Make Boxed Mac And Cheese Even Creamier With A Salad Dressing Upgrade

If you've tried adding spoonfuls of ranch seasoning powder to your mac and cheese, you know about the extra flavor that the blend can bring to a basic dish. But it isn't only the powdery seasoning that can quickly amp up the drool-inducing factor of this comforting meal. Combining tangy ranch salad dressing directly into cheesy, creamy mixtures delivers a flavorful, gooey creaminess that can gussy up even simple mac and cheese recipes. 

With the zippy flavor of ranch comfortably stirred into the sauce you use to coat cooked noodles, you can focus on developing layers of flavor with different cheeses like Colby, Monterey Jack, and parmesan that are stirred with milk or cream. Turn up the intensity of ranch even louder by adding garlic salt or lemon-pepper seasoning, then pack an added dimension of texture with crunchy onions or crushed saltines as a finishing touch. You'll have to demonstrate some serious willpower to put utensils back down once you dig into this beauty of a dish. 

Whether you add ranch dressing to a box of store-bought mac and cheese or pour it into a made-from-scratch recipe, the dressing will impart a velvety texture into each spoonful of noodles. While you can create recipes that lean heavily on the dressing with a cup or more added to eggs, Asiago cheese, and evaporated milk, you can also experiment by gradually mixing in spoonfuls of the dressing to some of your favorite mac and cheese recipes and adjust as you see fit.

You may need to compensate and dial back the other liquid ingredients, however, should you decide to press the pedal down on the tangy ranch flavor. Use only one cup of whole milk if a half to three-quarters cup of ranch is added to a baked mac and cheese casserole, for instance. Feel free to eyeball ingredient ratios to create a perfectly gooey, creamy sauce. The mac and cheese meals eaten in your house may never be the same once ranch gets involved.