‘The Pioneer Woman’: Ree Drummond’s Easy No-Bake Mac and Cheese Is Ready in Just 20 Minutes
Ree Drummond’s four cheese mac and cheese recipe is an easy 20 minute meal that’s perfect for a weeknight dinner. The best part is you don’t have to bake The Pioneer Woman star’s cheesy dish and it doesn’t sacrifice any of the delicious flavor.
Ree Drummond’s no-bake mac and cheese is a quick weeknight dinner idea
Drummond demonstrated how to make her no-bake ‘mac and four cheeses’ recipe on an episode of The Pioneer Woman. “I’m making Bryce his absolute favorite food on Earth — mac and cheese,” she explained. “I’m going to put a little bit of an Italian spin on it. He’s going to absolutely love it.”
While the macaroni boiled, Drummond made the easy cheese sauce. She added heavy cream and butter to a pot set over medium heat. “This is definitely a treat,” she said. “Very, very rich and decadent.”
The Pioneer Woman star added a garlic clove to the mixture, explaining, “As it melts, the garlic will infuse the butter and cream and just add to the deliciousness of the mac and cheese.”
Drummond shared the cheeses she uses in the recipe. “One of the cheeses I love to put in this Italian mac and cheese is goat cheese.” She used a fork to crumble it then grated three other cheeses: fontina, parmesan, and romano. “I love using fontina for mac and cheese. It’s really, really creamy, really smooth,” she said.
‘The Pioneer Woman’ star’s mac and cheese comes together quickly
Once the components of the pasta dish are prepped, it’s so easy to put Drummond’s mac and cheese together. She removed the garlic clove from the cream and butter mixture then added the cheese to the pot. She drained the macaroni and placed it in the pot to help melt the cheeses. “There’s a little bit of water on the macaroni so that’ll help the sauce with the consistency,” she noted.
“I love this sauce. A lot of times when I make mac and cheese I start with a white sauce and then add the cheese. This is so much easier — it’s basically just cream and cheese, macaroni, stir it all together.”
She added salt and pepper then stirred the ingredients together. “It is absolutely perfect,” she explained. After sprinkling parsley over the mac and cheese, she boasted, “I mean, this is a work of art. It should go in a museum.”
The full recipe is available on the Food Network website.
Ree Drummond’s sheet pan mac and cheese recipe has an easy trick
Drummond also has a sheet pan mac and cheese recipe that requires baking it in the oven and she has an easy trick that makes it extra yummy.
After making the cheese sauce and adding the cooked macaroni to it, she stirred everything together. While she was preparing the mac and cheese, she placed a half sheet pan in the preheated oven.
“I’m going to show you a little trick,” she explained on an episode of The Pioneer Woman. “I put the sheet pan in a 425 degree oven a while ago but it is very, very, very hot.”
After removing the pan, she sprayed it with nonstick spray, then poured the macaroni and cheese into it. “And not only do you get that sort of crisp surface on the top when it bakes, it also gets off to a good sizzly start before you even put it in the oven,” she explained.
The mac and cheese got an extra topping of cheese before going into the oven.
You can find the full recipe on the Food Network website.
