how to make a cheese sauce without the texture being gritty

I’ve used a three cheese blend with Gruyere for its nutty depth, Cheddar for flavor and color, and Fontina for its decadent, velvety texture when melted.

The starch not only helps thicken the sauce, but it also keeps the fat in the cheese from separating, which can ruin the texture of the sauce.

Just boil the pasta in milk and water and when it’s just shy of being done, I take the pot off the heat and add cheese that’s been tossed in a bit of starch. The answer is YES, which means you could technically do this in one pot if you made the breadcrumb topping in the pot first (though this will make it take longer than 10 minutes). After making a Macaroni Salad recently that involved cooking the pasta in just the right amount of milk, I started to wonder if this method would work for mac and cheese as well. I’ve done an easy macaroni and cheese in the past, but it still involves a few pans, a colander, and a bowl. The second problem is that despite all the work, cheese sauce is tough to get right, and can often end up clumpy, gritty, or chewy, bearing little resemblance to the slick elbows of pasta in a velvety smooth sauce that we all love. The first is that most recipes are complicated, involving multiple stages and lots of pots and pans. For those who grew up making Mac & Cheese out of the blue box, the problem with Macaroni and Cheese from scratch is two-fold.

How to make a cheese sauce without the texture being gritty