Wanted: your best Mac and Cheese recipe!

This is a really tough call. My son's idea of "mac and cheese" is to cook some noodles, grate cheese over it, and microwave it just enough for the cheese to melt.  I admit, I'm looking for better than that.

Another friend has both a stove-top and a baked recipe. One is very quick, but the other tastes better.

But there are a *lot* of permies members and I thought you all probably have an interesting take on this old favorite, so why not ask all of you to share your secrets for the best Mac and Cheese. Some box from the grocery store need not apply. (Which I admit are not allowed in my kitchen.)

I'm not a fan of this dish, but people in my family sometimes want it and I'm the primary cook, so I occasionally make it as an act of love. I cook some pasta -- macaroni is fine, but any small chunky noodle is also fine, in a pot of salted water. While that's cooking, I make a mornay in a dutch oven by browning flour in butter and mixing in cream and milk and then mixing in cheese (cheddar or gruyere or whatever) once that's incorporated. When they're both done, I drain the pasta and add it to the mornay, stir it up, and put it in the hot oven. After 10-30 minutes, I take the lid off, top it with cheese and panko (or crumbs of whatever bread we have or crushed crackers or fried onions or skip this) and bake it another five minutes or something.

Sometimes I add veggies when combining the pasta and mornay -- frozen peas or small florets of broccoli/mustard/sea kale or just whatever sounds good.

(I think my preferred dish that fills the same niche is a potato gratin.)

We have had this discussion before so I am not going to go into details.

Simply, make a white sauce, melt cheese into the white sauce, pour over cooked macaroni. Mix and enjoy.

The cheese makes the difference and there are so many to chose from.

https://www.delish.com/food/a46756220/how-to-make-best-mac-and-cheese/

I haven't made it in years, because John isn't a fan, and all our kids are long gone, in other states, but I miss it!

I always started with a bechamel, then added shredded gruyer, a sharp cheddar, or sometimes, a Norwood, a Swiss - or a combination of any of them. Then, in goes the cooked (in well-salted water), well-drained, pasta, stirred well, and poured into a baking pan. Then, depending on my mood and what I has on hand, topped with more cheese, and either bread crumbs, crushed crackers, crushed, canned onion rings(horribly processed, but yummy), crushed 'shoestring' potatoes, or crushed potatoe chips, and bake until it's golden.

I hope this helps, because yeh, your young'un's method is just plain icky, too me, lol.