This easy recipe for creamy macaroni and pimento cheese takes everyone’s favorite comfort food supper to whole new levels with everyone’s favorite Southern appetizer…pimento cheese! The Southern husband is beyond excited about this one.
So, before I get started on the WONDER that is macaroni and cheese made with pimento cheese, I have a couple of announcements. The first is that my April Specials are up! What are my April Specials, you ask?
Well, a couple of months ago I redesigned the Home page for this here website, and one of the additions we made was a monthly Specials section where we are showcasing some of our favorite seasonal recipes. For April, we are sharing four special recipes each for Easter, for National Grilled Cheese Month, and for my favorite springtime veggie, asparagus!
To get to these scrumptious special recipes, either click the Home button at the top of this page or just click here. Scroll down a little and right after the current recipe you’ll see This Month’s Specials, and those are the April specials! I’m super excited about this new part of my Home page, so tell me what you think if you get a sec.
My next announcement is that this recipe for creamy, dreamy macaroni and pimento cheese is appearing on the blog WAAAAYYYYY ahead of schedule, and you have the Southern husband to thank for that. Here’s how this happened: a little while back I posted about my mama’s fabulous recipe for pimento cheese.
I have to admit I am not a big pimento cheese fan, but the Southern husband is wild about pimento cheese, so I figured some of you might be too, and since my mama makes the best pimento cheese in all the land, I wanted you to have her recipe.
She also makes LOTS of it because she knows her son-in-law adores it, and so one day when I was gazing into the fridge looking for supper inspiration I spotted a container of leftover pimento cheese, and wondered if I could work it into my beloved creamy macaroni and cheese recipe.
As it turns out, combining pimento cheese with that traditional recipe is one of the best ideas I’ve had in a long, long time. The Southern husband was beside himself with pimento cheese joy. And so I photographed it and put it on the calendar to write about sometime in 2020, because I have a whole lot of other recipes already written and ready and scheduled and waiting their turn. But OH NO.
This easy recipe for creamy macaroni and pimento cheese takes everyone's favorite comfort food supper to whole new levels with pimento cheese! The Southern husband was aghast – AGHAST, I TELL YOU! – that I would make you all wait that long for this recipe. So this macaroni and pimento cheese has majorly cut in line so that you don’t have to wait one more second to know the happiness that the Southern husband knew when he took his first bite.
As with my traditional recipe for creamy mac and cheese, you cook up some elbow macaroni and combine it with an easy sauce made of butter, flour, milk…and in this case instead of cheddar cheese, you use pimento cheese, which is going to melt into creamy, pimento cheese deliciousness.
You can definitely use prepared pimento cheese if you like, but if you want to go to macaroni and pimento cheese heaven, it’s definitely worth the time to make my mama’s recipe for pimento cheese.
I think my pimento cheese work is done here. :)
Macaroni and Pimento Cheese
This easy recipe for creamy macaroni and pimento cheese takes everyone’s favorite comfort food supper to whole new levels with pimento cheese!
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 3-4 servings
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 8 ounces elbow macaroni
- Salt
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 2 1/2 cups milk
- 2 cups prepared pimento cheese (see note)
Instructions
- Cook macaroni until tender in boiling salted water. Drain and set aside.
- Heat butter in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until foaming. Add flour and whisk to combine, about one minute. Whisking constantly, add milk.
- Bring mixture to a boil, whisking constantly. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until thickened to the consistency of heavy cream, whisking occasionally.
- Take off heat and stir in pimento cheese until cheese is fully melted. Add pasta and stir over medium low heat until heated through, 3-5 minutes. Let it sit for 5 minutes off the heat before serving.
- Ladle into warm dishes and be prepared to be asked for seconds!
Notes
You can absolutely use store-bought pimento cheese for this recipe, but if you have the time, I highly recommend making a batch of my mama’s pimento cheese – it’s the best! Click here for that recipe.
Theresa Murphy says
Pimento mac & cheese? Um…YES PLEASE! I’m so glad the Southern Husband forced you into posting this in a more timely fashion! :) This is going to be cutting in my line as my new mac & cheese to go with pulled pork later in the week. Many thanks to the Southern Husband! (and you and your momma for coming up with the pimento cheese and using it in mac & cheese!)
I just KNEW you would love this one! And with that pulled pork going on, the Southern husband might be showing up on your doorstep. :)