Chasing the perfect Mac and Cheese

[lowcountrygamecock]

I'm chasing the perfect smoked mac and cheese recipe and don't know where to start. For comparison sake, Heim bbq in Ft Worth has a green chilli mac and cheese that's fantastic. Texture and flavor are off the chart and what I'm looking for. I could modify without the green chilli's and be fine but that's the texture and cheesyness that I'm after.

Most people's baked mac and cheese comes out with soft noodles. I want some chew to my noodles and don't know how to get that.

Cheese is the other big one. My wife's baked mac and cheese is good but the cheesy part comes out curdled if that makes any sense. Almost looks like cottage cheese and I don't like it.

Any suggestions for where to start? Recipes are all over the place and that's a time consuming and slightly expensive thing(depending on the cheese) to test a bunch of different recipes.

 

[Brokenhandle]

As far as noodles go I'd say don't cook them as long to boil them at first. I've seen as short as like 4 minutes compared to the approximate almost 8 minutes for aldente.
Cheese mixture comes out almost curdled... could also be grainy? That's what used to happen to mine. Not sure I can explain it as good as others but your roux is breaking. This last batch I made came out really good... just left the milk sit out on counter to warm... never heated it.
As far as cheeses go... it's all over the place. Try making as small batches as you can to keep costs down and prevent as much waste as possible.

Ryan

 

[dazdnaz]

Look into sodium citrate it smooths out the texture of the cheese by preventing the oils from separating.

 

[voyager 663rd]

Curdled-->heat was too high when melting the cheese.

Want some chew? Your mac noodles have been cooked too long.

Want 'stringy' so to speak? Add provolone to it.

Use 10% cream instead of milk for creamier.

Best tip though is to use a lower heat.