I’ve used my rice cooker to make this extra cheesy mac and cheese multiple times, and it always turns out great! After incorporating the cheeses into the cooked macaroni and stirring well, leave the cooker on warm for an additional 10 to 15 minutes if you prefer your mac and cheese with a lovely crust.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 40 mins |
| Servings: | 3 |
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups elbow macaroni
- 1 ½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
- ¾ cup shredded Cheddar cheese
- ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ¼ teaspoon paprika
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Mix macaroni, broth, and almond milk together in the rice cooker; cook according to the manufacturer’s instructions until macaroni is tender yet firm to the bite, 30 to 40 minutes.
- Stir Cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, paprika, salt, and pepper into macaroni mixture until cheeses are melted.
- I make this in my small Aroma 2- to 8-cup rice cooker. If you have a larger unit, you may easily double or triple this recipe.
- Elbow macaroni works best in this recipe, but you can use rotini, penne, shells, or whatever smaller pasta you have on hand.
- Feel free to experiment with different types of cheese — sharp, medium, Italian blend, or whatever you like!
- I used low-sodium chicken broth, but any kind would be good. Any type of milk can be used in place of almond milk.
- Red pepper flakes can be used in place of paprika.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 417 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 44 g |
| Cholesterol | 50 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 23 g |
| Saturated Fat | 9 g |
| Sodium | 507 mg |
| Sugars | 5 g |
| Fat | 16 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This is my new favorite Mac and cheese. I made a few changes: I used 1 cup whole milk instead of almond milk, and I didn’t have any mozzarella cheese on hand so I increased the cheddar from 3/4 to 1 cup and substituted with 1/4 cup cream cheese for the 1/2 cup mozzarella. It comes out so good. The only problem is now I have to buy a bigger rice cooker because I can only fit a single batch in mine and definitely should be cooking double batches of this!
I used the white rice setting on my Tiger rice cooker (5.5 max capacity). My only substitution was evaporated milk in place of the almond milk. It turned out fantastic! Next time I will stir the macaroni about midway while it is cooking. This recipe is incredibly easy with the rice cooker.
Turned out great! I added garlic salt and onion powder! I also just used cheddar cheese because it was what I had on hand! Super easy to make!
Tasty but mine came out bad. The noodles were ready at 28 minutes and then i added cheese but it came out gritty I dont know what i did wrong.
Definitely use the “white rice” setting on an automatic rice cooker, it’s more like a 15 min cook time. Then another 10 min of resting time for the cheese to melt and soak up the remaining liquid. I followed others suggestions and used evaporated milk. It came out perfectly!
Somehow I totally screwed this up. I also have the same rice cooker. I put it on white rice mode then like 20min into cooking the liquids inside were bubbling up out of the rice cooker onto the table. I opened it up and the pasta was done so I dumped the rest of the liquids out then tried mixing in the cheeses and what not. But they did not melt easily. If someone could type out exactly how they did it like they were explaining it to a 3 year old that’d be awesome. I’m really trying to get better at cooking. Either way my screwed up version still tasted pretty good 5 stars
Excellent as is !!!!!!!!!
Tasty, versatile and EASY!
This recipe is easy and delicious. I also made it in a pot as I don’t have a rice cooker.
Tried it in a smaller amount and turned out great. Used regular milk instead of almond milk. Didn’t have measuring cups so had to eyeball it, so mines came out with a bit of liquid left. I’ll try again with correct amounts and see if the results are the same. Added some italian seasoning for extra taste (had no paprika or other seasonings other than salt and pepper available). Despite the differences it came out really well. I gave it 4 stars because I plan on trying again to see if I get less liquid and if that changes the taste. If it’s better I’ll change it to 5.
I like my macaroni and cheese with a little more “spice” to it, so I added dried mustard. pepper, garlic and onion flakes. They add an even nicer taste.
I don’t have a rice cooker, I used a slow cooker it was easy and delicious
My family LOVES this recipe. I never have almond milk or store bought chicken broth on hand however, so I use what we have; 2% milk and my homemade broth and it turns out great. I don’t know if my rice cooker cooks too high, but I have to leave the lid off to keep it from boiling and curdling the milk. Even so, mine is still done in about 20 minutes. My kids grew up on pre-packaged mac n cheese so it took a little time for them to get used to this. Now…I never have leftovers.
I made this for an impromptu lunch with another big family – lots of kids, play and Mac n cheese. I probably won’t go back to crockpot or old fashioned Mac n cheese. This is too easy! I used a 12oz can of evaporated milk, about 1 to 1.5c of broth and 2c of macaroni. Rice cooker was set to the white rice setting and as soon as it was done, I added shredded cheddar, stirred and seasoned. And then it was inhaled by kids and grow ups.
This is one of those interesting ones where, given the number of decent reviews, I wonder if people who “knew better” dismissed this idea out of hand and never tried making it. But whatever, I was curious and wanted to give it a shot. Perhaps it’s based on a difference in rice cooker models, but not surprisingly, after 40 minutes under heat and liquid (and the rice cooker did pop literally 12 seconds before the timer went off I had set), the noodles were all but mush. Adding the rest of the ingredients doesn’t really hide that fact, and it didn’t make for a particularly great dish by itself either. Now if you played with it and fixed the noodle consistency, I could see this being an alright base for adding in other ingredients like a bit of nicely prepared meat or mushrooms and peppers. But at the end of the day, I feel like that’s the problem with this one – it doesn’t yield a Mac’n’cheese that I want to enjoy for being Mac’n’cheese. What it came out closer to was a pretty solid base substitution for hamburger helper. You can run with that, but it’s not what I was hoping for from this recipe.
I made the original recipe with the almond milk, it came out too dry but ok. The second time, I made it with evaporated milk and OMG everyone was in heaven: it was creamy and so smooth in your mouth it was unbelievable!!! This is a must do simple recipe when time is on your side!!
I’m finding it hard to believe this was so easy and it came out so good! (I guess my cheapie rice cooker is just the right size and heat for the recipe because the macaroni came out just right; not too hard and not too soft) I followed the recipe to the letter except for using normal full-fat milk and the type of cheese, since I still had a bag of shredded gouda that had a week left before expiry. I think next time I’ll try to substitute fish broth or vegetable broth instead and then add a can of shredded tuna with either the cheese OR green peas.
Did it without the broth and it still tastes good! I know the broth would’ve made it better
I was low on groceries and looking for something simple. I had all of the cheeses and had never used my rice cooker for anything but, you know, rice so this was intriguing. Looked runny after the given time, added a handful more noodles, some garlic salt, dried onion flakes, red pepper and put the metal bowl of rice cooker in the oven to broil on high with some panko bread crumbs on top for a few mins. Came out looking and smelling divine. Tasted pretty good though the noodles I added late were, as you would guess, not cooked through.
I loved the idea of this, but not my results. I made this twice. I found the noodles very mushy.
I cooked this stovetop (I don’t have a rice cooker), and otherwise followed ingredients as written and this was super yummy! My husband (who is pretty picky about his mac n cheese) gave this a thumbs up too. 🙂