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Green Chili Macaroni and Cheese

A baked macaroni and cheese with green chili, cilantro, and jalapeño soy cheese.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,130 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ovenbroiler

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, soy (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Coat an 8-inch square baking dish with cooking spray.

  2. Preheat the broiler.

  3. Bring a medium saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil.

  4. Add the macaroni and stir to prevent sticking. Cook until just tender, about 6 minutes.

  5. Drain the macaroni well and set aside.

  6. In a food processor or blender, whirl the bread to coarse crumbs. Transfer the crumbs to a small bowl. Stir in cilantro, salt, and mustard.

  7. Set the crumb mixture aside.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the onion, chipotle, and scallion. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is tender, about 4 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour. Cook, stirring, until the mixture is fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes.

  4. Stir in 1/4 cup soy milk until no lumps remain. Stir in another 1/2 cup soy milk until smooth. Stir in the remaining 3/4 cup soy milk.

  5. Increase the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring, until the mixture boils gently and thickens enough to leave a track on the bottom of the pot, about 2 minutes.

  6. Stir in the jalapeno soy cheese just until melted. Stir in the macaroni until coated.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the macaroni mixture to the prepared baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle with the reserved crumbs.

  3. Broil just until the top is browned, about 1½ minutes, watching carefully to prevent burning. Serve hot.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Bread + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + jalapenotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together488 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Elbow macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and holds the sauce in each bite.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and soy milk into a smooth, stable sauce.
Soy milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that carries the cheese.
Jalapeno soy cheese
Melts into the sauce to give it body, creaminess, and a mild chili flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and cooks the onion and aromatics gently.
White bread
Toasts under the broiler into crumbs that add a crisp, browned topping.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce before adding the cheese. Flour must cook in the hot fat and liquid until the sauce boils and thickens; if it is undercooked the sauce stays thin or tastes floury. Adding the cheese only after thickening, and off the hardest heat, keeps it smooth rather than stringy or grainy.

Flavor stand-ins for the jalapeno

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, mustard, butter, onion, sauce, flour, soy milk):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Capersbetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Jalapenothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, mustard, butter, onion, sauce, flour, soy milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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