Butternut Squash and Bacon Mac 'n' Cheese

HipsterWhovian
HipsterWhovian Posts: 195 Member
in Recipes
I love butternut squash. I love bacon. I love macaroni and cheese. So why not combine them into a most delicious, most amazing pasta dish I have ever made! It's sweet, it's meaty, it's stretchy and cheesy. Doesn't it sound perfect?!

Ingredients:

300g butternut squash, finely diced
75g onion, diced
3 rashers thick smoked bacon, cut into squares
3 rashers thick unsmoked bacon, cut into squares
30ml vegetable oil
50g butter (or substitute, I used Bertolli)
50g plain flour
550ml skimmed milk
300g pasta (I used white pasta, but wholemeal should work just as well!)
120g mozzerella
100g cheddar

Heat the oil in a large frying pan, and cook the bacon until just crispy. Put it in a bowl lined with paper towel to absorb the oil. Keep the bacon-y oil in the pan, and add the squash and onion. Cook until soft and slightly brown. Mash with a fork, but leave some texture.
Boil water and cook the pasta until al-dente, and drain.
Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat then stir in the flour until a light brown. Slowly pour in the milk, and whisk at all times to avoid lumps. Once all the milk is added, simmer for a minute or two to thicken the roux, then mix in all but one handful of the cheese.
Stir the squash, bacon and pasta into the sauce until everything is combined evenly. Pour into a baking pan and sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. Bake at 180-200 C for 10 minutes to melt the cheese.

This makes 6 normal servings or 4 big servings.
Nutritional info for 1/6 of the pan:
549 calories
52g carbs
27g fat (9.9g saturates)
26g protein
2.3g fibre
623mg sodium

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