Skip This Step On The Instructions For Gooey Boxed Mac And Cheese

Since the 1990s (and possibly before), boxed macaroni and cheese has been a staple of nearly every American child's diet at some point. Not only is it incredibly easy to make, it's also fairly filling and a warm, comforting treat on a cold or rainy day. Many of us also took this nostalgic food with us into college dorms and studio apartments, enjoying it in the wee hours after finishing up a 20-page paper or after a shift at our very first "grown-up" jobs.

It's for this reason that many of us are still enjoying this convenient treat well into our adulthood, and sharing techniques for tailoring it to our personal preferences. For instance, even the highest quality boxed instant mac and cheese can be lackluster in the texture department. The best homemade recipes feature lots of gooey cheese sauce made from real cheese, a texture that's tough to replicate with little more than powdered cheese, milk, and butter.

However, bloggers and TikTok foodies alike have discovered that if you skip draining the pasta and simply plop in the cheese powder, milk, and butter, the resulting sauce is a bit more velvety and rich, possibly due to the starches in the pasta water. Using this hack does require a little extra simmering, but you can tighten up the loose sauce with a handful or two of one of those cheeses that are perfect for melting — cheddar is classic, but alternatives like Colby and Fontina bring both flavor and a touch of sophistication.

One of the biggest downsides to this hack is that it requires a lot of extra simmering time to reduce the cheesy water-milk combination into that rich, craveable sauce. This not only means the recipe may take longer, but also that your pasta could get mushy while you're waiting for the sauce to reduce. Fortunately, there are a few tasty alternatives to milk that will thicken things up faster, while adding even more flavor and silky texture.

The first — and possibly most effective — of these choices is adding canned soup to your mac and cheese. Since condensed soup usually needs a little thinning with milk or water, it's the perfect way to remedy potentially watery cheese mac without making things too complicated. Any creamy soup will do, from the expected canned cheese soup to cream of chicken and even good ol' fashioned cream of mushroom. The mushroom pieces add a chewy texture, so if you're not a huge fan of that, try masking it with crunchy additions like bacon bits or even some crushed Cheez-Its or potato chips (this is comfort food, after all).

Another way to tighten up the texture is to add the melting cheese of your choice with cream cheese instead of milk. This classic bagel topping makes an incredible two ingredient mac and cheese sauce that's tangy, creamy, and just delightful. It's even better if you use flavored cream cheese, such as garlic and chive or spicy buffalo.