August 28, 2023

Gouda and Fontina Mac and Cheese Recipe

Some mac and cheese recipes come together like magic, and that’s exactly how to describe this Gouda and fontina mac and cheese. It’s creamy, cheesy, and beautifully flavorful.

How to use Cheese in Mac and Cheese

When you bite into a piece of cheese, I want you to pay attention to where the flavor hits you. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to show up and this is a closer cheese. The flavor will carry throughout the bite. Sometimes it hits you instantly and fades away. That is an opener cheese.

Gouda Cheese

Gouda is a cheese that walks the line between opener and closer cheese. Younger aged Goudas are almost always an opener cheese, but if the cheese is allowed to mature it will cross the line into a closer cheese. Today I grabbed some Murray’s Estate Gouda that is full of wonderful closer flavors.

Fontina Cheese

I used fontina as my opener in this recipe. It’s a delicious, creamy cheese that opens up when you first bite into it that slowly fades away.

Burrata Cheese

Some cheeses add texture benefits. These are cheeses you’ll reach for when your flavors are already well balanced, but you want to add more stretch, richness, or creaminess to your dish. Burrata has a great flavor, but it’s going to pack a ton of creaminess into your dish. It works best placed atop your dish, so you can dip each forkful of delicious pasta.

Creste di Gallo Pasta in Gouda and Fontina Mac and Cheese

You have to find a balance when choosing the perfect mac and cheese noodle. If your pasta is too long, you run the risk of a dish that is cumbersome and difficult to eat. On the other end of the spectrum, if your pasta is too small, your mac and cheese can become a soupy mess. If you are a beginner mac and cheese chef, smaller noodles will more easily show defects in your sauce.

Creste di Gallo literally translates to “crest of the rooster” and this shape is so fun. It sits in that sweet spot of large enough to add some structure and small enough to be easy to eat. With plenty of ridges, it will hold onto the sauce making sure that every bite is full of flavor.

Gouda and Fontina Mac and Cheese Sauce

The cheeses in this dish already pack a ton of flavor, but that doesn’t mean we can’t add more! Better than Bullion is a great option to include a salty savoriness and a spoonful of coarse ground mustard helps bring out the cheesy flavor in your dish.

Reheating Gouda and Fontina Mac and Cheese

Mac and cheese is notoriously difficult to reheat. However, I noticed that roux based mac and cheese sauces like in this recipe reheat beautifully. A minute or two in the microwave and you’ll have beautifully creamy mac and cheese. In fact, letting the ingredients mingle for a day or two in the fridge will give you even better mac and cheese than the day you made it.

Add a Fork

This gouda and fontina mac and cheese recipe is one of our favorites to date. It’s cheesy, flavorful, and the burrata adds an extra layer of sauciness that really helps it stand out.

Note: This article contains affiliate links to products that I love and use to make mac and cheese in my own kitchen. When you click links here and make a purchase, I receive a commission at no additional cost to you. For more information, see my Affiliate Link Policy here.