Creamy Evaporated Milk Mac n’ Cheese

All you need is 3 ingredients and 1 pot to make this decadent and creamy stovetop mac ‘n’ cheese. The extra protein in evaporated milk is the key to getting a classic creamy texture and rich flavor.

Video: Making Evaporated Milk Mac And Cheese

Why Does This Recipe Work?

For this mac and cheese recipe, you don’t have to make a separate sauce that is then mixed with the cooked pasta. Instead, the sauce is made right in there with the cooked pasta, so you only dirty one pot. 

And, amazingly, this recipe’s only ingredients are macaroni, evaporated milk, and cheese (plus water and salt, of course). But it’s the way the pasta is cooked, and the very particular properties of the evaporated milk that emulsify to create the sauce. If you want to make the sauce even creamier, you can add an extra ingredient – some cold butter.

There are similar recipes out there, but I think I’ve managed to make this the easiest and cheesiest it can be. My simple ratio below also allows you to make as much or as little as you need and still have it turn out perfectly.

What Is An Emulsion?

This recipe is all about maintaining an emulsion. In cooking, that means a mixture of two liquids that wouldn’t usually smoothly mix together. Some emulsions are temporary, like oil and vinegar in a salad dressing. Others are more permanent, like egg yolks and oil combining into mayonnaise. 

For this macaroni recipe, it’s the cheese sauce that is the emulsion. Many cheese sauces use flour and butter to make a roux or add cornstarch, which is the base for the emulsion which keeps the sauce smooth and held together. Here, it’s instead the starch contained in the pasta water and the specific kind of milk we’re using that play that role.

Years ago, when developing a one-pot pasta recipe (now on my sister site, COOKtheSTORY, but originally posted here) that cooked the pasta in stock and cream, I realized that I could add the cheese directly in and still get a wonderful emulsion for the sauce. I simplified that even further with this easy mac and cheese recipe. 

Use Very Little Water When Cooking The Pasta

We’re cooking the pasta in very little water, to concentrate that starch as the pasta cooks. Then the starchy water is part of the sauce, and part of what helps with the emulsion. 

We also use starchy pasta water for my Velveeta Macaroni and Cheese where the water emulsifies with the processed cheese for an easy, creamy sauce.

What Kind Of Milk?

For this recipe you need to use evaporated milk. It has a large proportion of milk proteins, which also helps a lot here to create the rich, creamy sauce. Read here from Serious Eats about the science behind how this mac n cheese sauce works.

I want to be very clear here that I mean canned milk that is labeled “Evaporated Milk.” NOT canned milk that is labeled “Condensed Milk.” Condensed milk is often sweetened and you do not want to use that.

Also, when it comes to your choice of evaporated milk, you do not want a low-fat or fat-free or skim version. You want the full-fat evaporated milk. Sometimes this states “whole milk” but sometimes it just says “Evaporated Milk.” To be sure that you have the correct one, avoid anything labeled as reduced fat, low-fat, fat-free or skim, and you’ll be fine.

Don’t substitute other kinds of milk here or the recipe won’t have the desired result. If you don’t have evaporated milk, scroll down a tad and try one of the other great mac and cheese recipes linked to there.

The Ratio To Double or Quadruple and Beyond

This recipe uses one full can of evaporated milk to avoid waste. But, you can easily halve the recipe. Actually, the recipe is very easy to scale up or down because it works as a nice ratio.

Ratio: For every ounce (by weight) of uncooked macaroni, use 1 fluid ounce of evaporated milk and 1 ounce (by weight) of shredded Cheddar cheese (4 ounces of shredded Cheddar equals 1 cup). Adjust salt to taste. 

It’s actually even easier than that. To put it another way, for every cup of uncooked macaroni, use 1/2 cup evaporated milk and 1 cup shredded cheese.

Extra-High Protein Mac n Cheese

Evaporated milk contains more protein than regular milk (often more than twice as much!), so that makes this recipe a great candidate for when you want an extra-high protein mac. Do the recipe below as written, but use a protein-enriched pasta (like Barilla Protein+ brand), and use bone broth (at least 3 cups of it) instead of water for cooking the noodles.

The resulting full batch of macaroni and cheese will have 150-170 grams of protein, depending on the brands of items that you use. If you’re serving 4 people, that’s 37-42 grams per serving, and if you’re serving 6 people it’s 25-28 grams per serving.

Reheating Instructions

If you make this and refrigerate the leftovers, you will find that the pasta will suck up the sauce. That happens whenever you have pasta in a sauce. For a regular macaroni and cheese recipe, I’d recommend that you hold back some of the sauce, refrigerate it separately, and then stir it in while reheating. That won’t work here because the sauce is made right in with the pasta.

Therefore, what I recommend is that you reheat it slowly, either at 30 second intervals in the microwave, stirring in between, or on the stove over low heat, stirring often. But as you heat it, drizzle in a tablespoon or two of milk, evaporated milk, or even water. It’s going to need the moisture to reform a sauce around the noodles. Once it is fully warmed, reassess and decide if you want to add in any more liquid.

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