Budget Mac and Cheese Recipe

This Mac and Cheese Recipe has become a staple in my house. It’s super cheap, easy to make and best of all my picky eaters clean their plates.

I make a big batch using every bit of the ingredients so there’s zero waste. It freezes beautifully leaving me with quick and easy week night dinners for weeks.

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Ingredients

• 900g Cheese £4.88
• 500g Butter 95p
• 4 Pints Milk £1.44
• 8 Tablespoons Plain Flour 20p
• 300ml Double Cream 99p
• 1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard 20p
• 1kg Cooking Bacon £1.79
• 2kg Dried Pasta £2.58

Total = £13.03

Makes 21 servings = 62p per serving

Food purchased from Aldi. Prices correct at time of publishing.

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How to Make Budget Mac and Cheese

This Budget Mac and Cheese Recipe couldn’t be simpler.

Melt 500g of butter in a good sized pan. Real butter would be delicious but I use a mix of margarine and buttermilk because it’s much, much cheaper. You could use 100% margarine if you need to reduce the cost of this Budget Mac and Cheese Recipe further, although it won’t taste as good.

Once the butter has completely melted slowly add 8 tablespoons of plain flour. Cheap, budget range flour is absolutely fine. Just be sure to stir it in after adding each little bit before adding a little bit more flour.

You should have a thick paste of butter and flour. Slowly add 4 pints of milk. Again stir it between each additon and make sure it’s all mixed in nicely.

Now for the fun part – add 900g of grated cheese. I use cheap and cheerful budget brand cheddar. I buy mature cheddar because it has a stronger flavour but that’s entirely personal preference. You can use any type of cheese that you fancy or have to hand. Soft cheeses work great and mozzarella would be divine, although that would significantly increase the cost of this Budget Mac and Cheese Recipe.

Once the cheese has all melted add a tub of double cream and stir it in.

You could leave this Budget Mac and Cheese Recipe at that, it will be absolutely delicious. But I like to add an extra helping of budget protein and a huge flavour boost. I add a pack of cooking bacon. I buy my cooking bacon from Lidl because it’s very cheap and really good quality meat.

I chop the bacon into small chunks and fry them in my air fryer until they are super crispy and almost burnt.

By the way, when you fry bacon or other meats in an air fryer be sure to drain off the fat into a clean jam jar. It solidifies just like lard and makes the best roast vegetables, potatoes and chips. Click on the image below to see my full recipe for Air Fried Roast Potatoes.

Mix the crispy bacon bits into the cheese sauce.

Portion it into freezer tubs and let them cool completely before freezing.

I usually pull a tub out of the freezer the night before and leave it to defrost in the fridge overnight. But you can defrost this Budget Mac and Cheese Recipe in the microwave or on the hob over a low heat.

To serve Budget Mac and Cheese boil some pasta until it’s almost cooked but still on the firm side. Of course traditionally Mac and Cheese is made with macaroni pasta. But frankly macaroni is more expensive that cheaper bulk bags of fusilli pasta. So I use the cheapest pasta to keep the cost of this Budget Mac and Cheese Recipe down. I do get the supermarket own brand pasta not the budget range, so you could opt for the budget range and get the cost of this meal down even further if you need to.

Stir the cheese sauce into the cooked pasta and pour the mixture into an oven dish. You could serve this straight away without doing anything else. But I like to pop my Budget Mac and Cheese into the oven for about 20 minutes or so. It gets a lovely crispy top and finishes cooking the pasta.

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I do hope that my Budget Mac and Cheese recipe has inspired you to have a go at making your own batch cook meals.

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Pin this Budget Mac and Cheese recipe to your Pinterest board so you can find it when you need a cheap and tasty recipe.

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