Delicious dinner: Sneaky macaroni cheese

Thermomix Mac and Cheese {with sneaky vegetables}

Earlier this year I bought myself a Thermomix. I went back and forth on the purchase, ummed and ahhed over the crazy price and did a heck-load of research on it. Everyone is raving about them, have you heard? And so I decided that I definitely wanted to make my life easier, especially with a baby on the way… so I took the leap and I bought one.

I’ve been overwhelmed by it. The things I have made with it have been amazing {bolognese from scratch – including mincing the meat, custard in under 10 minutes, risotto, the best mash ever and the fluffiest orange cake I ever did taste}, but I can’t lie, the machine kinda overwhelms me.

One of the teachers at Lacey’s school is a master at the ‘mix. She uses it every single night, and I’ve been in awe at how she operates. She even took it to school the other day to whip up food for the kids in a little cooking lesson. They made cake, ice cream and herby cheese dip.

So I pulled my machine back out {yes, I had it in hiding it overwhelmed me that much} and decided I needed to make something, at least once a week. And this is what I cooked up this week, Sneaky Macaroni Cheese.

Sneaky Macaroni Cheese {Thermomix or normal method}

I generally don’t hide vegies from Lacey. She’s a pretty good eater, but personally I loved a puree vegetable. I love making mashed potato with whatever I have in the vegetable drawer, and I thought this dish might be nice for everyone to eat. It was. Lacey ate three bowls full for dinner, even though it was meant as just a side. “It’s delicious!” she remarked. She hasn’t taken to zucchini yet, so when she asked if the green stuff was shallots {which she likes} I told a white lie and said yes.

Ingredients

90g cheddar cheese, cut into 1-2cm cubes
50g parmesan cheese, cut into 1-2cm cubes
1.2 litres of water
200g cauliflower, roughly chopped
150g pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1-2cm cubes
1 zucchini, roughly chopped
300g macaroni
50g plain flour
500g low-fat milk
30g butter, cubed

Method

Using the Thermomix
♥ Place cheese into the mixing bowl and grate 10 sec/Speed 9. Set aside.
♥ Place water into the mixing bowl and boil 10 min/Varoma/Speed 1.
♥ Place cauliflower, pumpkin and zucchini into Varoma. Set aside.
♥ Add macaroni to the water. Place Varoma into position and cook 10 min/Varoma/Reverse/Speed 1.
♥ Drain macaroni, and set aside.
♥ Place cooked vegetables into mixing bowl and puree 10 sec/speed 8. Stir through pasta. Remove from mixing bowl and set aside.
♥ Place flour, milk and butter into mixing bowl and cook 6 min/90°C/Reverse/Speed 2.
♥ Add cheese and cook 2 min/90°C/Reverse/Speed 2.
♥ Pour over pasta and combine. Serve warm.

Using pots, pans and normal stuff
♥ Grate the cheeses, using a grater.
♥ Cook pasta on the stove, as per packet instructions. While the pasta is cooking steam the vegetables. You can do this in a steamer over the pasta, or in the microwave. Once the vegetables are cooked, puree them with a hand blender, or if you like them chunky do it with a fork.
♥ Drain pasta, and place into a bowl. Stir through the vegetable puree.
♥ In a saucepan over medium heat, make the sauce. First add the butter and melt, add the flour and stir. You want to cook the flour so it doesn’t get any colour but gets rid of the raw flour taste. This should take 1-2 minutes. Don’t let it get brown. Add the milk and stir until all combined. Bring to a gentle boil, until it thickens. Add cheese and turn off the heat. Stir to combine.
♥ Add sauce to the pasta/vegetable mix. Stir to combine and serve.

This recipe is from the new Thermomix book by Louise Fulton Keats {I received it last week, and thought I’d give a recipe a whirl and share}. I’ve adapted it slightly.

Do you have a Thermomix? What’s your favourite thing to make in it? And sneaky vegetables into kids meals: cool or crazy?

Ingredients

Method

41 thoughts on “Delicious dinner: Sneaky macaroni cheese”

  1. Sounds yummy! Will have to give it a go.

    Do you plan on making your own baby food? I’ve just begun with my 5 month old and I love it! Wish I would’ve tried it with my other children. Super easy and less expensive than store bought jars of food. I found a great website with tons of baby recipes if you’re interested. 🙂

  2. I just bought the Thermomix, still learning to use it, but di far it is awesome, any recomendation where to get recipies, thank for sharing this one, I love your blog 🙂

  3. I have a TM 31, I got it two years ago and I use it everyday, and several times each day! Did you try bisque? (I don’t know which books are translated in which language, but here in France we have a lot of recipes…)
    We love how easily and fast delicious things can be prepared!

