Stovetop Crab Mac and Cheese
Stovetop Crab Mac and Cheese- This 3 cheese mac and cheese is loaded with lump crab, kissed with Old Bay, and requires no time in the oven. It’s creamy, dreamy goodness!
December 4, 2024 by Nicole Collins
Today, we’re making Stovetop Crab Mac and Cheese!
It’s Day 4 in our 12 Days of Cheese series, and today we’re making the creamiest, dreamiest, most decadent 3 cheese mac and cheese there ever was. And the best part, it doesn’t require any time in the oven!
For me, when it comes to mac and cheese, I have one requirement: it HAS to be creamy. I don’t need cheesepull. I don’t want congealed noodles. I want a smooth, creamy, gooey, cheesy sauce. So for me, I’ll take a stovetop mac over a baked mac any day of the week. And bonus…a stovetop mac takes significantly less time to make!
Let’s start with the noodles, technically this isn’t macaroni and cheese because I chose not to use macaroni. But, you do you. Any short cut pasta will work. If you’ve opened Tiktok any time in the past few months, you know that Tini is the new official queen of mac and cheese. She uses cavatappi noods, so that’s what I chose to use too. There’s only joy that can come from letting all that creamy cheese sauce get in every nook and cranny of the pasta. Whatever you use, cook the pasta in salted water according to package directions.
While the pasta is cooking, we can work on our cheese sauce. We’ll start by making a quick roux with some butter and flour. Then, goes the milk. You guys know that I prefer to use evaporated milk when I’m cooking, because it’s a little more stable than regular milk. So, that’s what we’re using in our mac. We’ll whisk in a can of evaporated milk, then add some heavy cream to help make our sauce extra rich and creamy.
To season our sauce, we need some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and my favorite seasoning of all time…Old Bay. We’ll whisk everything together until it’s nice and smooth, let it simmer for a couple minutes until the sauce starts to thicken, then reduce the heat to low so we can add our cheese.
We’re going with 3 cheeses on this one…some extra sharp cheddar cheese to make things extra cheesy, some colby jack cheese to make things nice and creamy, and some parmesan to make everything nice and savory. In order to make sure we don’t end up with a gritty cheese sauce, we need to take a couple precautions. First, we absolutely have to shred our own cheese. This is a non-negotiable. Preshredded cheese comes with anti clumping agents coating the cheese which is the exact opposite of what we need. Grab a rotary cheese grater, and I’m telling you that grating your own cheese will go so fast. Second, we have to keep our heat on low and only add the cheese a couple handfuls at a time. If the heat is too high, the sauce will break. And, that’s another way to end up with a cheese sauce that’s the opposite of creamy. Follow those simple tricks, and we’re golden!
You can’t have crab mac and cheese without crab, so once our cheese is all melted in, we’re going to add half a pound of lump crab meat that’s been tossed with a little more Old Bay seasoning. Mix it right into the cheese sauce along with the cooked pasta. And, that’s all there is to it. We’re done!
If you look up the word decadent in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of this crab mac. It’s rich. It’s creamy. It’s gooey. It’s luxurious. And, it’s all done in under 20 minutes! Does it get any better than this?
Tomorrow, we’re switching gears from decadent dinner to the most epic brunch of all time. So, I’ll see ya then!
I hope you enjoy. And, let’s eat!
Stovetop Crab Mac and Cheese
Serves: 4 Print
Ingredients:
8 oz short cut pasta (I used cavatappi)
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp flour
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
½ cup heavy cream
½ tsp + ¼ tsp Old Bay seasoning, divided
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp paprika
1 ½ cups freshly shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
½ cup freshly shredded colby jack cheese
¼ cup freshly shredded parmesan cheese
8 oz lump blue crab meat, picked through for shells
Directions:
Boil pasta according to package directions until al dente. Drain pasta, and set aside.
To a medium saucepan or high sided skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour, and cook for 1-2 mins. Slowly whisk in evaporated milk until combined. Then, slowly whisk in heavy cream. Add ½ tsp Old Bay, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika, and whisk to combine. Bring mixture to a gentle simmer, and simmer for 5 mins, whisking occasionally, until the sauce starts to thicken.
Reduce the heat low, and whisk in cheddar, colby jack, and parm, one handful at a time, until fully melted. Toss crab with ¼ tsp Old Bay until coated, and add to the pot along with the cooked pasta. Stir well to combine and coat the pasta. Remove from heat, and serve immediately.
Recipe notes:
*You definitely want to use freshly shredded cheese for this recipe. I totally recommend using a rotary cheese grater. It makes shredding go so fast!
*If possible, use fresh blue crab meat if you’re able. It’s so much better than crab from a can. Lump or jumbo lump both work great!
*I used corkscrew pasta for this mac and cheese, but shells and macaroni (of course) are excellent options too.
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