MAC ‘N’ CHEESE
Mac ‘n’ cheese is a classic family dish, perfect for filling up hungry bellies! It is cheap, tasty and easier than you think to add veg to. We’ve gathered expert tips and come up with small steps you can take to bring your mac ‘n’ cheese from good to great!
Why is mac ‘n’ cheese so great?
Mac ‘n’ cheese is cheap and delicious, and lends itself well to making a big batch for future meals. Kids love it, making it a great recipe to slowly tweak to add a little veg and make just a little better over time.
Mac ‘n’ cheese is a great dish to add veggies too, as the cheese flavour of the dish will often mask the flavour of the veg, encouraging its acceptance.
Mac ‘n’ cheese also keeps well, so you can make it the day before and cover and chill (or freeze) until you are ready to stick it in the oven to heat through and serve, making it a great meal for busy nights.
Use the basic recipe, small tweaks and tips below to take your pasta bakes from good to better!
How are your mac ‘n’ cheese skills?
Getting
started
I’m just starting out.
Next
Level
I’m ready to take it to the next level.
Engaging
Kids
How can I get my kids involved and interested?
Getting Started
Mac ‘n’ cheese is cheap and delicious, and lends itself well to making a big batch for future meals. Kids love it, making it a great recipe to slowly tweak to add a little veg and make just a little better over time.
Here is a simple recipe for mac ‘n’ cheese which you can use as a base and build on over time…
Mac ‘n’ Cheese
Claire Wright
Method:
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Cook your pasta according to packet instructions. Drain and put it back in the saucepan with the white sauce and cheese. Heat through until cheese is melted and sauce is hot.
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If you want to do a full “pasta bake” mac ‘n’ cheese, you can stir the sauce through the cooked pasta in a casserole dish and top with the cheese, then pop into an oven preheated to 200C/gas 6 for 20 mins until golden and bubbling – it adds that lovely golden layer we all love on mac ‘n’ cheese!
There is no need to go any further with this recipe until you are confident with it and feel up for the next step.
Feeling ready? Let’s see how you can get your next small victory without battles…
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
NEXT LEVEL
I Want To Improve My Mac ‘n’ Cheese
If you are feeling confident with your favourite mac ‘n’ cheese recipe, but you’re wondering if there are some small tweaks you could make for the better, this is for you.
We’ve outlined some simple stages for continually improving on a basic mac ‘n’ cheese to get you from good to great. Find where you feel your current recipe sits and see if the next step is something you could aim for. You don’t have to go any further, but if you choose to, make sure you are feeling confident with this new stage before you try the next one.
And remember, the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! These changes and swaps can take as long as is needed if your family isn’t ready for big changes all in one go. Small simple improvements over time may not even be noticed.
Better Sauce
Read the labels on jars of sauce or ready meals and boxes and make changes as slowly as needed for your family, gently moving them towards lower sugar, salt and fat options and ingredients you recognise.
If and when you feel ready, you could start making your own sauce. Swapping a ready-made cheese sauce for a homemade sauce (or just grated cheese mixed with cream cheese or milk) can often help the budget as well as the salt, fat and sugar content. Add a pinch of seasoning and perhaps some dried mixed herbs or ground nutmeg/cumin to add extra flavour for no time if you feel it needs it.
Add veg
Aim for 2 handfuls of veg per person in the long-run, but it’s better to go slowly and get there eventually than to rush to the finish line and find no one is ready to get there with you.
- Start with frozen veg – there is less waste, it’s cheaper and easier to add a little more each time. Try peas, broad beans, cauliflower, sweetcorn, mixed veg, chargrilled veg, whole baby leaf or chopped spinach, squash or sweet potato, mushrooms, peppers, carrots, broccoli, green beans.
- If using fresh veg, make sure it is added at the start and allow time for it to soften in a little oil before adding the protein, and sauce. Try finely diced fresh carrots, onions/leeks and celery/fennel, sliced peppers or mushrooms, cubed squash or sweet potato, or florets of broccoli or cauliflower. Or stir through some greens just before baking.