  4. Sounds fabulous! I’m going to try and adapt it for Carter and use rice pasta and gluten free flour. I’ll let you know how it goes! xx

  5. Ooooh glad you’ve got a thermomix. I’m getting one for my birthday in July and while I’m very excited about it it’s also a little scary. Learning a whole new way to cook after so long will take time but I like the one meal a week approach. Thanks for sharing the recipe, I’d love to see more as you go along.

  6. I go back and forth on sneaky veggies because I think kids should learn to love veggies, but I have a toddler who doesn’t want to eat anything besides bread, corn, rice bubbles and milk. So I do both. I hide veggies in things he will eat but still offer whole/chopped veggies with all his meals so he knows they’re normal. He’ll try them every now and then, but like just about everything, they end up on the floor with tiny little nibbles out of them.

  7. Thank you for your Thermomix honesty ! I am stil in the the “do I, don’t I” get one phase. I find myself thinking every night that I make dinner ( and often at lunch time too) how would a Thermo do this. I am still undecided !!

  8. We ummed and ahhed for ages, but my fantastic Husband and my Mum and sisters all put in for my 30th and I got one! Love it so much, have too may favourites to choose from, blueberry friands, vanilla ice cream, custards and fresh bread, the list is endless,band I have made so many things I would never have attempted without one. I went from spending a fortune juicing everyday to making fresh Green Smoothies with less than half the fresh produce you need with a juicer and my kids love it too!!
    Thanks so much for your post, great to see the positives as I have found some people are downright negative and rude when it comes to the price, so love reading and hearing from other happy Thermomixers!

  9. Chantelle, my big tip for you: get it out and put on the bench. Create your own 30-day-challenge to use it at least once a day. This is what we did 3.5 years ago as I was determined for it not to be a waste. I got the whole family on board with it too. Now, it’s such a part of our cooking and prep habits that it gets used more than once a day. I convert a lot of old recipes to Thermo ones too. x

    • I 100 billion percent agree with Nikki on this. Ours is out every day for juicing now and it makes a huge difference to how often we use it. Up from weekly and for major cook ups to 3-5 times a week for meals. We’ve had ours for around 3 years now too. Can’t wait to try this, we are MASSIVE mac and cheese fans around here!

  10. I am going to go to a Thermomix party next month, and am very very seriously thinking of parting with a Not Insubstantial Amount of Cashola to buy one.

    I think it does everything. If it could give me a shoulder massage at the end of a hard day, I would marry it.
    cilla

  11. I don’t have a Thermomix (I don’t even know what they look like, or what they actually do), but I have a friend who is raving about hers. She wasn’t a cook to start with though, so I interpret part of her enthusiasm as being excitement at cooking food herself. I love hearing other people’s opinions. I may be swayed one day, but first to get my Kenwood Chef (or similar). 😉

    On hiding veges: I hide veges, and I also serve veges. My kids have gone through various fussy stages, and sometimes it calls for well-hidden veges to keep the balance in the diet right, LOL! I think sometimes when you hide veges, the kids’ tastebuds start to like the flavour, even when they don’t know it is there, helping future acceptance of the offending vegetable.

  12. I don’t have a thermomix but I do want one… badly. 

    I’m not really one for “hiding” veggies, however my 16 month old is going through a super fussy stage and the only thing I can be sure she will eat other than fruit and yogurt is pasta and cheese. I make her Mac and cheese, but right before I add the cheese to the white sauce I put in a heap of kale, spinach, zucchini, garlic, carrot and whatever other veggies we have in the fridge (I whack it all in the food processor raw and blend until it is crumb like.) she gobbles it up, and i feel better knowing she is getting some nutrients and it is delicious. 

    I laughed when i saw this posts title…I call it sneakaroni.

  13. Our Thermomix is in overdrive – we use it every morning for juice and almost every day for dinner, either for a main or a side, and lots more besides. It makes the best frozen desserts and I’ve converted loads of my favourite cake and cookie recipes. We love everything that comes out of it, although the Fruity Dream is probably my best! Lots of my fave conversions are on the blog. This recipe looks like a real winner dinner – I’ll give it a try!

