Best Mac and Cheese Recipe from Famous Chefs

Few dishes inspire more passionate loyalty than mac and cheese. Whether you like yours creamy, crusty, or extra-cheesy, everyone has a beloved version, and it’s a favorite on holiday tables as well as throughout the year. Many holiday feasts are not considered complete without a dish of bubbling, creamy mac and cheese alongside the turkey and stuffing.

To find the ultimate recipe, we tested five of Food & Wine’s top-rated mac and cheese recipes in the People Inc. Test Kitchen, where I, along with a team of recipe testers, tasted each recipe side by side. We skipped past any stovetop recipes and focused on those that spent some time baked in the oven for a more classic, tableworthy presentation for the holidays. We judged them based on flavor and texture, with some consideration based on the ease or difficulty of the recipe, to determine which versions delivered the best results. From classic béchamel-based options to rich custard-style bakes, each contender offered a different spin on the beloved comfort food. 

In the end, one recipe stood out as the perfect blend of richness, texture, and nostalgia — a Southern-inspired, crowd-pleasing masterpiece that proves why sometimes the simplest approach is best.

Winner: Nikki Miller-Ka’s Southern-Style Mac ’n’ Cheese

Cook time: 40 minutes
Total time: 1 hour

Nikki Miller-Ka is a food writer and the voice behind Nik Snacks, a food blog that combines restaurant coverage, recipes, and essays and personal dispatches. Miller-Ka’s deep culinary roots in North Carolina often lend a Southern accent to the dishes she creates. A case in point is her recipe for Southern-Style Mac ‘n’ Cheese, which uses a rich egg-based custard and three kinds of cheese with elbow macaroni. 

The recipe begins by coating the casserole dish with softened butter, which is an important step that creates one of this recipe’s tastiest features. Next, a combination of heavy cream, milk, bay leaves, salt, and pepper is brought to a boil, and the macaroni cooks in this liquid for just four minutes before being drained over a bowl to catch the rich liquid. Three eggs get whisked in a large bowl, and the reserved warm cream mixture is gradually added. At that point, a block of softened cream cheese and dry mustard go in, and then a whole pound of extra-sharp cheddar is folded in along with the pasta. Half the mixture goes into the baking dish, where it gets blanketed with Colby-Jack cheese then topped with the remaining pasta mixture. The dish is covered and baked for about 30 minutes, then uncovered, sprinkled with more Colby-Jack, and broiled for a few minutes.

This mac and cheese is seriously rich, wonderfully dense, and supremely creamy. Some testers even thought it would be equally good with about a half pound less cheese. The sharp cheddar’s bite stands out, softened by the milder Colby-Jack, with a subtle tang from the cream cheese and faint woodsy notes from the bay leaves. The noodles are perfectly cooked, holding their shape and offering a satisfying bite on their own thanks to being boiled for only a few minutes at the beginning and finishing in the oven.

Perhaps the best part was the crusty edges created by the pasta mixture butting up against the buttered edges of the dish as it bakes. The flavor of this mac and cheese is pure nostalgia, with a satisfying, thick texture. The cheese-to-noodle ratio felt just right, the pasta held its shape without turning mushy, and the cheese melted smoothly. If you put this out on your holiday table, make sure to serve yourself first, as it’s guaranteed to get gobbled up fast.

Runner-up: Grace Parisi’s Mac and Cheese with Buttery Crumbs

Cook time: 1 hour
Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes

As a former senior test kitchen editor for Food & Wine and the author of five cookbooks, Grace Parisi is known for her expertise in recipe development. Her Mac and Cheese with Buttery Crumbs illustrates her knack with flavors and textures, earning a close second place to our top pick.

The starting point for this mac and cheese is a simple béchamel sauce. Equal parts butter and flour are cooked together briefly, then half-and-half is whisked in until smooth and thickened. Two kinds of cheese get stirred in until melted (colby and sharp cheddar), along with Dijon mustard, a hint of freshly grated nutmeg and cayenne pepper, and salt and pepper. 

Elbow macaroni is boiled until al dente and combined with the cheese sauce and additional sharp cheddar and colby. The mixture goes into a buttered baking dish and gets topped with a combination of plain dry breadcrumbs and melted butter. It’s baked for 45 minutes, until bubbly around the edges and golden on top.

The resulting mac and cheese feels classic but still special. The cheese is cubed, so the second addition that’s stirred in just before baking delivers little molten surprises in every spoonful. A hint of Dijon and nutmeg deepens the flavor. And because the topping is made with fine dry breadcrumbs, it bakes into a sturdy, crispy crust whose contrasting texture enhances the effect of the creamy pasta underneath.

This mac and cheese delivers cozy, homey charm and comfort. The dish doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, but it adds a little flair with the pockets of melted cheese and the crunchy topping. As the mac and cheese sits, the cheese sauce seizes slightly, though, making the dish seem a bit stodgy — so it’s definitely best enjoyed shortly after baking.

Best grown-up mac and cheese: Benoît Guichard’s Macaroni Gratin

Cook time: 33 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes

Chef Benoît Guichard trained under influential French chef Joël Robuchon, eventually succeeding Robuchon as head chef at the two-Michelin-starred Paris restaurant Jamin. His Macaroni Gratin, with its rich, heavy cream–enriched béchamel and use of Gruyère, feels more elevated than the usual mac and cheese.

