Ahhh the beloved mac & cheese, we personally can’t get enough of it in our household! Everybody loves it, it’s at most family gatherings, and it’s something we know the kids will always eat!
We all know mac & cheese isn’t healthy, it’s just pasta and cheese, so it was my mission to secretly make it a little healthy without disrupting the taste or color! So here ya go! We hid 3 veggies in this one but you could always change it up and add more!
This makes a huge batch, so if you don’t need this much feel free to cut the recipe in half or if you need more, double it!
Making the Veggie Puree
For this recipe I just used butternut squash, carrots, and sweet peppers because that’s what I had, but you could use any number of things. The nice thing about this set of veggies is that they are all a orange color (so they match mac and cheese ) and they all have a pretty neutral flavor so they aren’t going to alter the flavor or color of the recipe!
You are welcome to use any other combo of veggies you would like just beware of the amount you use and the color of said veggie because if you have littles that notice that type of thing you might ruin your chance of them eating it, just saying!
How to make it!
- 1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
- 4 whole carrots, washed
- 10 sweet peppers, cored and diced (I used a orange, yellow, red variety)
- Turmeric (optional)
In a large pot of water add in your butternut squash and carrots and bring it to a boil. Cook the squash for about 20 minutes or until the pieces are soft and you can smash them with a fork.
Once your squash and carrots are done, drain the extra water and add in the peppers and tumeric. Give it a good stir and pour the mixture into a food processor or a blender. You may need to do this part in batches depending on how big your equipment is. Just have a large bowl ready to collect the pureed mixture. Let the mixture cool before putting it in bags or containers to freeze. You could also can this mixture (you don’t need to let it cool to can).
This puree recipe will make more than you need for this mac & cheese recipe. You only need about 2 cups for the mac & cheese, so you’ll need to store the rest! This is great to have on hand if you have picky eaters to add to lots of different recipes!
Family Size Hidden Veggie Mac & Cheese
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat your oven to 350.
- In a large pot pour in your noodles and fill the pot with water so the noodles are covered. Bring to a boil and let cook for about 15 minutes or until the noodles are soft to the touch. Once they’re done, drain off the extra water.
- In a medium saucepan, on medium heat, melt the butter. Once melted add in the flour and whisk it together until a ‘dough’ forms.
- Add in the milk and keep whisking until smooth.
- For the veggie puree: I cooked 1 butternut squash, 2 whole carrots, and 10 sweet peppers and then pureed them together until it was smooth. (You may not need all that this makes, so take the rest and freeze it for future use!)
- Add in the veggie puree, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, salt, and smoked paprika. Whisk until smooth.
- Now add in 1 cup of cheese at a time -make sure all the cheese is melted before you add in another cup.
- Once your cheese sauce is done, pour it into the pot of noodles. Give this a good stir until all the noodles are coated.
- Pour the mac & cheese into a deep 9×13 baking dish (you may need 2 depending on what size baking dishes you have), sprinkle more shredded cheese on top if you want, and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.
- If you have extra cheese on top and want the crispy cheese layer put your oven on a low broil setting for about 2 minutes -keep your eye on this so it doesn’t burn!
- Enjoy!
