We’ve harvested alot of broccoli this season. Every single plant produced a beautiful big head of broccoli. You guys know I love broccoli already, but do you know I love macaroni and cheese too? Macaroni and cheese is a comfort food and it holds dear memories of my father making me dinner every single day he was home from work during high school. He knew I loved that mac and cheese so he made it once a week, I was a very happy girl. Thanks Dad!
So what happens when you mix comfort food with happy harvest? You get one of my favorite broccoli dishes: Baked Broccoli Macaroni and Cheese. I love macaroni and cheese of all sorts. I’m fine with the box, I’m super fine with homemade. I’m fine with it made with cheese that comes in a foil package (Where my Velveeta fans at?), I’m super fine with a baked version. This recipe is a in between, yes it’s baked, but the inside of the dish is still soft and cheesy and gooey. It’s just perfect, the best of both worlds.
So if you like mac and cheese and you like broccoli, this dish is for you!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup elbow macaroni
- 4 cups broccoli florets
- 1/2 cup butter
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard powder
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 2 cups milk
- 8 ounces Velveeta cheese
- 8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese
- 1/4 cup bread crumbs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Boil water and cook macaroni as instructed on box. When there is 3 minutes left, add your broccoli to the boiling pot. Drain and set aside.
- In a saucepan melt your butter over medium heat. Slowly add flour, dry mustard and pepper until it's smooth.
- Add your milk slowly and keep stirring until it's smooth.
- Add in your cheese and continue to stir until it's smooth.
- Take off burner.
- Add your macaroni to cheese mixture saucepan and stir until all noodles are coated.
- Transfer your mixture to a baking dish. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top.
- Cover and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly.
- Enjoy!
We have a big bag right now full of broccoli. Every time I open it I just smile and breathe in the scent of broccoli.
For this recipe, you need 4 cups of florets. I leave mine pretty big.
For this, we’re going to cook our macaroni, then when there’s 3 minutes left we’re going to throw our broccoli in too. This means only one pot to clean. High 5.
Drain and set aside for a few minutes.
Hello cheese. I love you so much. I like to use 2 different versions of cheese for this recipe so I use good ol Velveeta and Monterey Jack.
Shred it however you want. I was lazy so I put it in my food processor.
Now we want to start to make the cheese sauce so get your butter melted.
Then add in your flour, dry mustard and pepper. You’ll want to mix quickly until it’s smooth.
Then add your water and keep stirring.
Then your beautiful cheese. This take a few minutes for it to melt, but keep stirring.
Great job, some yummy cheese sauce there.
Take your macaroni and broccoli and add to the cheese sauce.
Perfect!
Transfer to a baking dish.
You can see here it’s still pretty soupy, but this cheese is going to melt beautifully and hold it all together.
Add your bread crumbs and into the oven it goes…
And out pops out this beautiful dinner after 20 minutes!
The bread crumbs are just slightly golden brown, just how I like them.
And see how the cheese all melted together and it’s no longer too wet, instead it’s gooey and cheesy and oh my!
Serve some up. You can add some bread on the side if you’d like too. Who doesn’t like bread on the side?
And enjoy this broccoli macaroni and cheese!
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