The Best Cheeses for Mac and Cheese
Which cheeses are the best cheeses for mac and cheese? When it comes to the ultimate comfort food, macaroni and cheese — hold up, full stop, ANY pasta with cheese– is tops of the list. There’s just nothing to beat that ooey, gooey creamy bowl of happiness and warmth. Pair that with a nice set of comfy pants, your best fuzzy slippers and the Must Binge Netflix Marathon and you’ve got yourself the ideal cozy night at home.
But you can’t just throw any cheese on top of your pasta and call it a day. Certain cheeses are born to melt, while others get weird and clumpy, and some cheeses wouldn’t melt unless you threw them into an active volcano. There are many factors that determine a cheese’s meltability — moisture, how it’s made, acidity, fat content and time since production will all play a factor into the melting goo.
A cheese that’s made by stretching, like mozzarella and provolone, will just want to stretch rather than becoming creamy. Great to pull off a ropey long strand on your French onion soup, but really awful to try to blend into pasta for a cheese sauce.
Other cheeses are made with high acid or rennet, like paneer, feta and ricotta. They’ll tend to hold their shape, so you can do things like fry them (like Juusto, or bread cheese) and they’ll hold their shape great. But if you throw it into warm pasta, expect them to remain in clumps or cubes rather than become one with the noodle.
The best cheeses for macaroni and cheese
If you’ve ever tried to amp up your pasta only to end up with a gross oily, stringy or grainy mess, here’s the game plan for picking the right cheese for macaroni or pasta.
No matter whether you make it from scratch with a bechamel sauce, or use the blue box mix, the X factor for amazing mac and cheese is all about putting the right cheese into the mix.
American Cheese
American cheese gets a lot of hate, but there is literally nothing better for melting that is also most likely available at the corner bodega or convenience store. American cheese is hands down one of the best melters on the market at a budget-friendly price point.
Process American cheese is somewhat eco-friendly — it is produced by cheese manufacturers when they combine scraps and leftovers from various batches of cheese with more milk, salt and fat into a homogenized new product. That tapestry of cheese is a big part of why it doesn’t break, or go grainy/oily/gross.
The salt — or sodium citrate — is a special type of emulsifying salt that keeps the cheese glossy and gooey when it melts, even if you heat it up and cool it down a few times. Combine that with the starches already present in your pasta and it adheres like a glue of love to ensure a very happy and delightful evening.
Brie
Brie is a bit more fancy but since it’s already halfway to melted when it’s at room temperature, it will basically swoon and disappear into a velvety glossy sauce once you add it to your hot pasta which makes it one of the best cheeses to use in mac and cheese. Some brie has a bit more funk and others that are double or triple crème tend to be more luxurious and subtle in flavor.
Fontina
Leave it to the Italians to know exactly the cheese to make pasta sing — fontina is what butter wanted to be when it grew up, and the flavor profile is similar. It’s pretty subtle by itself, so it perhaps might be the best as a base and then paired with one of the flavor makers/added component cheeses discussed below, or if you toss your mac and cheese with a seafood like scallops or lobster chunks.
Cream Cheese
What? Didn’t think of this one? Yes, cream cheese makes for the most decadent and gooey cheese sauce you’ve ever experienced, although it doesn’t bring much flavor to the party. This is an excellent ingredient if you want to add a little something something to your convenience box mix while still keeping the prep minimal.
Mascarpone
You thought fontina was decadent and cream cheese was a bit boring? Mascarpone is like fontina and cream cheese had a baby — it’s smooth and lives to melt and is the Louis Vuitton of textures. Warning: it also has a bit of a sweet taste, so you may want to compensate with other more acidic cheeses to make sure you don’t end up with a dessert mac and cheese.
Raclette
Remember a few years ago when everyone on Instagram was going to Raclette evenings and posting about it with forty different hash tags? While raclette may be slightly out of style, it still bubbles and slides right into your pasta in a way that might be considered food porn — we wouldn’t fault you if you still snapped a few shots for the IG fam. The texture is incredibly, and your baked mac and cheese can live up to its extra robust structure, so it won’t break on you.
Chevre
Similar to cream cheese but with significantly more protein, chevre can get a bit grainy if you rely entirely on this as a baked mac and cheese, but stovetop or as an add in for your Kraft staple, chevre brings significant sophistication to an already delectable dinner.
Gorgonzola
Hey, we’ve all had a stinky cheese experience in our past, but gorgonzola doesn’t mean to stink you out — it just sometimes gets overly excited, especially if it’s super aged. There are about as many different ages and textures to gorgonzola as there are IG influencers, but the half-melted texture means that it will fall over itself and your pasta once you add some heat.
This is the quintessential cheese for a more robust pasta melt, especially one paired with rich or heavily spiced proteins, like BBQ or cajun.
Gruyere
Nutty? Goopy? Check and check. Gruyere is a staple in fondue which means that its smooth melt will turn your plate of humble noodles into a treat from the heavens. Gruyere is the star of the melty gooey sandwich Croque Monsieur, which means that your plate will sing Oooh LA LA when you toss this cheese into the pot.
The best cheeses for mac and cheese that don’t like to melt
Just because some cheeses were born to melt doesn’t mean that the more stubborn cheeses can’t be a part of your pasta party. While these aren’t the best cheeses for melting, with some help they can be the best cheeses for mac and cheese. Use flavor component cheeses to augment or serve as a basis for your cheese sauce, with some additional tricks and tips.
Parmesan
We know parm doesn’t want to melt on its own, but of course, we’ve all had the queen of pasta sauces, the alfredo, which is entirely based on parmesan. Parmesan wants to please, she just needs the added support from butter, flour and milk or cream so that she doesn’t break under too much heat. But pair with a bechamel sauce and gentle heat and your pasta will sing as the star of the show or a fine duet with one of the above melting super stars.
Sharp Cheddar
Oh boy, who doesn’t want to chow down on a giant block of super sharp cheddar, the kind old enough to be enrolled in elementary school? But alas, we’ve all been there and had at least one pot of broken, gloopy destroyed mess. Oh, the heartbreak of that angry oil slick when you try to throw in an ultra-sharp cheddar onto hot noodles and stir.
Set yourself up for success and use FRESHLY GRATED sharp cheddar — the stuff off the block. The pre-grated sharp cheddars might be amazing for your salads or sprinkling on top, but they’re coated with starch that can interfere with your plans. While it is possible to finesse a sauce using only sharp cheddar, this bad boy does better as an ensemble player, so try for a 1:1 ratio to avoid getting that grainy texture so common with melted sharp cheddar.