**The Art of Making Perfect Skillet Mac and Cheese**

When it comes to comfort food, macaroni and cheese is one dish that never goes out of style. But what makes a truly great skillet mac and cheese? In this article, we'll take you through the process of making the perfect skillet mac and cheese, with a few expert tips and tricks along the way.

**The Importance of Quality Cheese**

One of the most crucial components of a great skillet mac and cheese is the cheese. And when it comes to cheese, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. The key is to find a combination of cheeses that melt beautifully and add depth of flavor to the dish. For this recipe, we're using a blend of mozzarella, cheddar, smoked Gouda, and Parmesan cheese. These cheeses offer a nice balance of creaminess, sharpness, and smokiness that will elevate your mac and cheese game.

**The Role of Cream Cheese**

Cream cheese is another essential ingredient in our skillet mac and cheese recipe. It adds a rich, velvety texture to the dish and helps to bind everything together. If you prefer a thicker consistency, cream cheese is the way to go – it's slightly firmer than butter or oil, which makes it perfect for creating a creamy sauce. On the other hand, if you want a lighter, more saucy mac and cheese, you can use a mixture of sour cream and milk instead.

**Seasoning and Flavor**

When it comes to seasoning our skillet mac and cheese, we're going for simplicity rather than complexity. We're using paprika, garlic powder, chicken bullion, and a pinch of salt to add depth and warmth to the dish without overpowering the other flavors. Don't be afraid to taste as you go and adjust the seasoning to your liking – this is where the magic happens!

**The Science Behind the Cheese Sauce**

When it comes to melting cheese, there's an art to it. If you're using a hot pan or adding too much cheese at once, you'll end up with an oily, separated mess that's more like mac and cheese soup than a creamy sauce. To avoid this, make sure your pan is nice and hot before adding the cheese – then, add the cheese gradually, stirring constantly until it reaches the desired consistency.

**The Art of Skillet Cooking**

One of the best things about making skillet mac and cheese is the ability to cook it directly in the pan. This allows for a beautiful browning on the bottom that's just impossible to achieve with other cooking methods. To get this perfect golden-brown crust, make sure you're using a good-quality cast-iron skillet – they retain heat beautifully and add a smoky flavor to the dish.

**The Smoker: A Game-Changer**

Finally, we're using our trusty Trager smoker to give our mac and cheese that perfect, crispy top. The smoke from the smoker infuses the cheese with a deep, rich flavor that's simply irresistible. If you have access to a smoker or grill, we highly recommend giving this method a try – it's worth the extra effort to achieve those beautiful, caramelized edges.

**The Final Touches**

After 20-25 minutes in the smoker, our skillet mac and cheese is finally ready. We let it cool for a few minutes before topping it with fresh parsley and taking that first bite... And wow. The combination of creamy cheese sauce, crispy top, and smoky flavor is absolute perfection.

