Mustard – This can be flexible, not everyone has a jar of Grey Poupon in the fridge.Any substitutes (oak milk, soy milk, etc) will have extremely different results and I have not tested them. You cannot go wrong with keeping it simple and just using whole milk, period. I recommend sticking with whole milk if you’re going to use a stout beer, half and half tends to make the sauce a little too thick. Milk or Cream – I’ve tested this recipe well over a dozen times, and the best results are whole milk or half and half.The end results will be extremely different between the two due to the beer, so have fun and try them both out. My top recommendations would be Fat Tire for an amber ale and Guinness for the Stout.

Look for a generally tasty Amber Ale or Stout. IPAs, Sours, and hoppy beers will have their bitter flavors overpower the sauce.

Beer – Generally I will tell you to use what you like to drink, but not in this case.

Spiral pasta doesn’t work as well here, as there are no crevices for pockets of cheese.

Pasta – Stick with short pasta shapes, either shell or macaroni which gives the beer cheese sauce room to hide in.

Basically, you’ll need to make more sauce. Do not skip over this section, this is where the flavor happens.Ĭheese sauce will be different for classic stovetop mac and cheese versus smoked beer mac and cheese.

Let’s spend a minute covering some very important notes on how the ingredients will affect your outcome. My goal is for you to learn the process of creating the best beer cheese sauce so you can take it away and customize it to your preferences. If those words are all above your head do not worry, we will walk through it together. You are likely familiar with the process to create a roux, bechamel, or mornay sauce. The key to any good mac and cheese is the sauce, in this case, the beer cheese sauce. Maybe this recipe is more about how I don’t really want to grow up. There are definitely times where you just want to make mac and cheese for dinner too. We’re going to focus most of the efforts on nailing the beer cheese sauce, and I’ll show you how to customize it to your preferences.Įvery good BBQ should have some epic sides, mac and cheese being one of those in my opinion. This bowl of comfort food is fortified with a creamy beer cheese sauce and then kissed with smoke for an added touch. This … This is a bowl of my favorite things

Roux for mac and cheese