When I came home to LA for the summer, the first thing I wanted to do was head straight for California Pizza Kitchen for their kids’ mac and cheese. Also, obviously, In-N-Out and the beach and all of the one million boba tea shops. But nothing compares to the cheesy goodness of mac and cheese. Whether classic and kid-friendly or gussied up to appease adults’ fancy palates, mac is literally always good. In honor of yesterday’s National Macaroni Day (naked macaroni rather than the cheesy variety, but it’s the spirit of the thing), here are five delicious YouTube recipes.
1. Waffled Macaroni and Cheese
Mac and cheese WAFFLES. Have you ever heard of such glory? If there’s one food item better than mac, it’s waffles. Plus this recipe is from the Today show, and man do I love the Today show. (My body may be 21, but my soul is a 45-year-old housewife.) See more here.
2. Southern Baked Mac and Cheese
I go to school in North Carolina, and in my three years below the Mason-Dixon line, the biggest thing I’ve learned about the South is that they love their mac and cheese. One of my friends from NC loves Southern-style mac and cheese so much that she refuses to grant the Kraft variety the name “mac and cheese.” (If it’s not baked with breadcrumbs on top, it’s just “pasta with cheese sauce.”) Here is one such example of “true” mac and cheese. See more here.
If you’re looking for a more frou-frou style, you can’t go wrong with white truffle mac and cheese. Truffle mac represents an incredible phenomenon of today’s cooking: basic stuff made fancy by the sheer pretension of the modern palate. It’s like you want to be eating mac and cheese, but you’re not five, so you feel like you gotta kick it up a notch. I love the irony of it all, but I also love the result: fancy mac and cheese is bomb.
Chances are, if you’re the type of person who likes mac and cheese, you’re also the type of person who likes pizza. I don’t want to generalize, but c’mon, let’s be real. So what would be better than combining the two? This type has bacon stuffed into the crust.
5. Orange and Black Mac and Cheese
Combine pop culture and mac and cheese. Watch Danielle Brooks and Samira Wiley from Orange is the New Black make Dorito-and-Cheeto mac and cheese. This cooking duo calls itself Pasty (their characters Poussey + Taystee, playing off those “Tasty” recipe videos you see all over Facebook). “Them Doritos and them Cheetos make it wassup,” Samira says. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
