Skip to main content
Main

Baked Macaroni

A baked pasta dish of macaroni, cheese, butter, and milk, layered and cooked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Baked Macaroni

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Break the macaroni into short pieces.

  2. Cook in boiling salted water for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the macaroni and layer it in a greased baking dish.

  4. Strew grated cheese and bits of butter over the macaroni.

  5. Repeat the layering until the dish is full, finishing with cheese and butter on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour in the milk.

  2. Cover the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Uncover and bake until browned.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk and structure of the dish, holding the layers together.
Milk
Provides moisture that softens the pasta and forms a creamy sauce as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers and browns on top, adding richness and flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown and the dish taste rounded.

The step that matters

Cover, then uncover to brown. Baking covered first traps steam so the pasta cooks through and the milk sets into a moist layer. Uncovering at the end lets the surface dry and brown; leaving the cover on would leave the top pale.

“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.

More baked macaroni recipes

and Cheese 52with Tomato Sauce 8with Cheese 3with Oysters 3with Tomatoes 3 See all 50 →

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes