Pumpkin Mac and Cheese
This one pot pumpkin mac and cheese is silky smooth, loaded with bacon and topped with a generous pile of toasty brown butter sage breadcrumbs. Perfect for Thanksgiving!
One Pan Wonder
I used my trusty Dutch oven for this recipe, since it does pretty much everything and I didnβt feel like doing a ton of dishes. Another benefit to using one pan is that as the dish progresses, the flavors continue to build on each other as you cook each element.
For example, the bacon cooks first, and while you do drain the grease out, thereβs still little bits of bacon and swipes of the grease left. When you add the butter and sage to toast the breadcrumbs, the crumbs take up the rest of that bacon flavor as well as the sage.
After that, the cheese sauce grabs anything else thatβs leftover from both the bacon AND the sage breadcrumbs. So all the flavors of the dish are in and with the final product. I love that about this mac and cheese!
Secret Sodium Citrate!
Thereβs no chance of this velvety smooth pumpkin mac and cheese breaking or getting greasy, despite the total lack of βprocessed cheese product.β Thanks to a not so well kept secret ingredient, the cheese sauce stays decadently smooth no matter when you eat or reheat.
Sodium citrate is the ingredient in βprocessed cheese productβ that keeps everything so melty and smooth. The only problem with using the cheese product itself is that it tastes like salt, rather than actual cheese.
Cheese
Speaking of the cheese, this pumpkin mac and cheese includes extra sharp white cheddar, gruyere, and parmesan. All three are delicious separately and even more so all together. Now do you understand why I didnβt want to mask those wonderful natural cheeses with βprocessed product?β
These cheeses all go well with the pumpkin and arenβt too off the wall in their flavor. Which means this mac and cheese is the perfect crowd pleasing Thanksgiving side! Whatβs more, since the sodium citrate stabilizes the cheese sauce, this dish can sit out for as long as it takes for everyone to grab seconds and even thirds.
Breadcrumbs
The finishing touch! Topping off this pumpkin mac and cheese with a generous pile of toasted sage breadcrumbs. Sage + pumpkin + cheesy = SO GOOD.
I like to toast the crumbs until theyβre a medium golden, since this dish does spend some time in the oven to finish crisping them up. Avoid burning them at all costs once they DO go in the oven, since itβs nearly impossible to get the burned taste off of the pasta once it happens.
Pumpkin Mac and Cheese
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour + 15 minutes
- Yield: 5 cups cooked pasta & cheese 1x
- Category: Sides
- Method: Stovetop, Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
This mac and cheese is velvety smooth, perfectly cheesy and piled with toasty sage breadcrumbs.
Ingredients
For the breadcrumbs:
- 4 TB unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup fresh minced sage (measured after mincing)
- 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
For the mac and cheese:
- 2 TB all purpose flour
- 2 tsp sodium citrate
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground mustard powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp cayenne
- 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
- 8 oz short pasta (I like to use medium shells)
- 1/2 pound bacon (about 7-8 strips)
- 1 3/4 cups + 3 TB whole milk, divided
- 3 oz extra sharp white cheddar cheese, finely grated
- 3 oz gruyere cheese, finely grated
- 2 oz parmesan cheese, finely grated
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Combine the flour, sodium citrate, salt, mustard powder, onion powder, pepper, cayenne and nutmeg together in a small bowl and set aside for easy grabbing later on.
- Bring 3 quarts of well salted water to a boil in a 5 quart Dutch oven and cook the pasta shells until soft al dente, about 7 minutes. Drain and set aside. Donβt worry about washing the pot, return it to the stove over medium high heat.
- Fry the bacon in the Dutch oven until crisp, and set aside. Drain the bacon grease, return the pot to the stovetop and reduce the heat to low.
- Add the butter and allow to melt completely and foam, then return the heat to medium. After a minute or so, the foaming should subside a bit. Add the minced sage and fry until crisp, stirring constantly to keep it from burning.
- Add the breadcrumbs to the butter and sage, stirring frequently until golden and toasted. Add the toasted breadcrumbs to a small bowl and set aside. Try and scrape all of the breadcrumbs out of the pot before making the cheese sauce.
- Place the Dutch oven back over medium heat and add the 1 3/4 cups whole milk. Use the remaining 3 TB of milk to form a paste with the flour/spice mixture. Whisk the paste into the pot until combined and smooth. Continue to cook, whisking frequently, until the mixture simmers.
- Once the mixture is simmering, reduce the heat to low and add the cheese in 3 handfuls. make sure that you whisk well to completely incorporate each handful of cheese before adding the next.
- Once all of the cheese has been melted in and the sauce is smooth, add the pumpkin puree and whisk well until silky smooth and shiny. Remove the Dutch oven from the heat.
- Add the pasta shells/shapes to the cheese sauce and stir to evenly coat. Roughly chop the bacon and add it to the mac and cheese. Stir again to combine.
- Spread the mac and cheese into a single even layer in a 9 x 13 baking dish.
- Top with the sage breadcrumbs and bake at 375 for 15 minutes. This helps to crisp up the crumbs even more and keep the dish warm.
- Serve immediately. Mac and cheese leftovers can be refrigerated in a sealed container for 3 days. To reheat, add the desired amount of mac and cheese to a bowl or dish and microwave on full power for 30 seconds. Stir and heat for another 30 seconds if desired.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/2 cup
- Calories: 461
- Sugar: 4.5 g
- Sodium: 639.3 mg
- Fat: 15.1 g
- Saturated Fat: 8.4 g
- Trans Fat: 0.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 64.7 g
- Fiber: 3.2 g
- Protein: 16.9 g
- Cholesterol: 39.3 mg
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