Your Roux Is Giving You Greasy Mac And Cheese
Cheesy, creamy and suffused with nostalgia, mac and cheese is the very definition of comfort food. Each forkful warms the belly and soul, evoking memories of childhood, whether your mom made Kraft's blue box version or not. Home cooks all over the U.S. have their own secret recipes for what they consider the best, but if you've never made it before, there are a couple of pitfalls that can result in a greasy mac and cheese, one of which is how you make the roux.
Unless you're opting for a quick fix like a 2-ingredient mac and cheese sauce using cream cheese and shredded cheddar, most recipes start with béchamel, one of the five French mother sauces. To make béchamel, you start with a roux which is an equal parts mixture of butter and flour, and therein lies the first pitfall. If you do not have an accurate 1:1 ratio, the roux will either taste like flour or become too greasy. While it's necessary to cook the roux to its first stage, otherwise known as a white roux, cooking it too long can also be detrimental to your mac. If it becomes too dark, roux has less thickening properties, making it less absorbent and unable to efficiently combine with liquids like milk, the next ingredient in béchamel.
There's another reason why your mac and cheese may be oily
Once you've mastered roux-making to produce an ultra-creamy béchamel, the cheese might be another reason your mac comes out greasy. It begins with choosing a cheese that melts well, but also has a lot of cheesy flavor. A medium to mild cheddar will melt best, but mixing in others like Gruyère, fontina, and Monterey Jack adds a lot of depth and flavor to your homemade mac and cheese.
Most importantly, shred the cheese when you add it to the béchamel sauce, then take it off your stove top and let the residual heat do all the work. Overheating your sauce can cause fat to separate from the cheese proteins, resulting in a greasy mac and cheese. Once you've got the knack of it, your family and friends will be clamoring for your secret recipe for mac. You could even add in a few extra ingredients to seriously upgrade that mac and cheese.