Meals · Pasta & noodle bakes

Mac and cheese

Name: Mac and cheese
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 350 g pasta, elbow macaroni; 3 1/2 tbsp butter; 1/3 cup all-purpose flour; 3 cups whole milk; 2 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, grated; 1 1/2 tsp yellow mustard; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp black pepper; 1/2 cup breadcrumbs

A proper béchamel, sharp cheddar and a crisp crumb top. One of the most-liked dishes in America, and one that a satiety score has genuinely useful things to say about — most of the number is decided by the ratio of pasta to milk to cheese.

Time: 45 min (15 prep + 30 cook)
Servings: 6
Per serving: 571 kcal
Protein: 24 g

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

Ingredients

350 g pasta, elbow macaroni350 g

Sauce

3 1/2 tbsp butter50 g
1/3 cup all-purpose flour45 g
3 cups whole milk700 g
2 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, grated250 g
1 1/2 tsp yellow mustard8 g
1 tsp salt5 g
1 tsp black pepper2 g

Top

1/2 cup breadcrumbs40 g

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

Steps

Cook the macaroni two minutes short of the packet time — it keeps cooking in the oven.
Melt the butter, whisk in the flour and cook it a full minute so it stops tasting of raw flour. Add the milk a splash at a time, whisking, until smooth, then simmer until it coats a spoon.
Off the heat, stir in the cheddar, mustard, salt and pepper until melted. Adding cheese to a boiling sauce is what makes mac and cheese grainy.
Fold in the pasta, tip into a dish, scatter the breadcrumbs over and bake at 190°C (375°F) for 20–25 minutes until browned and bubbling.

Alternatives

Why this score

easy to overeat

Dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

17% of kcal

54% water

5 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 3424 kcal goes into the pot, 1450 g of ingredients comes out as ~1450 g of food → 236 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: 236
Protein: (17%); 10 g
Fat: (42%); 11 g
Carbohydrates: (42%); 24 g
of which sugar: 3 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 388 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.