Cheeseburger Mac and Cheese
WHEN I WAS a kid, no meal ever made me as happy as macaroni and cheese did. As an adult, I still hold a place in my heart for mac and cheese alongside one of my other all-time favorites: cheeseburgers. I set out to combine the two in a one-pot meal.
I started by cooking ground beef in a 12-inch skillet. I added a pound of elbow macaroni and water and cooked it, covered, until the pasta was al dente, and then I folded in shredded cheese to melt it. Finally, I sprinkled over extra cheese and broiled it all for a brown top.
It was a bit of a mess. The skillet couldn’t contain all that pasta, and the dish yielded too much food. To make it a little more manageable, I cut back to a half pound of pasta. This was easier to maneuver and produced plenty for four to six diners. But the dish still suffered from pebbly beef and a shortage of cheeseburger flavor. I had ideas.
To close the flavor gap, I made sure to get a solid sear on the ground beef to emulate that beloved burger crust. One potential side effect of browning is pebbly meat, so I turned to a test kitchen trick and soaked the ground beef in a solution of salt, water, and baking soda for 15 minutes before searing it. This kept things tender. I also added onion
