It's time for recipe of the day.Once upon a time, I had a very large quantity of cooked macaroni, plain macaroni in the fridge from testing macaroni and cheese recipes, of course.
And what I wanted to do was make some mac and cheese cups for the freezer for my kids to snack on, you know, just like microwave and have.And so I went online searching for recipes and was very dismayed to find
that most of them have you make a stovetop cheese sauce first, mix it with the macaroni, then put it into the muffin tins and then bake them.I wanted something quicker.
I wanted to just be able to put the leftover macaroni into the muffin tin, add some kind of like custard sauce that I've mixed together in a bowl and have those in the oven like 10 minutes later.
And so the testing began and I'm happy to report that this recipe is amazing, delicious, and so easy.Prep time is 10 minutes. and they're in the oven 15 minutes, and then you're done.Cheesy little macaroni and cheese cups.
Great use for not only leftover macaroni, but any kind of leftover pasta.To make a full batch, you'll need three cups of cooked pasta, and that can be cooked elbow macaroni.It can be slightly bigger shapes like penne or rigatoni.Those are fine.
Just before you bake them, you want to make sure that they're kind of pushed down in the cups because any pasta that's sticking up when it's baking, kind of like gets darker and dry.I don't like that very much.
And then if you have like strand pasta, like spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, that's great too.You just want to cut it a little bit so that it's like bite-sized pieces.And that's all you have to do to that.
What I do is I put the pasta into a bowl and then I take a pair of clean kitchen scissors and just kind of go into the bowl, sharp edge and chop, chop, chop a few times. and that cuts those strands up easily.
So if you have some leftover cooked pasta, this is what you're gonna do.Start by preheating the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.And then in a small bowl, you're gonna whisk together three eggs, a quarter cup of milk,
And then some seasonings, a half teaspoon of salt, a half teaspoon of paprika or smoked paprika, and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper.You can add other things if you want.You can do garlic powder, you could do some dried mustard.
Those are all gonna be great, whatever you feel like.And then you can optionally also add a half cup of shredded Parmesan cheese, like finely shredded, right?
And that's gonna just whisk in with the eggs and the milk and kind of spread through everything. but the Parmesan cheese is optional.And I will tell you that my kids actually prefer these without the Parmesan cheese.So up to you and your family.
If you love Parmesan, go for it.If you're not Parm lovers, skip it.Okay, so you whisk up that egg mixture really well, and then you're going to get out some shredded cheddar cheese or shred some cheddar cheese.
You're gonna need one and a half cups total, but you're gonna start with half of that.Three quarters of a cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese.You could use other kinds of melty cheeses if you want.
You just really need it to be something that is going to melt because it's going to melt.And then that along with the egg mixture is what's going to bind it all together.Okay.
So you're getting three quarters of a cup of your shredded cheese and you're dividing that among the 12 cups of a standard sized muffin tin. and it's going to be about a tablespoon of cheese per cup.
I just want to say you really want to use a non-stick muffin tin here.I've done a whole bunch of testing.Okay.The non-stick is great.You don't have to spray it or anything.They pop right out.
Sometimes a little cheese is going to get stuck and you'll need a little like plastic knife to get it out, but they're great.If you have a regular metal muffin tin,
They work, you just need to grease the bottom really well, and then later when they're cooked, you'll be running a knife around the edges to get those out.I've also tried this with disposable metal muffin tins.
They're not great, they didn't brown very well, and I think all those little folds, if you could picture, all those disposable foil baking things, how they have all those crinkles and folds.
The custard and cheese seem to get into those and make it harder for it to come out.They didn't look as nice.Finally, I will say I have tested this with cupcake liners and it does not work.
They don't brown very well, so you don't get that nice cheesy brown stuff on the outside.But more importantly, the cupcake liners and the cheese and custard mixture stick together really, really badly.
And it's very hard to get them out of there to eat them.You almost end up just kind of like breaking them into pieces to eat them.So not great.
I have heard that there are parchment paper cupcake liners that probably would work with the cheese and the custard, but I don't have those and I haven't tried it.So if you just have a standard cupcake liners, don't try it.
If you're adventurous and want to try the parchment paper ones, give it a try and then let me know how it works for you.
Okay, so what we've done is we've gotten three quarters of a cup of shredded cheese and we've divided that among the 12 cups of a standard nonstick muffin tin.Like I said, it's about a tablespoon of cheese per muffin tin.
And then you're going to divide your three cups of pasta between those 12 cups.So that just goes on top of the cheese. And then you go in with your other three quarters of a cup of shredded cheese.
So another about a tablespoon of shredded cheese per cup.Then you're gonna pour about two tablespoons of the egg mixture over the pasta and cheese in those muffin cups.Actually, it's not quite two tablespoons.
I think it's best to go with one tablespoon each, do all the 12 and then divide the rest among them.And it depends on really how big your eggs were and if you use the Parmesan or not.So yeah, that's the best way to do it.
One tablespoon per cup and then a little bit more in each one. and then you top each one with about a teaspoon of panko breadcrumbs.Sprinkle those over and then that muffin tin goes into the oven just until the egg is set and the tops are browned.
It's about 15 minutes.Bring them out.You can take them out of the muffin tin right away or leave them for a few minutes so it's easier to handle. Like I said, if you're using the non-stick, you might need to loosen the odd one around the sides.
Just use a plastic knife, like a disposable plastic knife or a rubber spatula and loosen that and they will pop right out.Now, these will keep in a sealed container in the fridge for up to four days.
And then to reheat them, you just put them in the microwave for 30 seconds, or you can put them in the air fryer at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for six to eight minutes, just until they're heated through.
The microwave makes them warm but kind of softened, whereas the air fryer gives them a little more crunch.You can reheat them in the oven as well.It's going to be about 8 to 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.And then you can freeze them as well.
So if you want to freeze them, put them into a zip top freezer bag or container.But really, at first, you want them not touching each other.So lay the bag flat and then distribute them
across the bottom of the bag so they're not touching, seal them, and put them into the freezer like that.
Once they're frozen, like the next day, you can go jumble them up and then they will store better in your freezer and they will keep in there for a couple of months.
Then you can thaw those in the fridge first and then you use those same reheating instructions I gave you, or you can heat them directly from the freezer
if you are microwaving them from frozen it's one minute at power level 50 so at like defrost or 50 percent and they're going to be warm enough or you can air fry them straight from frozen for 10 to 12 minutes at 300 degrees fahrenheit and that is my
my super easy use for leftover cooked pasta.I can't wait for you to try these.They're just so like decadent, delicious, great snack, a great side dish.They also make a really good appetizer because everybody loves mac and cheese, right?
I will put the link to this recipe in the show notes for this podcast episode, or you can head to cookthestory.com slash R-O-T-D and get it there.Everything there is arranged by date.So it's helpful to know that today is November 11th of 2024.
I also share the link to the recipes in the Facebook group for this podcast, so you can always find the recipe that I'm talking about there.Go to facebook.com slash groups slash recipe O-T-D.I look forward to seeing you there.
I'm Christine Pittman from cookthestory.com, thecookful.com, the all new chicken cookbook, and from this podcast recipe of the day, I hope you have a great day.Let's get cooking.
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