When we first remade this recipe for our mac and cheese face-off, we decided to make a few changes. The recipe originally called for cooking penne and smashed garlic cloves in three quarts of milk, most of which never made its way into the final dish, and to sprinkle the cheese on top only instead of working it into the sauce. We changed those elements but kept the original flavor and integrity of the dish intact. 

We decided to boil the pasta and garlic cloves in water instead of milk but kept Guichard’s technique of adding ice cubes to the pan to both prevent overcooking the pasta and keep it from drying out, since it’s held in the cooking liquid until it’s ready to be combined with the sauce. 

While the pasta cooks, grated garlic steeps in milk, then a béchamel sauce gets made with the warm garlic-infused milk along with heavy cream, salt, freshly grated nutmeg, and freshly ground white pepper. We decided to stir some of the Gruyère into this sauce to lend more cheese flavor throughout. The pasta mixture goes into a baking dish and more Gruyère goes on top. It’s baked for 10 minutes, then broiled for a few minutes to brown the top. 

With freshly ground white pepper, heavy cream, deep garlic notes, and fresh nutmeg, this gratin leaned in a decidedly French direction. The look of it — with its white color and atypical pasta shape for this type of dish — felt elegant and elevated. The garlic flavor was prominent, giving this a more grown-up feel. If you’re looking for classic, family-friendly mac and cheese, you’d do best to skip this one. But for nights that deserve candlelight, wine, and an easy kind of romance, this Macaroni Gratin brings a hint of Paris to your table.  

Best cheesy flavor: Bryan and Michael Voltaggio’s Mac and Cheese With Cracker Crumble

Cook time: 35 minutes
Total time: 1 hour

Brothers Bryan and Michael Voltaggio are celebrated chefs known for their mid-Atlantic cuisine and modernist cooking techniques, respectively. Their Mac and Cheese with Cracker Crumble is a unique take on a homey classic that uses an ingredient from the modernist pantry.

The recipe starts with boiling radiatore pasta until al dente, then transferring it to a baking dish. Meanwhile, milk and sodium citrate (the secret ingredient) come to a simmer, then extra-sharp cheddar, a splash of Worcestershire, and salt go into the sauce. The sauce goes over the pasta in the baking dish, and a combination of crushed Ritz crackers, melted butter, grated Parmesan cheese, and black pepper gets sprinkled on top. The mac and cheese is baked for 20 minutes, until the pasta mixture bubbles and the topping is lightly browned. 

Sodium citrate, available online, allows you to use a high-flavor aged cheese while achieving a smooth, gooey texture in the sauce. (We offer a roux alternative if you don’t want to purchase sodium citrate.) The extra-sharp cheddar delivers a pleasant tang and deliciously cheesy flavor, and the mac and cheese has a smooth, saucy texture similar to melted American cheese. 

The buttery Ritz cracker topping bakes to a golden, toasty, streusel-like crust, giving just enough crunch to balance the rich, velvety sauce beneath. We didn’t love the pasta shape, though, as it didn’t hold onto the sauce as well as we had hoped. A shellbow or elbow macaroni might make a better choice. 

Richest custard-based mac and cheese: Marja and Jean-George Vongerichten’s Marja’s Mac-and-Cheese

Cook time: about 1 hour
Total time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Acclaimed French American chef Jean-George Vongerichten is one of the most famous chefs in the world, with many restaurants worldwide. Marja’s Mac-and-Cheese is his wife’s take on humble mac and cheese, a recipe that he loves so much that he had it on the menu of his now-closed New York restaurant Mercer Kitchen.

The recipe starts with elbow macaroni that’s boiled for just three minutes so that it doesn’t overcook as the mac and cheese later bakes. Then a rich custard of heavy cream, half-and-half, milk, eggs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper is whisked together. Shredded extra-sharp cheddar, sharp cheddar, and Monterey Jack cheeses are then stirred in, along with the parcooked pasta. This mixture goes into a baking dish and cold cream cheese cubes are scattered on top. After it bakes for a few minutes, the cream cheese (now melted) is spread over the surface, and the mac and cheese continues to bake for about 40 more minutes. It’s finished under the broiler for a little browning.

With four different cheeses, heavy cream, half-and-half, and whole milk, the finished dish is ultra-rich. It’s slightly creamy but not lusciously saucy, and the pasta retains some pleasant bite because it’s wisely undercooked at the beginning. The sauce does get a bit curdled but is not grainy; we felt that the familiar texture is the nature of the beast with this style of mac and cheese because of its custard base. It reminded us of old-fashioned potluck mac and cheese — rich in cheddar flavor, with wonderfully crispy edges.

Final takeaways

After tasting through all five recipes, we realized that mac and cheese is best when it stays closer to its homey, humble roots. The more elevated version from Benoît Guichard was delicious but lacked the cozy, craveable, familiar quality that makes mac and cheese so beloved.

The winner reminded us that the best mac and cheese doesn’t need high-end tricks or avant-garde twists — just thoughtfully layered cheese, perfect pasta, and a bit of Southern soul. Ultimately, though, you’d be well served by any of these recipes, as each one delivers its own style of cheesy, carb-rich goodness.