Growing up in a Chinese family, I missed out on many American childhood must-haves like breakfast cereals, Fruit Roll-ups and frozen bagel pizzas.  I didn’t have my first macaroni and cheese until I was 18, when a college friend made it for me at her apartment.

She made it from a box, you know, the kind with that curiously orange sauce.  I didn’t like it and never ate it again, until I started dating Nick, a die-hard mac and cheese fan.  Convinced that there had to be something better out there (recipes, not boyfriends),  I looked through cookbooks and tried every single macaroni and cheese recipe I could get my hands on.

I like this one because it has layers of flavor.  It’s not just creamy; it’s also tangy and spicy from the hot sauce.  And the scallion gives a burst of onion flavor without overpowering the dish.  You can add some crispy bacon bits and minced jalapeno to play up the southwestern theme.

A white sauce, or béchamel, is one of the mother sauces of French cuisine.  It’s used in gratins, lasagnas and of course, macaroni and cheese.  You start with a roux, which is made of flour and fat, add milk and stir until the sauce thickens.  The key is to keep stirring, so the sauce doesn’t burn and get lumpy.  Between stirring the sauce and grating the cheese, you might just burn off enough calories to eat this without any guilt.

Once you’ve mastered the béchamel.  You can experiment with different kinds of cheeses and add almost anthing you want to the pasta.  You can add Dijon mustard instead of hot sauce, use Gruyere instead of cheddar, or dress it up with bay scallops and lobster.  Whatever you do, just make sure to think “outside the box” when it comes to macaroni and cheese.