  14. I recently went through the thermomix debate for myself, and ended up not buying one. They are amazing machines but not for us at the moment, mostly because of money. Perhaps one day… I do like the look of this recipe. I love macaroni cheese but always feel guilty eating it. Those sneaky veg will help me feel better about it 🙂

  15. I just want to check… you take out the pasta, take it out of the bowl, then puree the veggies and then take them out of the bowl and then make the sauce? I thought I had better check because I can’t face a Friday food fail!

    • Yes. Cook the pasta. Drain it and take it out – place it into the server. Then place the vegetables in the jug and puree. Then add that to the pasta that’s in the server.

      And then rinse the jug and make the sauce. 🙂

      • This needs adding to the recipe!! I was totally confused even as an experienced TMX cooker.
        My veggies were no where near cooked after 10 mins either, so I’ve actually left them in the bowl to cook with the milk, flour and butter.
        Please edit the recipe 🙂

  16. Well, all of you talking about fussy children and hiding veges……my kids are all grown and living interstate (I live in South Australia) but I do all of the things you do for your kids but for my husband! Honestly, he is such a nit wit when it comes to veges! Also, I had NEVER EVEN HEARD of a Thermomix until just this minute (where have I been you ask?). Well where I have been is living with cancer, falling in and out of remission and as a consequence having chemo quite often and being too tired to cook. Add to this a husband who has severe back problems so that he cannot stand long enough to take over the cooking and you have a good candidate for a Thermomix I feel. Problem…..no cash (we live on a pension) so perhaps it is an unachievable dream. But I do worry that we are not getting decent nutrition so maybe I will have to beg, borrow or steal one. This is not intended as a big moan…..I accept my life and live with it, but I do so worry about nutrition. Any hints, suggestions etc would be very welcome. Oh, and thank you for an amazing blog – I love your philosophy and take on life, your honesty is a breath of fresh air.

    • Oh Susan. What a shitty time you’re going through, but your spirits are still high. I think you could definitely make delicious + healthy meals without a Thermomix… but I hope somehow you can get one too. They’re really handy – and would be good for your husband so he doesn’t have to stand for so long.

      Contact Thermomix and see if they have any demos near you… and then at least you guys can try one. x

      • Thank you for your lovely reply. But you know, you are right, my spirits ARE high and what’s more, your blog raises my spirits too. Love reading about your life and what you are up to. FYI at the moment I am cooking roast pork with roast spuds and pumpkin and LOTS of broccoli and beans as I am having a good energy day! Good grief I love my veges (and so do my grown kids so at least I brung em up right!)

  17. Hey love, I made this yesterday and the kids loved it (win!) – mine was very very mushy and wet though – did you have this issue?

  18. Hi, we never do mac & cheese because of dairy intolerances – any suggestions on what we can add to the sauce if I just leave out the cheese? and do you think it would matter if we left out the butter?

  19. I love cooking with Thermomix, in fact mine is 15 years old, an now I am Thermomix consultant in spain, check out spanish recipes at http://www.cookingconpausan.com, I would love to learn american recipes with thermomix, because I own a american supermarket and here in Spain Thermomix has lot of followers, all together is an amazing mix!

  20. I’d like to make this tonight but don’t have any cauliflower, is there anything else I could use or can I just leave it out?

    Thank you

  21. Delish! Added some Thermie vege stock concentrate & when making cheese sauce I upped the speed to 4 – just like the EDC & it was perfect 🙂

  22. I’ve had my thermomix for 3 years, and love it. But, I saw a lot of friends stop using theirs because of the tricky recipes. So…I wrote some downloadable ebooks of 5-ingredient-or-less thermo cookbooks. They take the pain out of cooking dinner and sweet treats.
    Book 1 is free, and both books are available at http://www.thermocookbook.com
    Enjoy!
    Lisa

  23. Could you please update the recipe to say “remove the pasta from the mixing bowl before making the sauce”. I added the milk and flour and butter on top of the pasta and it didn’t work, and I had to “read between the lines” and make some modifications, I got there in the end but it was a bit confusing. I had a Friday Food Fail (sort of!). Otherwise this is great and tasty! Bub is eating it right now!

  24. I just used gluten free pasta forgetting that it doesn’t require the same amount of time as wheat pasta and ended up with gluggy pasta. Will try again but I must remember to reduce the cooking time.

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