One-Pot Cheddar Tomato Mac – The New York Times
new video loaded: One-Pot Cheddar Tomato Mac
transcript
Back
transcript
One-Pot Cheddar Tomato Mac
At the happy place where mac and cheese, tomato pasta and tomato soup with grilled cheese meet, you’ll find this dreamy weeknight pasta.
This Is my one-pot tomato cheddar mac. It is somewhere between a mac and cheese, a tomato pasta and tomato soup with grilled cheese. The feeling of eating it is like a spoonful of cartoons. You know what I mean? Melt some butter. Add tomato paste, garlic, paprika, maybe a little cayenne if you want some heat, toast all of those things together so that the tomato flavor gets kind of roasted and caramelized. And as the pasta cooks in this tomato water thing, that stuff becomes really thick and creamy from the starch from the pasta. Add a whole block of cheddar, turn off the heat and let the cheddar melt on its own in the pasta. This helps make the sauce really thick and glossy. Top this pasta with some toasted breadcrumbs for a baked mac and cheese, crispy topping kind of feeling.
At the happy place where mac and cheese, tomato pasta and tomato soup with grilled cheese meet, you’ll find this dreamy weeknight pasta.
March 10, 2026
