So yesterday I was figuring out the calories in the mac'n'cheese I was planning on making for dinner (using the awesome recipe analyzer over at Calorie Count) when the results kind of smacked me in the face. I mean, I shouldn't have been shocked. It's macaroni and CHEESE for crying out loud. But I wasn't expecting 800 calories per serving! Ugh, even with a grilled chicken breast and steamed broccoli, that was more than I could afford for dinner. But I really wanted that bowl of cheesy goodness, so I started to mess around with the proportions. The recipe came from my beloved America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, so really, it shouldn't be tinkered with. They've already done that. But I got rid of the butter and reduced the amount of milk and cheese and came up with a dish with a more reasonable 500 calories per serving.
And as I was adding the nutritional info to my food journal (an awesome app for my droid from FatSecret) I realized that this new and improved mac'n'cheese had 30g of protein! Not nearly as much protein as a chicken breast, but still enough that I really didn't even need the chicken for protein with dinner. Cutting out the chicken would save an additional 250 calories from dinner.
I decided to add a salad just to provide a little more volume to the meal. So, what started out as a 1100 calorie meal ended up being a 600 calorie meal which allowed me to stay under 1500 calories for the day. And the mac'n'cheese did not suffer for it. In fact, the last time I made this recipe (without any alterations) I found it to be too soupy. I ended up liking my lower calorie version better. Here's the recipe:
Creamy Stovetop Mac'N'Cheese adapted from America's Test Kitchen
Serves 4
8 oz macaroni
2 large eggs
5 oz evaporated milk
1 tsp dry mustard
8 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
salt and pepper to taste
- Combine the eggs, evaporated milk, mustard, salt, and pepper together in a bowl.
- Boil the macaroni until al dente.
- Drain the macaroni and return to the pot. Add the milk mixture along with half of the cheese. Cook over low heat while stirring and gradually adding the remaining cheese until thick and creamy.
Nutritional information per serving: 527 calories, 25g fat (15g sat. fat), 165mg cholesterol, 431mg sodium, 48g carbohydrates, 2g fiber, 27g protein
2 comments:
I love ATK cookbooks! bravo of you to mess with one.
Did you try it with whole wheat pasta? I wonder if that would be good and knock up the nut. value....
No, I used regular white pasta. I can't find whole wheat elbow macaroni in my supermarket. But I'm sure it would be even better with whole wheat.
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