Layered Chili Mac and Cheese

Layers of creamy macaroni and cheese and spicy beef chili in a casserole topped with crunchy tortilla chips and baked until gooey.

Layered Chili Mac and Cheese

By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

My recipe of the day is for a layered chili mac and cheese casserole, which combines two of my favorite foods this time of year: chili, plus creamy macaroni and cheese. It’s being posted jointly with a group of blogging friends for National Cheese Lover’s Day.

Umm…that’s all of us, right?

Look how yummy it is.

Personally, I think this is the bomb for game day because it feeds a crowd, plus, it offers the classic choice of tailgate chili, and everybody loves mac and cheese?

Except that one person who we all know. Well, more for the rest of us.

This starts of by making a nice garden variety chili- nothing too fancy or Texan, and not necessarily spicy, although it has some.

Then we cook up some macaroni and mix it up in a creamy bechamel sauce, that has been loaded to the hilt with cheddar cheese.

The macaroni gets spooned onto the chili mixture.

And then spread it out with a spoon.

This is topped with crushed tortilla chips, which I didn’t bother to measure. Just grab a few handfuls out of the big bag, crush them in your hands, and sprinkle away. Top that with a little bit extra chili powder. I didn’t measure that one either. Would you?

As you can see, it transforms while baking into a golden delicious, creamy, melty, gooey cheesy thing you can’t wait to spoon into. So let’s get to it, shall we?

It’s all part and parcel of:

National Cheese Lover’s Day

Look at all that Cheese! I don’t know where to start.

At the top, maybe?

Method:

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Heat a pot of salted water to cook pasta.

In a large skillet, brown the beef with the onions, pepper, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin.

Then drain off any fat.

Stir in the chili powder along with the tomato sauce and diced tomatoes.

Simmer mixture for ten to fifteen minutes, then stir in the beans.

Spread the chili in the bottom of a large oven-proof casserole dish (lasagna pan).

Cook the macaroni in the boiling salted water until tender (see package for precise timing, which differs per brand), then drain.

While pasta cooks, heat the butter in a skillet (I just washed out the chili skillet and used again), and stir in the flour, salt and pepper to make a roux.

Add the milk and stir until thickened, about one minute after it comes to a boil.

Remove from heat and add the shredded cheese, stirring until it melts. Don’t do this on the heat or your cheese might break and become unpleasantly grainy.

Stir the drained pasta into the cheese sauce.

Spread the mac and cheese on top of the chili.

Sprinkle with crushed chips and a touch of chili power.

Bake the casserole about twenty minutes or until hot.

From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com

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