Sunday, September 7, 2008

Chipotle Mac and Cheese

We get a craving for Mac and Cheese in this house almost weekly, so instead of buying boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese, we've been stepping it up with lower fat and fuller flavor versions.

Usually we fulfill our craving with our old standby Stovetop Sausage Mac and Cheese, (which we often make with Mango Chipotle Chicken Sausage, rather than the Sun dried Tomato sausage it calls for) and decided to try Chipotle Mac and Cheese.

The recipe begins simple enough with the dicing and sauteing of the onion, green pepper, garlic and chipotle peppers in some butter.


Forgive the blurriness...Then we added flour and a can of diced tomatoes after a quick change to a larger pot.



We cooked that down and then added the milk, cheeses (cheddar, cottage cheese and parmesan), egg and noodles and poured it into a casserole dish.



We topped it with Panko bread crumbs and popped it into the oven for 30 minutes. The end result...


It was good, but admittedly not as good as our standby, Stovetop Sausage Mac and Cheese. The Chipotle Mac and Cheese was almost too spicy (maybe I shouldn't have been so generous while chopping up the chipotle), but I also missed the creaminess that we tend to get with our stovetop version. And the stovetop recipe is all around more convenient because even though it takes about the same amount of time to prep, we don't have to wait 30 minutes for it to bake when making it. The one plus, its fewer WW pts. coming in at 7 pts per serving compared to the stovetop mac, which comes in at 9 pts. per serving.

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