Crock Pot Mac and Cheese

Looking for an easy and family friendly crock pot meal to include in your meal planning rotation? Then look no further, this crock pot mac and cheese requires NO pre-cooking of the noodles and comes out cheesy and delicious!

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A few years ago I discovered the magical world of the Crock Pot and my dinner making life was never the same. Oh, and I mean that in the BEST WAY possible.  I really like to cook, but with two school age kids and all our family activities, meal planning and prep had become a nightmare. I really had started to avoid it in unhealthy ways and we were eating A LOT of sandwiches.

Luckily, a friend staged an intervention and this is when I met my soul mate the crock pot (AKA The Slow Cooker).  Suddenly, dinner was no longer deli hour at my house.  However, I quickly found myself dismayed to discover that cooking pasta, especially crock pot mac and cheese, was not really a thing. Well, it was, but like a soggy and ewww gross I’m not eating that kind of thing!

My Mac and Cheese Mission

Really, the only recipes I found that seemed to be okay require cooking the macaroni noodles ahead of time. Um hello, this is CROCK POT Mac and Cheese people, what is the point if you have to actually pre-cook the main part of the meal and you also end up with other dishes to wash at the end of it all? No. Thank. You. Totally defeats the purpose.

Surely crock pot mac and cheese must be possible?  I decided to make it my mission to come up with not only an easy recipe, but one that wouldn’t end up with mock throw-up gestures from my children at the dinner table. After a little trial and error, I think I’ve found a crock pot mac and cheese recipe that actually works. Plus, there is NONE of that silly pre-cooking nonsense. Who has time for that?!

Okay, but let’s be real here. Pasta cooking in a crock pot all day is just not happening. If you have hopes of dumping it all in before you walk out of the house in the morning and coming back 8 hours later to perfect crock pot mac and cheese, that is a dream. A dream I admire, but still a dream.  Crock pot mac and cheese really only takes a couple of hours, so plan accordingly.

Crock Pot Mac and Cheese

Ingredients:

1 Package Elbow (Macaroni) Noodles

1 can evaporated milk

1 12 oz package of cream cheese

1 8 oz package shredded cheddar (mild or sharp depending on preference)

3 1/2 cups milk

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp paprika

Optional for Breaded Topping:

2 Tbsp butter

1 cup panko bread crumbs

Crock Pot Mac and Cheese Directions:

Place the evaporated milk, milk, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and paprika in your slow cooker bowl and whisk together. Next add the shredded cheese and stir into the liquid. Finally add the cream cheese and the noodles.

Set the slow cooker to LOW for 3 hours (only low, if you cook it on high it will be mush).  After the first hour, stir the ingredients together just to make sure the cream cheese is blending in.  At the end of the 3 hours, it is possible that the crock pot mac and cheese may be a bit thicker than you want. This is a thicker version of mac and cheese, it’s not going to be like the stuff out of the box. However, you can absolutely thin it down a bit by adding some more milk and stirring.

Also, if you want to replicate the taste of a more old fashioned baked mac and cheese, you can melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a small fry pan and then add 1 cup of bread crumbs. (Yes, I know an extra pan, but it’s SO worth it!) Cook just until bread crumbs begin to brown.  Sprinkle on top of the finished mac and cheese when serving, I particularly love the presentation in little white Ramekin Bowls.

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