A delicious recipe for Lobster Macaroni and Cheese.

I would like to say that my mother was the true inventor of Mac & Cheese but apparently there is a written recipe from 13th century Italy. Her recipe like every mother’s recipe was simply the best and is our family’s noble contribution to comfort food academia – I still smile remembering my young nephew showing a preference to Kraft Dinner though – Geez!

This Lobster Mac & Cheese recipe is my contribution and while it may not reach the pallets of all those Kraft Dinner enthusiasts, it’s pretty darn good. The only spice added is pepper with the flavour, texture and decadence coming from the cheeses, the lobster and the crispy buttery topping.

Enjoy this dish in your backyard or over white table cloth as the main or side. We served it on our New Year’s day celebration (the perfect day for comfort food) with bacon wrapped pork tenderloin and crusty garlic bread. Enjoy…..

There is a printable recipe card from RecipesGenerator available at the bottom of this post!

Mac N Cheese Secrets

While raising our large brood of kids, I became a Mac N Cheese pro. Below are my Cliff’s Notes -secret tips for preparing macaroni and cheese – (Coles’ Notes for my fellow Canadians or cheat sheets for everyone else)

• Every once and a while cheese goes on sale – I used to call it the cheese wars – but it does – so keep an eye out, stock up and enjoy.
• The flavour and quality of your cheese determines the flavour of your mac n cheese. Choose a delicious cheese!
• Cook your noodles in salted water.
• Taste test your cheese sauce and add salt if necessary. Less expensive cheeses tend to be pretty salty in taste in my experience – so sometimes less salt is more.
• My kids didn’t always like onions and breadcrumb toppings in macaroni and cheese. Now they’ve all grown up and have mostly grown out of that – but be prepared!
• Change up your pasta shapes. This time we chose shell pasta. It fits the seafood theme – the shells also HOLD the sauce. We noticed that the shells tend to fold into each other so we will use the smaller sized shells the next time around! Fusilli or corkscrew pasta or anything with texture holds the sauce well. Have you noticed though that Farfalle – or bowtie pasta makes everybody smile?
• An alternative to shredding cheese is – cutting into small slices to break the cheese down enough to melt well. Not everyone is an efficient shredder.
• A roux is the basis of a cheese sauce. Make sure you spend a few minutes whisking the roux together over heat to eliminate the chalky flavour of flour before proceeding with the rest of of the sauce.
• Warm the milk before adding it to the roux – adding cold milk will cause clumping!
• When adding the cheese – room temperature is best – and add a little bit at a time to avoid clumping and separation.
• Taste test the sauce. If you like zippier sauce it’s OK to add a pinch of dry mustard or cayenne pepper. Some recipes call for nutmeg!
• Cook the noodles at the same time as the sauce – so that the noodles are hot and ready to blend with the hot sauce all at once! Macaroni and cheese is a time sensitive dish!
• Blend the noodles and sauce together a little at a time – to make sure the proportion of sauce to noodle is correct. It’s OK to save some of the noodles for another dish – they are only noodles after all.
• If you enjoy a crunchy breadcrumb topping, prepare a little more and bake in a wider – shallower casserole dish as we did.

Lobster Macaroni and Cheese Preparation:

How to Cook Lobster Tails

We used 6 medium sized lobster tails – frozen and thawed. This produced almost 2 cups of lobster meat. We found the amount of lobster to be perfect – but my husband always says “more is better!”

Cut the centre of the lobster shell vertically down the middle to the tail.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Boil lobster tails for 8-10 minutes or until cooked. The size of the lobster tails will determine how long they take to cook.

Remove lobster tails from pot. Place in a bowl of ice or ice cold water to stop the cooking. When cooled, remove from shell and cut into bite sized chunks. Reserve to add into macaroni and cheese.

Macaroni and Cheese Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt liberally. Add pasta – try to time the pasta to complete at the same time as the sauce!

Saute 1 diced shallot and 1/2 diced white onion in about 1/4 cup butter until translucent.

In a separate saucepan – create the roux – saute and whisk together equal quantities of flour and butter (1/2 cup butter – 1/2 cup flour). This is the thickening agent for the sauce. Cook for about 3-5 minutes until a thick but smooth paste has formed.

Heat 2 1/2 cups whole milk in saucepan or microwave and add slowly to the roux – whisking as you add. (Make sure hot or warmed milk is added to hot ingredients to avoid curdling, clumping and separation)

Add sauteed onion and shallot to sauce mixture.

Add the cheese a little at a time to the sauce mixture – while stirring. We used 1/2 pound of sharp aged white cheddar and 3/4 pounds of gruyere cheese. These two cheeses complement each other – gruyere provides a wonderfully gentle flavour while the cheddar adds the zip!

Stir sauce until all cheese is melted.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Drain pasta when al dente – and mix with cheese sauce in a casserole dish – a little at a time. It is OK to discard or set aside some of the pasta – the key to this dish is the creamy cheese sauce and the lobster, after all.

Fold in lobster meat.

Taste test and season as needed!

Brown 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs in 1/2 cup butter

Sprinkle over top of lobster macaroni and cheese

Bake in preheated 375 degree Fahrenheit oven for 15 minutes.

Below is a printable recipe card from RecipesGenerator. Please give it a try!

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