4 Cheese Smoked Mac and Cheese
8oz block of cream cheese
1 cup each of Gruyere, smoked Gouda and white Cheddar shredded off the block. (You can sub any cheese you want but this combo worked very well together)
3 1/4 cups of half and half (if you want it REALLY creamy use 4 cups)
16oz pack of macaroni, shells or whatever you prefer.
1 package of bacon (two would allow you to put bacon in the Mac as well as on top)
Enough shredded Colby jack/cheddar cheese (pre shredded from store) to cover top of tray
1 1/2-2 cups of panko bread crumbs
1 stick of butter - melted
- Preheat to 220
- Smoke cream cheese at 200 for about 90 min.
- Boil water and noodles while cream cheese is smoking. Cook approx two min shorter than package suggests. Drain.
- Add cream cheese to half and half and mix with a whisk. Make sure cream cheese is mixed in and no lumps. Put back on smoker for another 30min.
- Combine cream cheese, half and half with Gruyère, Gouda and cheddar. Combine well and then add cooked noodles. Stir in noodles until coated with mixture.
- Melt butter and combine with panko so that most of the panko is coated with the butter.
- Add Colby/cheddar to top of noodles followed by panko bread crumbs.
- Put tray back on the smoker at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
At this point I pulled the tray and it was plenty done. If you wanted the topping more golden you could leave it a little longer til you get the color you want.