Keto Mac and Cheese with Real Noodles

This Keto Mac and Cheese recipe is a cheesy, noodley comfort dish that you can bake up in just 30 minutes.  It’s a keeper.

Jump to:

• 👨‍🍳 Who invented Mac and Cheese?
• 💬 Low carb dieters often ask...
• 🧀 The Keto Cheese Sauce
• 🥓 Optional Add-Ins
• 🍝 The Low Carb Noodles
• 💬 What does "net carbs" mean?
• 📖 Instructions
• 📋 Recipe

Greetings my cheese-loving friends. 👋

Today we’re going to make some Keto Mac and Cheese and talk a little bit about the where, when, and why of how it came to be.

👨‍🍳 Who invented Mac and Cheese?

No one knows for sure, but the idea of combining macaroni noodles and cheese sauce goes back to the colonial era, a heady time when Yankee Doodle put a feather in his cap and called it "Macaroni". So it's old.  Thomas Jefferson was an early adopter who spread the word about the delights of Macaroni and Cheese from the South to the rest of the country.  

But modern-day macaroni and cheese came into existence during the Great Depression.

People in dire straights turned to cheap processed foods like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinners. These meal kits included uncooked macaroni noodles and powdered cheese packets that mixed with milk and butter to become a poor man’s cheese sauce.  Or you could just use Velveeta, a substance so processed that the FDA won’t even let them call it “cheese” anymore.  

They have to call Velveeta a “cheese product”.

💬 Low carb dieters often ask...

🧀 The Keto Cheese Sauce

Since cheese is not only allowed on Keto but encouraged, we are going to go a little crazy. This tasty cheese sauce has no fewer than four cheeses. And if you have some other cheese you want to include, well throw it in there. The more the merrier!

• butter
• cream cheese
• heavy cream
• sharp shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• shredded mozzarella cheese
• shredded parmesan cheese
• ground paprika
• salt and pepper

🥓 Optional Add-Ins

My recipe is very basic, but you can load up your Keto Mac and Cheese with some optional add-ins if you like. Try adding ½ teaspoon garlic powder and ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper along with the paprika. Or bacon. So many dishes can benefit from the flavor of bacon. Fry 4 slices of bacon in a pan and crumble into bits. Sprinkle on top of the cheese. And finally, for a little more texture and crunch, you can top the whole shebang with a mixture of ¼ cup pork rind panko crumbs, ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese, and 1 tablespoon melted butter.

🍝 The Low Carb Noodles

The secret to this low carb Mac and Cheese is the noodles. Instead of trying to pull the wool over your eyes and using cauliflower florets in place of real noodles, we're going to use one of the two low carb pasta noodles that are currently on the market. The Great Low Carb Bread Co. noodles have 7g net carbs per serving and the ImPASTAble noodles have 8g net carbs.

• Great Low Carb Bread Co. Elbow Noodles
• ThinSlim Foods ImPASTAble Penne Noodles

💬 What does "net carbs" mean?

This is an important concept in low carb and Keto diets, so it’s best to understand the idea behind it.  The way we calculate net carbs is to take the total amount of carbohydrates in a food and subtract the fiber because our body can't digest it or get any energy from it.  It passes right through you, without making a dent in your low carb diet. So even though ImPASTAble and the Great Low Carb Bread Co. noodles have the same amount of total carbohydrates as normal pasta, they contain so much fiber that there are far fewer grams of net carbs.

If you like this low carb noodle recipe, then you might like my Keto recipes for Keto Ramen Soup, Cold Peanut Noodle Salad or Lupin Flour Fettuccine.

📖 Instructions

1. Get out an 11 x 8 inch or 9 x 9-inch baking dish.
2. Boil a large pot of salted water.  Add pasta and cook for 10 minutes until tender.  Drain.  Add pasta to a large bowl.
3. In a medium-sized saucepan, over Medium heat, melt together butter, cream cheese, and heavy whipping cream.  Stir until completely melted with no clumps of cream cheese left.
4. Stir in 1 ¼ cup cheddar, 1 cup mozzarella, and 1 cup parmesan cheese and cook until fully melted and smooth. You can change the ratio, so long as it adds up to 3 ¼ cups of cheese.
5. Remove from the heat and stir in the paprika.  Taste for salt and add salt and pepper if desired.  How much salt you need will depend on how salty the cheese you use is.
6. Pour the cheese sauce into the bowl of pasta and mix to combine.  Pour the mixture into the casserole dish. 
7. Top with remaining ½ cup cheddar cheese and broil it in the oven for 1-2 minutes until cheese is melted.  If you like it browned on top, then you can broil it for 3-4 minutes.  Keep a close eye on it though, because it will go from browned to burnt very quickly.
8. Store leftovers in an airtight container for up to 5 days in the refrigerator or up to 6 months in the freezer.

That’s all there is to making Keto Mac and Cheese.

In about 30 minutes, you can bake up a melty, cheesy, noodley comfort food masterpiece.

And you won’t have to resort to “cheese food” to do it.

Ok, chow for now!

(But let's keep in touch.)

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📋 Recipe