Healthy Mac and Cheese
A homemade mac and cheese recipe that is perfect for the whole family including picky eaters, this veggie mac and cheese is the ultimate comfort food.
Servings: 6 people
Calories: 242kcal
Ingredients
- 250 g 1 ½ cups uncooked pasta (macaroni, penne, spirals etc)
- 400 g cauliflower approx. half a small cauliflower
- 250 g zucchini 2 medium
- 2 tablespoon 30g butter or your preferred oil
- 2 tablespoon plain flour
- 1 medium onion finely diced
- 2 rashers of streaky bacon finely diced
- 250 ml milk 1 cup
- 125 g grated cheese 1 cup
Instructions
- Cook the pasta as per the packet directions, drain and set aside
- Roughly chop the cauliflower, peel the courgette/zucchini, roughy chop and steam with the cauliflower until tender
- While the cauliflower is cooking start on the roux sauce (white sauce).
- Heat butter/oil in a saucepan
- Add onion and bacon and sauté until onion softened and translucent
- Add the flour and cook for around 2mins whilst stirring
- Gradually add the milk (I find if you preheat the milk first, which you can do in the microwave, you will get a smoother sauce and the sauce will thicken much more quickly)
- Bring the sauce just to the boil then reduce the heat. At this point you should have quite a thick but smooth sauce
- Stir in ¾ Cup of the grated cheese, it should melt through the sauce, remove from heat
- Once the cauliflower and courgette is tender, drain, then puree. I usually use a whizz stick/stick blender. You will end up with around 2 cups of vegetable puree,
- Stir the vegetable puree into your cheese your sauce
- Combine your sauce with the pasta
- Then pour the pasta and sauce mixture into a greased oven proof dish. You can top with the remaining grated cheese
- Bake for around 20mins at 180 degrees celsius, until the cheese on top is melted, bubbling and golden
- Serve
Video
Notes
- Remove the bacon entirely and you will still have a lovely vegetarian dish.
- I use butter when I make a roux sauce/white sauce as I just find it cooks better for me, but you can use olive oil
- You can use gluten-free pasta in this recipe
- Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days. It can also be frozen and reheated in the microwave when needed
- I often freeze this dish into kiddy portions, using a silicone muffin tray. Once frozen I pop them out and put them in a zip lock bag, then reheat as many portions as I need.
- Add sliced boiled eggs to up the protein content
- It also makes a great side dish for lean meat, fish or chicken.
Nutrition
Serving: 1g | Calories: 242kcal | Carbohydrates: 17g | Protein: 13g | Fat: 14g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 7g | Cholesterol: 34mg | Sodium: 332mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 3g