French Onion Macaroni and Cheese Recipe (2024)

Wonderful recipe. To make it a bit more like French onion soup I used beef broth rather than water when cooking the onions. I felt this added a bit more flavor reminiscent of the soup.

Really great flavor, but seems like there's a step missing - remove the onions before you deglaze and whisk the flour and milk together. Otherwise you wind up with a whisk full of onions. The baguette slices are divine.

Glad you brought this up. Vidalia and other sweet onions contain more water than standard yellow ones; therefore, they take way longer to caramelize. If you want the sweet taste, add sugar? I wouldn't - onions take on a natural sweetness when caramelized. I use sweet onions in all kinds of salads, sandwiches, etc. They are also great on the grill: halve them, season with olive oil, s&p and balsamic vinegar - delish.This recipe, put yellow onions in the fridge. When you slice them, no tears.

Made this and was excellent with combined tweaks of: remove onions before deglazing pan, use Sherry vs vinegar, add Dijon mustard, add smoked paprika, lightly toast baguette slices before rubbing with garlic. Learned most of these tweaks from various prior cooks' notes and chose the ones that appealed to me! And they were good choices...

This recipe seems to call for making a white sauce (Bechamel), but I would think this takes more time to thicken before combining with all the other elements...? If you made it separately from the onion pan, maybe with a little white wine, half-&-half, then assembled...

I'd reserve a bit of the cooking water and add it back to the sauce before stirring the pasta in. Pasta will continue cooking in the sauce and definitely needs quite a liquid environment to get done without thickening things up too much. On the other hand, the starch dissolved in the cooking water ensures you don't end up with something too watery either.(Pasta water, the unsung ingredient that makes everything perfect! ;)

Absolutely delicious. As someone mentions, a step is missing, the white sauce should be made without the onions, I took them out of the pan, made the beschamel, added the cheese, then added them. I used a little more than half the pasta that is recommended here and next time will use even less. I passed on the gruyere and instead used a mixture of cheddar and manchego cheeses. The baguette slices really added to the dish.

There’s another step missing. You need to toast the baguette slices in order to rub the garlic cloves on them. Otherwise, you end up shredding the bread. Excellent recipe. Adding mushrooms next time, and will have some beef broth in the pasta boil.

If I did this again, I would use half the amount of noodles. We added rotisserie chicken and since we didn't want to spend 25$ on Gruyere, we used half and then doubled the cheddar cheese.

Made it today. Delicious!! Trader Joe’s has a gruyere/cheddar combo cheese that worked fabulous. A keeper!

Flavour-wise, if this tastes bland or somewhat "off", try adding a bit of yellow mustard and/or a splash of Worcestershire sauce. This is what Jaime Oliver does in his take on this (definitely outrageous!) recipe and it works ;)

Recipe says to stir in the flour (you could use a wooden spoon) but whisk in the milk...

What I did (and MY WAY IS BEST!) is to take the caramelized onions out of the skillet, deglaze with vinegar, then begin the bechamel sauce. Once the sauce begins to thicken, then add in the onions. The butter that the onions have been sautéed in will thicken the sauce even more. Then add in your cheeses.

the secret to a creamier dish is to reserve a ladleful of the pasta water and to add it back to the white sauce. Pasta will continue cooking in the sauce and this may make the whole thing a bit too thick. The pasta water provides the pasta with something more fluid to soak up, and the starch dissolved in it ensures that it won't be watery at the end.

I'd freeze portions before the baking steps. So that when you reheat, you're cooking the pasta the rest of the way to al dente, and not overcooking.

Any suggestions for a meat side to this obviously rich side? I was thinking burgers might be fun, or grilled sausages?

Is this a wet Mac and cheese or a dry one? I’m afraid to make it because wet Mac and cheese makes me gag. Definitely prefer a drier Mac and cheese, meaning not so saucy. I don’t know what it is, but cheese sauce has always made me queasy ever since I was a kid.

This was a “no”for our family of 3 adults. We all agree that we really like caramelized onions but felt that this was too much. I weighed them ahead of time and used what the recipe required. Aso, I did have some reservations about the baguette slices going in as they felt like carb overload. Breadcrumbs or smaller croutons would work, I’ll stick to Sam Sifton’s Southern Mac and Cheese, but will definitely add some caramelízed onions for a flavor boost.

This took me a bit longer to make. Definitely want to try again, but am going to try a few modifications. First, I’m wondering if pressure cooking the onions would work to speed up the caramelization process. The other things I want to try is a little less milk, and potentially skipping cooking the pasta and just having it cook in the oven.

We have been making this recipe annually for five years now when we put up our Christmas tree. We love it so much we decided to make it again as we take down our tree this year! I have made it by taking the onions out and keeping the onions in and both work fine, to keep it to one dish, I just push them aside in the pan to whisk the flour in a bit. Instead of roasting the baguette, I just cut it up ahead of time so they stale slightly, this allows them to not be too crunchy after it is baked.

Very delicious but incredibly rich! Don't think I'll make it again.

Halved the recipe since I was cooking for two. Served it along side roasted veggies. Easily got 2 dinners and 4 lunches out of this quantity. Made a quick garlic butter to spread in the toasts and loved the added flavor!

Mine turned out grainy :( I would add the cheese after the milk has cooled down a bit, and I'd choose a different cheese to replace the white cheddar next time because it was too strong for my liking! Gruyere is also just soooo expensive. Otherwise, it was fun to make a new dish in my rotation :)

Made this last night and it was a huge hit. Will definitely add to my recipe rotation. Pretty much followed the recipe exactly. Only modifications were 1) based on other comments added some Dijon mustard and smoked paprika to the mixture before baking. 2) had a jar of chopped garlic in oil so spread a little bit of it on each piece of baguette - added more garlic flavor than just rubbing them with a clove. Decadent and delicious!

I just made this and am serving it for Christmas dinner tomorrow night but it came out sooo soupy. Does anyone know a way to rescue it? Can I remove the toasts and bake for longer to boil off some of the milk?

I made this but the sauce became grainy after adding the cheese, apart from that it was delicious! Does anyone know how i can prevent that from happening?

No salt with caramelized onions. Add Sherry .Add mustard seed.

good, like a cross between soup and mac.

Made this for Holiday Dinner last year, as part of a buffet--Delicious! Followed recipe exactly, made it two days ahead, up to baking and putting the toasts on, put in fridge until day of dinner when I popped it into oven with the toasts on top. I only got one measly bite of this, everyone else dug in and it was gone gone gone. PS. that bite was Great--just right ratio of french onion soupy to mac and cheese gooey Please make this for the holidays when I come over to your place for dinner.

Really good, crowd pleaser, and the flavors were wonderful for even picky eaters.