Healthy Mac and Cheese Recipe

Healthy Mac and Cheese Recipe

The holidays are especially hard for most people to stay fit and continue to eat healthy. How could it be easy? We have a lot of food choices right in front of our eyes with people constantly telling us how good everything tastes and encouraging us to try it and get additional plates. The winter is probably the easiest season to overeat and pack on the extra pounds.

If you are like me, you do not want a few months to undo all of the hard work that you have done through out the year but at the same time you do not want to deny yourself or your family of the wonderful tastes of food.

Continuing on with last week’s theme of giving you healthy recipes, this easy healthy mac and cheese recipe will give you that same savoring taste of regular mac and cheese without all of the calories. (This healthy mac and cheese is for kids too!)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups elbow macaroni (whole wheat was suggested)
• 1.5 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1.5 cups of skim milk
• 8 ounces (or 2 1/4 cups) of low-fat sharp cheddar cheese that is shredded
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 pinch pepper
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg

Directions:

• Preheat the broiler
• Get a pot, fill half way with water, salt the water and bring to a boil.
• Put the pasta in the boiling salt water and cook the pasta according to the directions on the package.
• While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter in another large sauce pan over medium heat.
• Add flour and cook. Whisk the flour into the butter until it is a golden color which takes about two minutes.
• Continuing whisking while adding the milk in slowly.
• Bring the flour, milk, and butter mixture to a steady simmer by turning down the heat to low. Continue to whisk the mixture until it is thickened which takes about 2 minutes.
• Remove the sauce from head and stir in cheese until the cheese melts
• Drain the pasta and immediately add it to the sauce.
• Stir in Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and nutmeg
• Put mac and cheese in the broiler until the top has a nice goldenness to it (but not burnt). This usually takes about 1- 2 minutes.
• Serve immediately and enjoy!

*I stumbled upon a version of this low calorie mac and cheese recipe while watching “Cook Yourself Thin” one day. It comes out perfect as soon as you make it, however, I made the mistake of letting it sit out for a while and learned the hard way that the longer it sits out, the more the macaroni absorbs the cheese so it can become dry. My fix for this issue is to use a little less macaroni—- like 1.7 cups instead of 2. The original version also said to use bread crumbs and put it in the broiler, but I left the breadcrumbs off (no offense breadcrumb lovers) and just broiled it a little at the end to get that nice brown top.