Meals · Pasta & noodle bakes

Cottage cheese mac and cheese

Name: Cottage cheese mac and cheese
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 300 g cooked pasta, about 140 g dry, elbow; 1 1/2 cups cottage cheese; 3/4 cup 2% milk; 1 tbsp cornstarch; 1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard; 3/4 tsp garlic powder; 1/2 tsp salt; 1 tsp black pepper; 2/3 cup cheddar cheese, grated

Blended cottage cheese carries the cheddar instead of a butter-and-flour béchamel. It is the most-published mac rebuild of the cottage cheese years. More sauce than pasta, which is the other half of why it works — and there is exactly one way it breaks.

Time: 25 min (10 prep + 15 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 318 kcal
Protein: 20 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

300 g cooked pasta, about 140 g dry, elbow300 g

Sauce

1 1/2 cups cottage cheese350 g
3/4 cup 2% milk200 g
1 tbsp cornstarch10 g
1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard8 g
3/4 tsp garlic powder2 g
1/2 tsp salt3 g
1 tsp black pepper2 g

2/3 cup cheddar cheese, grated70 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Blend the cottage cheese with the milk, cornstarch, mustard, garlic powder, salt and pepper for a full two to three minutes. Under-blended cottage cheese is the single most common complaint about this recipe — it has to be completely smooth, not nearly.
Warm the blended sauce gently in a pan over low heat until it thickens, 3–4 minutes. The cornstarch is not optional; it is what stops the sauce splitting.
Drain the pasta and let it sit two or three minutes. Adding sauce to pasta straight out of boiling water is exactly how people break this.
Take the pan off the heat, stir in the cheddar until it melts, then fold the pasta through. Serve straight away — it thickens as it stands and loosens with a splash of milk.

Mine split.

Almost always heat. Cottage cheese has no roux protecting it, so a boiling pan or boiling-hot pasta will curdle it. Low heat, off the heat for the cheddar, and let the pasta stand first.

Alternative

Mac and cheesethe béchamel classic29

Why this score

moderately filling

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

26% of kcal

70% water

5 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1272 kcal goes into the pot, 945 g of ingredients comes out as ~900 g of food → 141 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 141
Protein: (26%); 9 g
Fat: (32%); 5 g
Carbohydrates: (42%); 15 g
of which sugar: 1 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 379 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More meals

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.