So there you have it – our secret recipe for the perfect skillet mac and cheese. With these expert tips and tricks, you'll be well on your way to creating a dish that's sure to become a family favorite.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday's one of those days where the weather is so good I almost called out of work but instead I decided to cook outside today I'm going to show you how to make my delicious smoked mac and cheese meet me in the kitchen let's make it Happ go for that crispy piece now hold on what you doing on God oh that's me oo the crispiness of ITX good that's all right people you can't have a good mac and cheese without a well balanced distribution or choice of cheese and today I'm going to talk you through that so I like to start with something that's creamy and Mild something like a mozzarella kind of as the foundation then we have colby jack that I like to use on top because it melts really nicely and it has beautiful color you getting some flavor from the sharp cheddar sharpness obviously smoked guda to play off the smokiness from the the grill or the smoker that we're using and you get a little saltiness from the parmesan cheese when you're picking your cheeses the idea here is not to pick three or four sharp cheeses or three or four Smoky cheeses you want to have balance so that's why I chose the five that we got right here all right guys one of the pro tips that I'm going to give you for your mac and cheese is to always shred your own cheese the reason for that is because the store-bought stuff that comes pre-shredded has anti-caking agents like potato starch and things like that which are nice to keep the cheese from clumping together but that same process prevents your cheese from melting nicely in a cheese sauce like we're making today so in my opinion it's always best to grate your own cheese it's a hell of a a forearm workout but it's worth it especially if you get you one of these nice big box graders makes the job a little bit easier on you so this is the smoke G we're going to grate all of the cheese the parmesan we got pregrated cuz that's not as big of a deal and it doesn't tend to have those uh potato starches and things like that in there all right guys so I went ahead and separated the cheeses so this is what we're using for the top Kobe Jack's my favorite it melts beautifully great color and here are the cheeses going in the cheese sauce we have our sharp cheddar we got mozzarella and smoked zuda I'm also going to throw a little grated Parmesan in there as well we're going to boil our noodles and chicken buan powder and water you can use chicken broth or just make sure you salt your pasta water the goal here is to get a little bit of flavor in those pasta noodles so if you guys have been watching my Channel or any mac and cheese recipe you guys know that I'm a fan of a rue or basically a cheese sauce that we're going to use and the Rue is the thickening agent rather than using eggs or anything like that so we're going in with a half a stick of butter first and then we have about 2 or 3 tablespoons of allpurpose flour we're going to allow the butter to melt a bit add in the flour cook the raw flour off that's going to effectively make the r a r is a combination of fat and flour fat being the butter today if you're making a gumbo it might be you know vegetable oil or avocado oil but once this butter begins to melt we're going to get that flour in there season our Rue and then add in our cream let me know in the comments if you're team r or team eggs for your Mac and Cheese all right butter is mostly melted and goes a good two maybe 3 tablesp of flour and you just want to mix it until it's well combined it's going to basically form almost like a paste which is exactly what we're looking for so don't be alarmed if you see it kind of you know clumping up a little bit just get in there with your spatula and break it up and then when we whisk all the cream in there all the lumps will dissipate all right so now it's time for a little controversy I already told y about the eggs that's a little controversial I'm sure it'll get cussed out by somebody in the comments but next up I like to add 1 to 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk not to make the macaroni and cheese sweet but the sugar from the sweet and condensed milk is going to allow all of those flavors from the five different cheeses to marry together so your mac and cheese should not be sweet but should be well balanced same kind of idea when you um you know add sugar to another sauce or you know the best example probably is spaghetti sauce same concept is this there just to balance the flavors not to make it sweet so going to add our cream a little bit at a time increase the heat break out the Whisk give it a good mix then we're going to season this to taste our elbow macaroni is almost done we're going to strain that add that to our cheese sauce into the skillet and then into the smoker all right so next up I'm going in with 2 tblspoon of sour cream this is more so for texture than flavor adds a nice little creamy element you could also use like a ounce or so of cream cheese if you like cream cheese that's a good uh addition to your mac and cheese too I kind of interchange those two cream cheese is going to be a little bit thicker so if you like a thicker consistency I would go with cream cheese if you don't want it to be too thick but you still want that creamy texture add a little sour cream so we're going to go ahead and get that in there and now it's time to start seasoning so we're going with the least flavorful seasoning of all time paprika this is mostly for color so we're going to go with that if I can get it out of the pan here and then a little smoke paprika to again play off the smokiness that we got going on you don't want that Uncle to come over and be like this don't even taste like smoke so you want to don't you always got that one family member that you tell them it's something it's like I can't even taste it so we're going to make sure there's some Smoky flavor in there little AP seasoning little garlic a pinch of chicken bullan then going to give it a good mix and start adding in our cheeses as you can see it's thickening it up