This Common Mistake Is Ruining The Texture Of Your Mac And Cheese

While a classic comfort food like mac and cheese might be easy to assemble, it can be deceptively difficult to make just right. Macaroni and cheese has become so popular that it's increasingly difficult to live up to the high standards people expect. Plus, even a simple mistake can sabotage a cheese sauce, making this dish trickier than it might seem. 

One particularly common mistake that could be ruining the texture of your mac and cheese is over-mixing. While you might know to avoid too much stirring with your baked goods, this can also be a surefire way to destroy your mac and cheese. While over-mixing can turns cake from fluffy to dense, it can make a bowl of mac and cheese turn from silky to gummy. The first way that you can potentially make this mistake is when boiling your pasta. Over-stirring pasta isn't a good idea due to the starch content. The more pressure put on the boiling dough the more starch is released — making the pasta soft and gummy. To do a good deed for your macaroni, don't hover over your pot of pasta while it boils. Simply occasionally stir your pasta, as needed, to prevent them from sticking together.

The second way you can over-mix your macaroni and cheese is when folding in your cheese. Just like with the pasta step, excess starch is the enemy to avoid. When adding cheese to your macaroni pasta, over-stirring can lead to an incohesive mix. Over mixing essentially prevents the cheese from being able to slowly melt together into one creamy mass — leaving you with a bowl of stringy cheese instead. to avoid this sad state of affairs, mix all the ingredients in your recipe together until just combined. While it might be satisfying to whisk all that creamy goodness, it does more harm than good to over-stir. Remember that the cheese will melt on its own, so be patient and stir gently to let the ingredients do the work for you.

Other, not stirring related, mistakes that you might be making with your mac and cheese include only using one cheese, which can lead to a bowl lacking in flavor, or not adding enough spices to cut through the creaminess. Remember, there are a lot of ingredients that can seriously upgrade your mac and cheese, and that, just like anything in the kitchen, the secret to making the ultimate mac and cheese includes a healthy mix of practice and determination. (And of course, a whole lot of happy eating.)