Lauren Miyashiro is the Recipe Director at Kitchn. A former New Yorker, she lives with her husband, two daughters, and dog in the Bay Area, where she is currently on the hunt for good pizza and bagels. She can turn almost anything into a crunchwrap and almost always has a batch of on-demand frozen cookie dough in the freezer.
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The secret to the best-ever homemade macaroni and cheese? Using the right cheese. If you’ve ever ended up with dry, greasy, or bland results, the reason could be your cheese. The type of block you choose to grate can seriously affect the taste and level of creaminess.
While you can’t go wrong with sharp cheddar (it’s by far the most popular choice!), we like to play around with different cheese combinations. Below are our favorite cheese duos.
Quick Overview
What Is the Best Cheese for Mac and Cheese?
Sharp cheddar is the overwhelming popular choice, but for extra-creamy results, we think medium cheddar is even better. Other delicious options include Gruyère, smoked Gouda, and Monterey Jack.
Pick a cheese that melts well. Cheddar, Gruyère, Monterey Jack, mozzarella, Fontina, and Gouda cheese are good options.
Grate your own cheese. The preservatives in the pre-grated stuff can make it tougher to melt. Plus, it never tastes as good.
Play around with the cheese combos. Homemade mac and cheese is not an exact science. As long as you’re working with cheese that you know will melt well, you can play around with the combinations and proportions.
Sharp Cheddar + Medium Cheddar
You’ll find a lot of recipes that call for sharp cheddar cheese to make the homemade cheese sauce, and we totally get it. It’s generally easy-to-find and affordable, melts beautifully, and tastes delicious. But after a lot of testing, one of our most trusted recipe developers, Patty Catalano, declared that medium cheddar is the best option for ultra-creamy mac and cheese. It has more moisture and therefore melts more easily than sharp cheddar and yields a noticeably creamier sauce.
Sharp Cheddar + Gruyère
When we want to channel our inner Ina, we go for Gruyère. It melts similarly to cheddar, but has a lovely nuttiness that tastes kinda fancy.
Medium Cheddar + Monterey Jack
If you have picky eaters, this is the mildest, very creamy, and most kid-friendly combination. Try a ratio of 1:1 in our go-to stovetop mac and cheese recipe.
Sharp Cheddar + Smoked Gouda
We recently tested six celebrity baked mac and cheese recipes and discovered our favorite included not one but two types of smoked cheeses (smoked cheddar and smoked provolone.) Smoked Gouda is generally easy to find and balances the sharpness of cheddar perfectly.
Parmesan (or Pecorino Romano) + Any Flavor Combo
We’d never make mac and cheese with just Parmesan, but just a quarter cup adds a lot of sharp depth of flavor.
If You Don’t Want to Make a Roux, Use Any Combo + Cream Cheese
For a quicker, easier, one-pot mac and cheese, use pasta water as the base of the sauce and cubed cream cheese as the binder. Then use any combo of melting cheese from above that you’d like.
For a mac and cheese recipe, consider the combination of sharper cheddar cheeses and a flavorful Parmesan. This cheese adds a boost of fruity, nutty notes to your favorite macaroni recipes. Parmesan is also ideal for grating on top of mac and cheese before you bake it to add golden color.
Brie is known as the "Queen of Cheeses" and is beloved for its light, buttery, salty taste and smooth, creamy texture. Brie has a thick paste that turns wonderfully runny when left at room temperature and has an edible bloomy outer rind. Brie is one of the most popular types of cheese to grace a charcuterie board.
Cooking your noodles in milk instead of water makes your resulting mac and cheese creamier. According to The Kitchn, cooking your noodles in milk instead of water makes the sauce creamy before you even add the cheese sauce.
Hard cheeses are best with spreadable foods like jam, while soft cheeses go great with crunchy nuts and crackers. The consistency of the cheese is another important factor. Cracker cuts are great to grab and easier for guests than soft, spreadable cheeses.
"Stir in about 2 Tbs. of milk per 1 cup of mac and cheese and reheat," he says. The milk loosens up the pasta and helps create the creamy sauce as it's reheating. Heavy cream works well in this case too and adds an extra touch of richness to the mac and cheese.
Feta has a high moisture level and doesn't melt properly, so it would clump rather than give you a smooth sauce. This also goes for cheeses like queso fresco and paneer.
Can you put too much cheese in mac and cheese? Yes, adding more cheese than a recipe calls for will not improve the dish. Too much cheese will result in a dish that is heavy and greasy.
That final layer of cheese on top isn't just for looks; it also helps keep the saucy noodles underneath from drying out during baking. Breadcrumbs also help insulate the noodles, acting as a protective layer while baking that also happens to add a nice little crunch.
Cheese Pairing: The Gala apple is perfect for snacking or as a topping on a salad. It's crisp fragrant flavor is best enjoyed with the naturally-aged bite of Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar. The combination is balanced and perfect for an afternoon snack.
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