Leftover Ideas: Mac And Cheese Muffins

We eat pasta a lot. Sometimes, there'll be a little bit of pasta left over, but not enough for another full meal. When that happens, I turn the pasta into mac and cheese muffins. I got the idea when I came across this recipe for mini French onion mac and cheese. I can't do justice to those pictures, but I can tell you what I did.

This particular recipe is very simple. You just need to keep in mind the 1:1 ratio for the roux, and stir while you're adding in the milk. It's actually one of the least complicated recipes I've made for mac and cheese. If you're using leftover pasta, you need at least one cup's worth of pasta.

Once you've mastered it, you can experiment with the flavors. At first I just kept the French onion theme - using onions and Gruyere, because that's what I had. Once I ran out of those, I changed up the type of pasta - from macaroni to rotini, and yesterday I made them with cheddar cheese and frozen peas. (I cooked up the peas first.)

It's simple and a total crowd-pleaser. If you're serving it to your kids, you might want to consider feeding them their vegetables first.