Mac & cheese will always and forever remain my favorite comfort food. When I saw this recipe for Roasted Garlic Mac & Cheese, I may have done a happy dance. This recipe calls for an entire head of roasted garlic! Now before you start running away, roasted garlic isn’t something to shy away from – it has a more subtle, mellowed out flavor than regular garlic. The roasting takes patience (the garlic was in the oven for nearly an hour before I could even use it in the cheese sauce), but it is totally worth it!
I usually stick with the same old cheeses when I make mac & cheese (sharp yellow cheddar, maybe with a bit of mozzarella). It was nice to break from the usual to incorporate white cheddar and garlic herb gournay into this dish. This was the first time I’d heard of gournay cheese – I had to do three laps around the cheese section at Wegmans before I even found it. It reminded me of a heavily seasoned cream cheese – it is soft and extremely flavorful. The cheeses and roasted garlic are the main sauce components along with milk, butter, flour (as a thickening agent), dried parsley, and cayenne. I opted to sprinkle seasoned breadcrumbs on top of this dish before baking, which added a nice textural element.
This dish wasn’t so much the thick and gooey kid-like variety of mac & cheese, but more of the decadent and creamy adult variety. The blend of white cheddar and the garlic herb gournay was excellent. Their flavors were very complimentary to the roasted garlic throughout, and no single element felt overpowering. This recipe is a total winner – I will keep this in mind to serve the next time I have cheese and garlic loving guests over for dinner!
If you’re interested, some past varieties of mac and cheese I’ve shared are Macaroni & Cheese with Ham and Pumpkin Mac & Cheese.