beautifully from the roof plenty of flavor in there nothing that's too heavy on salt other than the little pinch of Buon my AP seasoning is very low sodium so you're in good shape there I won't say very low sodium but it's low sodium going to go ahead and get everything well combined I'm liking the color that I'm seeing here and we're going to reduce the Heat and start adding in our cheese another quick Pro tip is don't add your cheese when it's boiling hot because the fat will begin to separate from the cheese you're going to get a oily mac and cheese and that's not what you want so we got our mozzarella our cheddar our smoked gouda I'm going go in with a little p arm as well and just do this over low heat and allow the residual heat in the pan to melt that cheese nicely about 1/4 cup of palm maybe a/ thir cup thanks to that last little bit that fell out there but either way we're looking good on our cheese sauce taste as you go adjust the flavor to your preference that's what it's all about if you have a favorite cheese you can use it swap it out for one of these other cheeses that I got today and just keep incorporating the cheese until you reach the desired consistency all right guys for this recipe we're using my cast iron skillet if you're using a cast iron skillet I recommend to make sure you grease it oil it butter it whatever you want to do just make sure there's some sort of lubrication in there we went ahead and added a little extra cheese to our mixture that way we get that beautiful cheese pull a little bit later another little Pro tip for you guys we're going to go ahead and add this to our Skillet and then we're going to top it with that kobby jack for the beautiful color and flavor Kobe Jack tastes good too but it's just my favorite cheese when it comes to topping like mac and cheese or casserole or whatever you name it go ahead and smooth that out we're going to hit it with some cheese and then get it ready for the smoker at 400° for about 20 minutes all right guys we got our mac and cheese and our 12in cast iron skillet we have our Trager smoker fired up to 375° we going to go ahead and place this on there for about 20 to 25 minutes what you want to see is a nice golden brown top brown bubbly and beautiful that's what we're looking for all right guys this is how we're looking after about 25 maybe even 30 minutes in the smoker what I love most about Skillet mac and cheese if you see here these beautiful brown edges phenomenal when the cheese kind of almost is about to burn a little bit gets nice and crispy my favorite part of a skillet mac and cheese from the grill kind of the benefit of doing it on the smoker as well we let this cool for another couple minutes but we're going to go ahead and hit it with some parsley just for a pop of color and this is the part where I say brace yourself for a trademark money shot say it with me guys looking good the only thing left to do is dig in for the taste test but before we do that please take a quick second to subscribe to the channel make sure you hit that Bell to enable notifications as well all right guys as I said that little crispy bite right there that's got my name all over it we got cheesiness we got crisp man my favorite part of the job here we go mtoday's one of those days where the weather is so good I almost called out of work but instead I decided to cook outside today I'm going to show you how to make my delicious smoked mac and cheese meet me in the kitchen let's make it Happ go for that crispy piece now hold on what you doing on God oh that's me oo the crispiness of ITX good that's all right people you can't have a good mac and cheese without a well balanced distribution or choice of cheese and today I'm going to talk you through that so I like to start with something that's creamy and Mild something like a mozzarella kind of as the foundation then we have colby jack that I like to use on top because it melts really nicely and it has beautiful color you getting some flavor from the sharp cheddar sharpness obviously smoked guda to play off the smokiness from the the grill or the smoker that we're using and you get a little saltiness from the parmesan cheese when you're picking your cheeses the idea here is not to pick three or four sharp cheeses or three or four Smoky cheeses you want to have balance so that's why I chose the five that we got right here all right guys one of the pro tips that I'm going to give you for your mac and cheese is to always shred your own cheese the reason for that is because the store-bought stuff that comes pre-shredded has anti-caking agents like potato starch and things like that which are nice to keep the cheese from clumping together but that same process prevents your cheese from melting nicely in a cheese sauce like we're making today so in my opinion it's always best to grate your own cheese it's a hell of a a forearm workout but it's worth it especially if you get you one of these nice big box graders makes the job a little bit easier on you so this is the smoke G we're going to grate all of the cheese the parmesan we got pregrated cuz that's not as big of a deal and it doesn't tend to have those uh potato starches and things like that in there all right guys so I went ahead and separated the cheeses so this is what we're using for the top Kobe Jack's my favorite it melts beautifully great color and here are the cheeses going in the cheese sauce we have our sharp cheddar we got mozzarella and smoked zuda I'm also going to throw a little grated Parmesan in there as well we're going to boil our noodles and chicken buan powder and water you can use chicken broth or just make sure you salt your pasta water the goal here is to get a little bit of flavor in those pasta noodles so if you guys have been watching my Channel or any mac and cheese recipe you guys know that I'm a fan of a rue or basically a cheese sauce that we're going to use and the Rue is the thickening agent rather than using eggs or anything like that so we're going in with a half a stick of butter first and then we have about 2 or 3 tablespoons of allpurpose flour we're going to allow the butter to melt a bit add in the flour cook the raw flour off that's going to effectively make the r a r is a combination