- Most veg will work here, but best choices are fresh or frozen cauliflower (less visible) or broccoli, squash or sweet potato for sweetness, or peas, spinach or green beans for a bit of colour.
In addition to veg in the mac ‘n’ cheese, could you serve some raw veg like peppers, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, radishes, avocado, cucumber, etc on the side or add a small salad like rocket, watercress or iceberg tossed in dressing? Try putting these items in the middle of the table and everyone can help themselves. If you add them to your plate, they will be more likely to do the same and mac ‘n’ cheese has got a whole lot healthier.
Don’t forget that the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! There’s no rush, and no pressure in not getting to 2 portions per serve.
Batch cooking
Once you are happy with your recipe, why not batch cook and freeze extra to save you future time, effort and money? Mac ‘n’ cheese batches really well, just double the recipe and freeze the second one for up to 3 months in a freezer and oven safe dish that you cover well, and heat through to piping hot when ready to use, or keep in the fridge for a few days.
Not sure if batch cooking is for you? People often think batch cooking means you have to have a big freezer and a slow cooker. But while those things can be helpful, they’re definitely not essential. Find out more about how to start small with batch cooking in our guide.
engaging kids
Play is essential!
Think of children helping in the kitchen as a role play game with plenty of fun for maximum effect. One of the best ways to develop a love of veg in kids is to get them involved in the prep of the veg. Not only is cooking an essential life skill for kids to learn, but it’s a great, fun way to get them engaging with healthy foods!
Cooking with kids
One of the best ways to develop a love of veg in kids is to get them involved in the prep of the veg. Not only is cooking an essential life skill for kids to learn, but it’s a great, fun way to get them engaging with healthy foods! They don’t have to be involved in the whole process especially when they are very young (let’s keep the mess to a minimum!), just give them 1-2 smaller jobs they can own with some supervision.
If you are making mac ‘n’ cheese, why not have younger kids help you grate cheese, measure out dry pasta, stirring the macaroni and cheese sauce together, and chucking a couple of handfuls of your chosen veg in.
Older kids might be ready to learn how to chop some fresh veg to add in, stir everything together in the pan, or make a salad to go on the side!
See if they can tick off our Kitchen Ninja skills over time as you all get used to the recipe.
Arts & crafts
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging veg-based arts & crafts can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory.
Use these arts & crafts as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. While you make your mac ‘n’ cheese, why not set them up with our peas veg crown?
Games & puzzles
Like arts & crafts, games & puzzles are a very safe way to get veggies to become more familiar and takes any pressure off eating or engaging their senses around veg for now.
A great place to start with mac ‘n’ cheese might be our Escapeas game!
Sensory
Sensory engagement with veg is possibly the best way to get children to slowly become more familiar with a veg. Take away the pressure to taste for now (and remember that ‘tasting’ could be expanded to include sniffing, licking and smelling) and instead encourage exploring a veg with a sense of smell, hearing, touch or sight.
Why not start with a few peas and get them to describe what they feel – does it remind them of anything? Maybe it feels like a handful of pebbles or a crocodile’s bumpy nose. See if they want to chuck some into the mac ‘n’ cheese after having engaged with them.
Serving
If your kids aren’t ready to be in the kitchen helping with part of the prep or cooking process, why not give them a job around the serving that could help them feel involved in the meal?
A crafty kid may like to design a beautiful menu, one who likes to help can lay the table. One may like to help you plate up the food, another may love to give the meal a theme! If you can (and we know it’s not always possible), try to eat with the kids, as they are much more likely to eat healthier food if they see it being eaten (and enjoyed!) by their families.
Why not let your child come up with a silly name for the mac ‘n’ cheese. Perhaps they’ll appreciate an addition of some colourful veg like broccoli or peas to give them more to work with for an imaginative name and story. Make sure to praise them and use the name for the dinner when you serve it – see if they can come up with a story to go with it they can tell over dinner, too, it may encourage them to try some of it with the veg in!
DO you have a question you’d like one of our experts to help you with?
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