Recipe Collection: Feta and Chorizo Mac’n’Cheese {Guest Post}

This is a guest post by Brittany Fisher of Honest to Goodness Living.  In March and April, we are sharing several guest posts as MAM awaits and enjoys her baby!

I have a confession to make.

Before my real food days, I was a die-hard boxed mac n’ cheese fan.

You could make me homemade mac n’ cheese every which way to Sunday, and I’d still tell you that I preferred the powdered stuff with a bit of skim milk and butter. My, oh my, do I bow my head in shame about that now.

But it gets worse, you see, because when I began ridding our pantry of processed junk at the beginning of our real food journey, I found a couple boxes of mac n’ cheese… and I just couldn’t part with them. And yet I’ve never convinced myself to eat them either. So there they have sat in my “convenience food” tubs where I keep my popcorn, homemade beef jerky and fruit snacks… just waiting to find their final resting place.

So, when a friend messaged me the other day about her guilty pleasure of boxed mac n’ cheese the night before… I was tempted. Oh so very, very tempted. But every time I thought about making it and actually eating it, I couldn’t help but ponder with every delicious imaginary bite what sort of might-as-well-be-lethal chemical I was spooning into my body. But the craving was there nonetheless.

So I created a challenge unto myself: create a homemade version of mac n’ cheese that blows the boxed kind out of the flimsy cardboard (and into the trash).

Well, I’m happy to say I accepted the challenge… and I won.

Enter my newly crowned recipe: feta & chorizo mac n’ cheese. Rich, creamy cheesy goodness meets a healthy combination of sweet and spicy in this melt-in-your-mouth (and gluten-free) dish that everyone from kiddos to food snobs can enjoy!

The beauty of this recipe is not only it’s deliciousness… it’s the fact I only dirtied one pot and dish in the process. For someone that likes to keep the kitchen clean as I go… this makes my life SO much easier!

Feta and Chorizo Mac’n’Cheese

To create, simple use your pot to cook the noodles according to the package directions and then strain and set aside.

Then, using the same pot (or if you don’t care about dirtying two pots you could do these steps simultaneously while cooking the noodles in a different pot) add your milk, butter, and cream cheese and begin cooking over low heat.

Once the base of your cheese sauce is mostly melted, add in 1/2 cup of feta and spices, continuing to stir and cook over LOW heat (low heat is key so your dairy doesn’t burn/curdle – slow and steady wins the race here). One of the odd ingredients here is the ground mustard – but I’m telling you, it makes the dish!

While that continues to cook over low heat, chop up your chorizo sausage and crumble your remaining feta (unless it’s already crumbled).

Then sprinkle in your chorizo and pea and stir into the sauce until combined/warmed.

Then simply stir your cooked noodles into the sauce and spread into an oven-safe dish, which you will then sprinkle with the remaining (1/4 cup) feta and bake for about 10-15 minutes until nice and melty/bubbly.

Pull it out of the oven and be transported back to childhood fantasies of mac n’ cheese goodness! Enjoy!

What is your favorite real food mac’n’cheese recipe?