Baked Mac N Cheese | Easy Weeknight Meals | Dakota's Kitchen

Welcome back to Dakota's Kitchen! A cozy corner of the internet where we're making all things homemade, cozy, and delicious. In this video, we'll be making an amazing homemade baked mac 'n' cheese. Get ready for goodness! The full recipe is written below. Please comment with any questions! Thank you so much for watching! If you love this video or recipe, please click the 'Thumbs Up' button and Subscribe to see more!

Baked Mac N Cheese
1 lb macaroni noodles
½ cup butter
½ cup flour
1 ½ cups whole milk
2 ½ cups half and half
Salt & pepper to taste
4 cups shredded medium cheddar cheese
2 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt the water when it comes to boil. Add the pasta noodles to the pot. Cook the pasta noodles to al dente. Drain well.
Drizzle olive oil over the noodles so they don’t stick together while you make the sauce.
Prepare ingredients for sauce while noodles are cooking. Measure out the cheese into a large bowl and mix them together well.
Measure out milk and half and half into a large measuring glass together.
Cut the stick of butter into 1 TBSP sized slices to help with melting in the pot.
In the same pot you used to cook the noodles, heat it on medium heat. Add butter to the pan and let it melt down.
Sprinkle flour into the butter and whisk constantly for about 1 minute. It should be a nice foamy thick consistency.
Very slowly, pour about half of the milk and half & half mixture (Approx 2 cups). Whisk constantly to avoid the flour clumping or getting grainy.
Slowly pour in the remaining milk and half & half mixture. Whisk often to avoid flour clumping until it thickens up to the consistency of a thinned out condensed soup.
Remove completely from heat. Add about 3 cups of your shredded cheese to the pot, adding 1 cup at a time and stirring it until completely melted after each cup.
Add seasonings of your choice to the sauce and mix well.
Add pasta back to the pot with the cheese sauce and mix well til all the noodles are completely coated in cheesy goodness.
Prepare a medium sized casserole dish with oil spray. Pour about half of the pasta into the casserole dish. Sprinkle half of the remaining cheese (about 1 ½ cups) on top of the pasta. Pour the remaining pasta on top of that. Top it off with the remaining shredded cheese.
Bake uncovered at 350 for 15-18 minutes. Don’t overbake it!
Remove from the oven. Let cool if needed and enjoy!