Favorite Mac & Cheese – a quick & easy side dish or meatless main dish. Super easy to make and tastes great! Macaroni, cheddar cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese, milk, egg, cajun seasoning, and paprika. Can make in advance and refrigerate or freeze for later. The whole family gobbled this up! #macandcheese #casserole
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Pin This RecipeMac & Cheese with Cottage Cheese
This Mac & Cheese is a favorite at our house. We make this at least once a month, if not more often. It is super simple to make and tastes great! This makes a great side dish or meatless main dish. You can even throw in some ham, chicken, pulled pork, ground beef, or broccoli in the pasta mixture and make this a main dish casserole.
How To Make Macaroni & Cheese From Scratch
As I said, this Favorite Mac & Cheese is super easy to make. The hardest part of the whole recipe is boiling the pasta. You don’t have to make a roux and a cheese sauce. Just cook the pasta, mix in the remaining ingredients and bake.
This recipe uses cottage cheese. I know a lot of you have an aversion to cottage cheese. I don’t eat cottage cheese out of the container, but it is wonderful in casseroles. It makes this Macaroni and Cheese Casserole so creamy and delicious. I urge you to give this recipe a try with the cottage cheese!
Feel free to swap the cheddar cheese for your favorite cheese. Any shredded cheese will work just fine in this recipe. You can also omit the cajun/creole seasoning if you are worried about the heat.
Can Macaroni & Cheese Casserole be Frozen?
You can make this Macaroni & Cheese ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze for later. If baking this after refrigerating, you may need to add 5 or 10 minutes to the baking time.
To bake the casserole after freezing, thaw completely and bake as directed below. To reheat the casserole after freezing, thaw completely and cover with aluminum foil. Bake the covered casserole at 350ºF for 30 to 40 minutes.
What to Serve with Easy Mac & Cheese
We absolutely LOVE this yummy Mac & Cheese. It is definitely a favorite! This is great with dinner and at potlucks. Everyone needs a quick and easy potluck recipe in their arsenal. We make this Favorite Mac & Cheese year-round. It is great with chicken, pork, steak – anything! Here are a few of our favorite recipes from the blog that go great with this yummy casserole:
Favorite Mac & Cheese
Ingredients:
- 2 cups elbow macaroni, uncooked
- 8- oz package shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 cup cottage cheese
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg beaten
- 2 tsp cajun seasoning
- 1 tsp paprika
Instructions:
- reheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly spray a 9×13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
- Cook macaroni according to package directions, just until tender; drain.
- Meanwhile, combine cheeses, sour cream, milk, egg and cajun seasoning in a large bowl.
- Add cooked macaroni; stir gently to coat well.
- Transfer to prepared baking dish; sprinkle with paprika.
- Cover with greased aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover; bake for an additional 30 minutes, or until bubbly and golden.
Notes:
Steph
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Pre culinary school and years of cooking professionally…I was a teenage girl and babysitting. The mom made this type of mac and cheese and I loved it. Fast forward years later children of my own and I get nostalgic and get a hunkering for that mac and cheese with the cottage cheese and sour cream. This is what I remember…thanks!
This is the recipe I used to make but, I lost the recipe when I last moved & wasn’t sure on the amounts. Thank you! The taste reminds me of the filling of stuffed shells or the cheese layer in lasagna. Much less bland than typical mac & cheese. I will sometimes saute onions to add, tho they certainly are just a personal preference. Making it tomorrow for a family gathering!
This sounds delicious and I want to give a try was just wondering if I wanted to split the recipe from 9×13 to 2 smaller sizes what you would recommend? Its just my daughter and myself so it’s handy to make one and have two, one for the freezer for later. Your recipes are delicious!! We have tried almost all the grilled chicken marinades. Thanks for all the work you put into testing recipes.
Either an 8×8-inch pan or 9×9-inch pan.
I am not a fan of cottage cheese but this recipe is sooooo yummy. Kid approved! The only change I made is adding pepper, seasoning salt and a dash of garlic salt. I topped the casserole with more cheese before adding the paprika. I plan on adding this as my regular mac and cheese recipe! Thank you!
YAY! So glad everyone enjoyed it!