Nothing beats a smooth, creamy, and cheesy cheese sauce. Find out today how why cheese sauce gets gritty and how to prevent it!
While I get that there are 5 food groups, in my world, there are 8. Sure we have dairy, fruit, grain, lean meats and proteins, veggies but for me, I also like to consider pizza, bacon, and cheese as their own separate food groups.
Oh sure I know they technically fall under the other 5 but these other 3 play such a high role in my life that they deserve their own group. In my household, and specifically my fridge, I have an entire cheese drawer with nothing but cheeses in it.
At any given point in time, there are at least 8 different varieties of cheeses and no, I’m not talking about the individually sliced stuff. And yes I do like Velveeta by the way. That stuff is the bomb for a creamy cheese sauce!
But have you ever made (or had) mac and cheese that wasn’t creamy or smooth? Instead, it was grainy or gritty? Kind of gross, huh? So there are a few reasons why this happens and what you want to avoid.
- Use real cheese and not cheese food (i.e, the individually wrapped slices). If those say they are real cheese without a million additives then you’re OK.
- Velveeta – so no, technically it’s not ‘real cheese” as it’s made with whey protein concentrate, milk protein, and other additives to create a pasteurized cheese product. Again if you want to use I won’t judge you.
- Grate your cheese instead of buying pre-grated cheese. Those cheese are packaged with additives (powders). Those powders hamper your cheese melting/smoothness.
- When you make your roux (butter/flour) then adding your milk (béchamel) you must add your cheese to the heated mixture slowly. *NOTE! Do NOT add the cheese to the mixture if it’s boiling/bubbling. Adding cheese to a bubbling mixture will cause the cheese to break down. The emulsifiers and coagulants break down when heated thus causing a gritty texture.
- Remove the hot béchamel from the heat. I tend to remove the pan from the heat completely when adding the cheese to prevent it from getting too hot and curdling/breaking.
- Add the cheese slowly – if your recipe calls for 2 cups of shredded cheese add in a little bit at a time. Add some, stir till melted and add more. Continue to add and stir.
Extremely helpful!!! I ruined my mac n cheese twice this holiday and couldn’t put my finger on what the issue was!!! I will use this technique next time!!! I never had this problem before this holiday… But, there sounds like a few options to avoid it from happening!!!
Yeah! I’m happy I could help!
Best Kitchen Wishes!
Is it possible to make the sauce ahead of time? I’m hoping to precook and chill Mac noodles and premake the sauce. Then, as needed, heat and combine the two for quick service.
Hi Rachel!
Yes but it has to be on the stove top over low heat. It has to be reheated slowly. Never use the microwave to reheat it.
Best Kitchen Wishes!
I have trying to figuer out what was going wrong with my cheese sauce. It tastes good but just a little gritty. Now I know to take the sauce off the stove and then add the cheese. Thank you so much!
I love fatty meat.
The fattier, the better.
It seems I am in a very small minority
To each their own Chris, you know?! You do you 🙂
Best Kitchen Wishes!
roux is solely fat and flour…… milk added to roux gives you bechamel.
Hi! I recently made a dish that was cream of chicken soup, beaten eggs and melted butter. 2 layers of mixture, fresh vegetables, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses. An hour and 15 minutes in the oven. The resulting dish looked beautiful… till I tried to get a spoon into it. Hard as a rock on top and broken cheese sauce inside. What did I do wrong?
Thanks so much. Now I know exactly where i go wrong.
Thank you for the tips!! My sauce is always hit-or-miss, but this makes sense now. I hardly added any flour last time, and so I am sure it was the boiling mixture that caused the grainy sauce, even though my husband insisted I must have used too much flour. I am determined to get a handle on a solid homemade mac n chz recipe, and this definitely help!!!
You got this! No, it’s not the flour but how (and when) you add the cheese.
Best Kitchen Wishes!
Mines always comes out grainy, thanks for the tips.
Now I know what I was doing wrong….Thank you for the tip!
You are most welcome Peg!
Best Kitchen Wishes!