Mac & Cheese

Gluten free mac and cheese that survives a thermos. Undercook the pasta, keep the sauce loose, pack it steaming, and skip the wheat flour roux.

Makes

3 lunches

Hands on

20 min

Start to finish

25 min

Keeps

3 days in the fridge, though it stiffens as it sits

• 8 ozgluten free elbow pastaCorn and rice blends hold their shape in a thermos. Red lentil and chickpea pastas go grainy and fall apart by noon.
• 2 tablespoonsbutter
• 2 tablespoonscornstarchStands in for the wheat flour in a normal roux, and it thickens without going gluey while it sits.
• 2 1/2 cupswhole milkMore than a stovetop mac needs. The pasta drinks most of it before lunch.
• 2 cupssharp cheddar, gratedGrate it off a block. The coating on pre-shredded cheese is what stops it melting smooth.
• 1/2 teaspoonmustard powder
• salt
• black pepper

1. Fill the thermos with boiling water, cap it, and leave it while you cook.
2. Boil the pasta in salted water for three minutes less than the shortest time on the box. Bite a piece. It should still be firm in the middle. Drain it and do not rinse it.
3. Melt the butter in the empty pot, whisk in the cornstarch, and cook it for a minute.
4. Add the milk a splash at a time, whisking after each one, and cook until it coats the back of a spoon, three to four minutes.
5. Take the pot off the heat and stir in the cheese, mustard powder, salt and pepper until smooth.
6. Fold the pasta through.
7. Tip the water out of the thermos and spoon the mac in while it is steaming, filling to a half inch below the rim. Cap it right away.

1. It should look too saucy when you pack it. The pasta keeps drinking for five hours, so soupy at seven is right at noon.
2. Fill to a half inch below the rim. Air space costs you heat, and mac that goes cool sets into a block.
3. Crackers and apple slices ride in their own container. Sealed in with steam they arrive damp.
4. My daughter will eat this at room temperature but not cold, which is worth knowing on the mornings the thermos does not get preheated.

• It comes home as one solid block. The pasta was boiled to the time on the box and kept swelling in the thermos.
• The sauce is grainy and split. The cheese went in while the pot was still on the burner.
• It is dry and pasty by noon. Not enough milk went into the pan, so there was nothing left for the pasta to take.

The pasta is the line to read. Most gluten free elbows are corn and rice and say gluten free on the front, but some are milled on shared equipment, so buy a certified bag if trace amounts are a problem in your house. The bigger change is the sauce, because a standard mac and cheese starts with a wheat flour roux. Cornstarch does the same job here and holds up better in a sealed thermos. Pre-shredded cheese carries an anti-caking coating, usually potato starch or cellulose, and grating from a block skips the question.