of fat and flour fat being the butter today if you're making a gumbo it might be you know vegetable oil or avocado oil but once this butter begins to melt we're going to get that flour in there season our Rue and then add in our cream let me know in the comments if you're team r or team eggs for your Mac and Cheese all right butter is mostly melted and goes a good two maybe 3 tablesp of flour and you just want to mix it until it's well combined it's going to basically form almost like a paste which is exactly what we're looking for so don't be alarmed if you see it kind of you know clumping up a little bit just get in there with your spatula and break it up and then when we whisk all the cream in there all the lumps will dissipate all right so now it's time for a little controversy I already told y about the eggs that's a little controversial I'm sure it'll get cussed out by somebody in the comments but next up I like to add 1 to 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk not to make the macaroni and cheese sweet but the sugar from the sweet and condensed milk is going to allow all of those flavors from the five different cheeses to marry together so your mac and cheese should not be sweet but should be well balanced same kind of idea when you um you know add sugar to another sauce or you know the best example probably is spaghetti sauce same concept is this there just to balance the flavors not to make it sweet so going to add our cream a little bit at a time increase the heat break out the Whisk give it a good mix then we're going to season this to taste our elbow macaroni is almost done we're going to strain that add that to our cheese sauce into the skillet and then into the smoker all right so next up I'm going in with 2 tblspoon of sour cream this is more so for texture than flavor adds a nice little creamy element you could also use like a ounce or so of cream cheese if you like cream cheese that's a good uh addition to your mac and cheese too I kind of interchange those two cream cheese is going to be a little bit thicker so if you like a thicker consistency I would go with cream cheese if you don't want it to be too thick but you still want that creamy texture add a little sour cream so we're going to go ahead and get that in there and now it's time to start seasoning so we're going with the least flavorful seasoning of all time paprika this is mostly for color so we're going to go with that if I can get it out of the pan here and then a little smoke paprika to again play off the smokiness that we got going on you don't want that Uncle to come over and be like this don't even taste like smoke so you want to don't you always got that one family member that you tell them it's something it's like I can't even taste it so we're going to make sure there's some Smoky flavor in there little AP seasoning little garlic a pinch of chicken bullan then going to give it a good mix and start adding in our cheeses as you can see it's thickening it up beautifully from the roof plenty of flavor in there nothing that's too heavy on salt other than the little pinch of Buon my AP seasoning is very low sodium so you're in good shape there I won't say very low sodium but it's low sodium going to go ahead and get everything well combined I'm liking the color that I'm seeing here and we're going to reduce the Heat and start adding in our cheese another quick Pro tip is don't add your cheese when it's boiling hot because the fat will begin to separate from the cheese you're going to get a oily mac and cheese and that's not what you want so we got our mozzarella our cheddar our smoked gouda I'm going go in with a little p arm as well and just do this over low heat and allow the residual heat in the pan to melt that cheese nicely about 1/4 cup of palm maybe a/ thir cup thanks to that last little bit that fell out there but either way we're looking good on our cheese sauce taste as you go adjust the flavor to your preference that's what it's all about if you have a favorite cheese you can use it swap it out for one of these other cheeses that I got today and just keep incorporating the cheese until you reach the desired consistency all right guys for this recipe we're using my cast iron skillet if you're using a cast iron skillet I recommend to make sure you grease it oil it butter it whatever you want to do just make sure there's some sort of lubrication in there we went ahead and added a little extra cheese to our mixture that way we get that beautiful cheese pull a little bit later another little Pro tip for you guys we're going to go ahead and add this to our Skillet and then we're going to top it with that kobby jack for the beautiful color and flavor Kobe Jack tastes good too but it's just my favorite cheese when it comes to topping like mac and cheese or casserole or whatever you name it go ahead and smooth that out we're going to hit it with some cheese and then get it ready for the smoker at 400° for about 20 minutes all right guys we got our mac and cheese and our 12in cast iron skillet we have our Trager smoker fired up to 375° we going to go ahead and place this on there for about 20 to 25 minutes what you want to see is a nice golden brown top brown bubbly and beautiful that's what we're looking for all right guys this is how we're looking after about 25 maybe even 30 minutes in the smoker what I love most about Skillet mac and cheese if you see here these beautiful brown edges phenomenal when the cheese kind of almost is about to burn a little bit gets nice and crispy my favorite part of a skillet mac and cheese from the grill kind of the benefit of doing it on the smoker as well we let this cool for another couple minutes but we're going to go ahead and hit it with some parsley just for a pop of color and this is the part where I say brace yourself for a trademark money shot say it with me guys looking good the only thing left to do is dig in for the taste test but before we do that please take a quick second to subscribe to the channel make sure you hit that Bell to enable notifications as well all right guys as I said that little crispy bite right there that's got my name all over it we got cheesiness we got crisp man my favorite part of the job here we go m\n"