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Roasted Pumpkin Mac and Cheese
A delicious, autumnal twist on a classic. This recipe swaps a cheesy bechamel for a roasted pumpkin sauce, spiked with spices and different cheeses. The beauty of this dish is that you can customise it to your liking. You can use whatever combination of cheese you’d like, and if you’re not a fan of pumpkin, you can swap it out for butternut squash or even sweet potato.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 6 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- ½ large pumpkin
- olive oil
- 1 litre whole milk
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp English mustard powder
- 1 tsp onion granules
- 1 tsp garlic granules
- 400g grated cheeses
- 500g dried macaroni
Instructions
- Heat your oven to 200°C / 180°C fan.
- Cut the pumpkin into six slices. Arrange in a single layer on a large baking tray. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and roast until tender, around 30 minutes.
- Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then remove the skin and place the pumpkin flesh in a blender with the milk, smoked paprika, English mustard powder, onion granules and garlic granules. Season generously with salt and pepper and blitz until smooth.
- Pour the sauce into a saucepan and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, whisk in ¾ of the grated cheeses and season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Switch your oven to its grill setting on high.
- Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente, then drain.
- Add the macaroni to the cheese sauce and stir to combine. Note: this recipe makes a lot of sauce. Use as much as you want, depending on how saucy you like your mac and cheese.
- Pour the mac and cheese into a baking dish and top with the remaining ¼ of the cheeses.
- Grill for 5 minutes, or until golden brown and bubbling, then serve and enjoy!
Notes
Cheese wise, I used a combination of extra-mature cheddar, gruyere and mozzarella.
