Like most parents of young children, I fell into a pattern of making mac and cheese regularly for my children, and then, unexpectedly, I fell in love with it myself. I made so many versions of it – Nigella’s, Felicity Cloake’s and Kenji López-Alt’s – and decided that the one I loved best (again, unexpectedly) was a glossy, out-of-a-box artificially cheesy-tasting type dressed with a garlic oil reminiscent of the supermarket garlic bread I used to eat as a kid. Let’s call it nostalgia? I’ve spiked the oil with lime and chipotle here, just for fun, but you could always keep things traditional, if you prefer.
Mac and ‘cheese’ with garlic and parsley oil
You’ll need a blender or a stick blender to make this.
Prep 10 min
Cook 35 min
Serves 4
160g shelled cashew nuts
20g nutritional yeast
1 tsp garlic granules
1 tsp onion granules
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp cider vinegar
¼ tsp smoked paprika
⅓ tsp turmeric
Fine sea salt
300g macaroni
Olive oil, to drizzle on the pasta
For the garlic and parsley oil
65g parsley, woody stems removed, the rest roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
120ml olive oil
2 tbsp lime juice
½ tsp chipotle chilli flakes
½ tsp fine sea salt
Put the cashews and 250ml water in a medium-sized saucepan that’s big enough to cook the pasta in later. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook for eight minutes. Drain the nuts and discard the water.
While the cashews are cooking, make the garlic and parsley oil: put all the ingredients in a blender and blitz until very well chopped. Transfer to a small bowl and rinse out the blender.
Put the drained cashews into the blender, then add 160g cold water, the nutritional yeast, garlic granules, onion granules, mustard, vinegar, paprika, turmeric and a half-teaspoon of salt and blend until very smooth.
In the same saucepan you boiled the cashews in, bring two litres of water to a boil, add two teaspoons of salt, then cook the macaroni until al dente, according to the packet instructions. Near the end of the cooking time, scoop out a mugful of the starchy cooking water, then drain the pasta, return it to the pan and drizzle with a little oil.
Put the pasta back on a medium heat, add the “cheese” sauce, then stir and toss, adding the reserved pasta water a couple of tablespoons at a time – I ended up using 12 tablespoons in all, or 180ml – until the sauce turns creamy and coats the pasta.
Divide the pasta between four plates or shallow bowls, spoon over the garlic and parsley oil, then serve.
