Smoked Mac and Cheese

If you are looking for a new side dish to try at your next get together give this Smoked Mac and Cheese recipe a try. This recipe takes the classic comfort food to the next level by adding a bbq twist as well as a little smoky flavor that you are sure to enjoy.

Mac and Cheese is one of my favorite side dishes for BBQs. There is something about the cheesy flavor and gooey creamy texture of the dish that really compliments pork and beef dishes. Another thing I like about it is that it is easy to be createive with if you are feeling adventurous. I will go over the main recipe with you and then try to give you some ideas on ways you might be get creative with it. Before I start I do want to give credit to Hey Grill Hey. I got the basis of the recipe from this site and made a few slight changes. If you have not checked out the site you should. Susie Bulloch has some great recipes over there.

Cooking Basics

You will want to preheat your smoker to 225 and use some kind of mild wood for this cook, fruit or hickory work well. The prep work for this recipe will be to make the pasta, sauce, and topping following the steps listed below. Once all of the pieces are prepared you will combine them in an aluminum pan or you can use some kind of cast iron dish if you have one.

Once you have combined the ingredients in the pan you throw it on the smoker to add that smoky flavor as well as let the other flavors of the mac and cheese meld together. Leaving this on for an hour should give it enough time for the flavors to come together.

Final Thoughts

• Dynamic Recipe - This recipe is nice because it is easy to cook a lot of other things you might have on the smoker already. The temp can be slightly higher than 225 if you need it and you can cook this for longer than an hour if you want more smoky flavor or you want it to come off when whatever else you are cooking is coming off.

• Alternatives - As I mentioned above there are a lot of ways to customize this recipe and really make it your own if you are feeling ambitious.

• Meat - You can always add in some kind of meat to the mac and cheese mixture to give it a little extra flavor. Lobster is a popular one up here in Maine, bacon is always a big hit in this dish as well. If you have leftover pulled pork that tastes really good as well.
• Cheese - The recipe I based this off used gouda as one of the main cheeses. I wanted a more smoky flavor so I used smoked Gouda. If you have some other kind of cheese you love feel free to try it out. I have seena lot of people use gruyere and I have actually seen a couple people use leftover smoked queso as the cheese sauce for this dish.
• Seasoning alternatives - I used Pit Boss Sweet Rib Rub when I made this recipe but feel free to try your favorite rub.
• Add some Heat - I like a little spice in my dishes. The next time I make this I want to try using a little pepper jack cheese, a little hot sauce or siracha, or use a sweet heat rub by Pit Boss to go with the topping to kick it up a little bit.

If any of you decide to get creative please leave a comment with what you tried and how it turned out either on this post or any of the social media channels I have set up. I would love to hear about it.

• Lighten It Up - I always try to lighten up recipes if I can do it without negatively affecting the flavor. One of the things we did was to use the 2% cheddar instead of regular. For the cream cheese I will use light or fat free cream cheese instead of regular. One last thing you can do is change the half and half to whole milk. Making these changes can make the recipe slightly less creamy but really didnt affect the flavor too much.

Recipe