November 25, 2025
Cheeseboard Mac and Cheese
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A delicious leftovers inspired cheeseboard macaroni cheese, stuffed with all of your favourite cheeses, chutney and more!
Even though we all know how much I adore sweet baking, and all things patisserie, but I am actually more into savoury food than I think a lot of you will realise. If I can use up a lot of different things from the fridge to create a delicious pasta bake, then I am there.
Macaroni cheese
I wanted to create this recipe because the idea is that involves the idea of leftovers, if they exist in your life. As a base recipe, it’s also just delicious if you really wanted to go down the indulgent route when it comes to a macaroni cheese.
I have my basic macaroni cheese on this blog already, but this one is a festive version that is utterly scrumptious. A pasta bake is my go-to dinner idea, but I realise it doesn’t always seem too festive for some. However, it’s comforting and cosy and that is what matters.
The base sauce
This is a béchamel type sauce, where I start off with butter in a pan. I always use real butter in my cooking as I prefer it, and you can use salted or unsalted. I melt the butter into a pan until bubbling slightly (feel free to make this into burnt butter for a delicious nutty flavour) and then I add in the flour.
The flour is how the sauce thickens, and it’s very important. You mix the flour with the melted butter, and basically cook the flour on the heat for a short while to make sure the thickening agent will work later on, but to also make sure that it doesn’t just taste floury.
Once you have cooked the flour out for a while, I use a whisk to slowly pour in my milk. It’ll turn quite thick, but the slower you add it the less chance you have of lumps as you’re giving it a chance to incorporate properly.
Once you have added in all of the milk, keep stirring the mixture so it starts to thicken on a low heat, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan to prevent any ingredients catching in the sauce.
Flavouring the sauce
Most people will likely have a way of making a cheese sauce already, like I do in my lasagne, or you use a jar. Any form of sauce is fine, but I want people to see how easy it is to make it from scratch, or inspire a slightly different way from your normal.
I always season my cheese sauce with salt and pepper, and usually some garlic and mustard as well. I love garlic, it should basically run in my veins at this point, and even though I am not a huge mustard fan, it really does bring some magic to a white sauce.
When adding any season, add a little, give it a taste, and add a little more if you wish. Remember that the cheese from the cheeseboard can also be quite salty or flavoursome, so go cautiously.
The most important part… the cheese.
I love a basic cheese, your normal cheddars, a little parmesan, anything like that. However, I love a cheeseboard cheese. I do also love cheese at Christmas, but I usually get to this at the end of the day after an already insane amount of food, and I never eat as much of it as I want to or can.
On this occasion, I used a mixture of a French brie, mature cheddar, red leicester, Wensleydale with cranberries in it, and a blue stilton, and whilst it may sound like a lot, once your melt everything down into a pan, it tastes INCREDIBLE. I’m not usually a blue cheese fan, but once you add it to something it really does help.
In general though, you are really aiming for about 350g worth of cheese, and as long as you can grate or crumble up the cheese, and it can melt, you’ll be in for a winner. I grate the harder cheese, and also try to grate most of the softer cheese, even the brie, and just crumble the rest up into a bowl so it’s ready to go.
Making the macaroni cheese
I always start a macaroni cheese, or any pasta bake for that matter, but cooking the pasta until it’s aldente. You want to aim for a maximum of 2-3 minutes less of the cooking time that is normally required, because by the time it bakes in the sauce it will soften more. Often, however, with macaroni pasta as it’s smaller, I only boil it for 3-4 minutes and then drain and rinse in cold water to stop it from cooking as I make my cheese sauce.
I start the cheese sauce as I have mentioned above, by making the base white sauce, and then seasoning. I then tip all of the cheese into the pan and let it melt into the sauce. This can take a few minutes, but because of the nature of some of the cheeses (such as the cranberries in the Wensleydale), there may be some lumps left and that’s nothing to worry about.
I pour the cooked pasta into my baking dish, and then pour on the cheese sauce. Stir this together, and then you can either bake now, or finish it off like I do. To make it even more cheeseboard like, I dollop on some small spoonfuls of chutney (caramelised onion is my go to choice, and again, always leftover on the cheeseboard) and I also crumble over some crackers for a nice crunch.
All of the toppings are not essential, but they make it even more elite. I also love a sprinkle of parmesan or parmigiana, but that is just always ready in the fridge for cooking in my life. Bake the macaroni cheese in the oven until golden, and perfect.
Tips & Tricks
- This is best served fresh, like any pasta bake.
- I use macaroni pasta as I like it, but you can use any pasta you want really. Just make sure to undercook the pasta so it doesn’t become too soft once baked in the dish.
- You can reheat this – it won’t be as saucy once reheated, because reheating always takes out more moisture, but it will still be delicious.
- Any cheese works, just make sure you can grate it or melt it and it should work – use what you like!
Cheeseboard Macaroni Cheese
Ingredients
- 350 g macaroni pasta
Cheese sauce
- 50 g unsalted butter (or salted)
- 50 g plain flour
- 1 tsp mustard powder
- 2 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
- salt & pepper
- 650 ml whole milk (one pint)
Cheeseboard
- 300+ g cheeseboard cheese (see blog/notes for details)
- 100 g chutney (see blog/notes for details)
- 50 g crackers
- 25 g parmesan (grated)
Instructions
- Cook the macaroni pasta for maximum two minutes less than the packet instructions and then drain and set aside
- I usually cook macaroni pasta for only 4 minutes, and then run it under cold water to stop it from cooking whilst I make the sauce
- Preheat the oven to 200ºc/180ºc fan and grab a large baking dish
- Add the butter to a pan, and melt on a medium heat
- Add the flour and mix together. Increase the heat to hot and cook the flour out for a minute or two
- Gradually add the milk to the pan, whisking well each time, until you have added all the milk. Add very small amounts at first as it will need to mix with the flour and this prevents lumps.
- Once you have added all of the milk, add the mustard powder, garlic, salt and pepper.
- Simmer the sauce for 5 minutes, stiring well, so that the mixture doesn't catch on the bottom if the pan
- Remove the pan from the heat and add the grated or crumbled cheeses of choice and allow to melt into the sauce.
- Pour the pasta into a medium sized baking dish, and pour over the sauce. Stir together to combine
- Dollop over small spoonfuls of chutney, and then sprinkle on some crushed crackers for crunch. I also add a small amount of parmesan on the top here too.
- Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until golden. Serve immediately and enjoy!
Notes
- This is best served fresh, like any pasta bake.
- I use macaroni pasta as I like it, but you can use any pasta you want really. Just make sure to undercook the pasta so it doesn’t become too soft once baked in the dish.
- You can reheat this - it won’t be as saucy once reheated, because reheating always takes out more moisture, but it will still be delicious.
- Any cheese works, just make sure you can grate it or melt it and it should work - use what you like!
- I used a mix of mature cheddar, Red Leicester, cranberry Wensleydale, blue stilton and brie
- I used caramelised onion chutney as it's my favourite on a cheeseboard. I also used any random crackers
Enjoy!
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