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.
- 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)
- 3½ 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
- 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.
- 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. Cook just until bread crumbs begin to brown. Sprinkle on top of the finished mac and cheese when serving.
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Jenna says
Hi, I got your recipe as a recommendation from my friend. Love the recipe! I was just curious as to if you have ever made this recipe in the instant pot before?
Kira Lewis says
I’m afraid I have not, but I don’t think it would work. The Instapot is so different than the slowcooker.
Laura says
Cream cheese comes in 8 oz packages. The recipe says 1 – 12 oz package cream cheese. So is it 1 – 8 oz package OR 1-1/2 packages (12 oz)?
Thx.
Kira Lewis says
8 oz, I’m so sorry about that. I’ll get it corrected quickly. Funny you are the first person to catch it. 🙂
Alicia says
How much macaroni does the recipe call for? The box I bought is 2 lbs and that seems like too much..
Kira Lewis says
I used a standard box of macaroni, which is 16 oz.
Mauri King says
YUM! This looks absolutely delicious! Macaroni and cheese will ALWAYS be my favorite meal, no matter how old I am. While I admittedly still don’t mind it from a box, I’m always on the hunt for a good homemade mac & cheese recipe, especially one that’s creamy and isn’t sticky! I’ll have to try this one!
And I’m totally with you on the crock pot philosophy! I saved a slow cooker recipe to make the other day, but as I was preparing it before we left the house, I realized I was going to have to do more work to finish the recipe when we got back home. (Clearly I didn’t read the entire recipe before deciding to make it.) The entire reason I wanted a slow cooker recipe that day was so I could throw it all together, set the crock pot on low, forget about it, and then eat it as soon as we got home! I didn’t want to do more work! Looking forward to trying this mac & cheese recipe! 🙂 – Mauri @ http://www.theamericanpatriette.com