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Gluten Free Mac and Cheese Balls (dairy free option too)

Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time10 minutes
Cooling time1 hour
Servings: 5 giant Mac & Cheese balls
Course: Appetizer, Main Course
Cuisine: American, english

Ingredients

  • 100 grams Garofalo pasta - I used Casarecce

Cheese Sauce

  • 25 grams butter/spread
  • 1/4 tsp garlic granules
  • 1/8 tsp paprika - -aka a small pinch!
  • 100 grams grated cheese - *see notes below for my top choice and dairy free options
  • 1 tbsp gluten free plain flour
  • 150 ml milk - *see notes below for my top choice and dairy free options

Coating

  • Generous sprinkle of gluten free plain flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1 packet gluten free breadcrumbs - I use a gluten free stuffing mix (which is basically flavoured breadcrumbs anyway!)

Instructions

Cook the pasta

  • Bring a pan of water to the boil.
  • Once boiling, add your pasta and reduce to a simmer.
    >Give the pasta a little stir in the boiling water to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.
  • Leave to cook for 2 mins less than the time stated on the packet (e.g. Casarecce says 12 mins so cook the pasta for 10 mins).
    >You want the pasta to be JUST undercooked. It will keep cooking once fried and if its already cooked, it'll go soggy at this stage.
  • Drain and set aside.

Cheese Sauce

  • If your cheese isnt grated, do that now! Grate into a bowl and set aside.
  • Add the butter, paprika & garlic to a saucepan. Turn to a low heat, allowing the butter to slowly melt but not burn.
  • Keeping your pan on a low heat, add the tbsp of plain flour and thoroughly mix together with a spoon.
  • Leave cooking for 1 minute, stirring occasionally.
    >This step is important to prevent your end cheese sauce tasting powdery.
  • Add 1/3 of the milk and use a balloon whisk to stir the mix together.
  • Once smooth, add the next 1/3 and stir until smooth. Then repeat for the last 1/3.
  • Keep whisking continually until the sauce has thickened. It takes about 4 mins.
    >It might feel like its taking forever and nothing is happening, but it will suddenly thicken so keeeeep whisking!!
    >How to know when its thick enough: Your whisk should leave a little ribbon pattern on the surface on the sauce (hopefully you can see this in my picture), and should stay there for 2-3 seconds.
  • Once the sauce has thickened, remove from the heat and add the grated cheese. Whisk in until its all melted and you've got a deliciously smooth sauce!
    >It'll look like a lot of sauce - don't panic you've done it right ;)
    >If you're using dairy free cheese, you might need to whisk the cheese in whilst keeping the pan on a very low heat - it might need a little extra help to melt!!
  • Add salt/pepper to your taste.

Construction!

  • Add the drained pasta to the cheese sauce and mix through.
  • Let the mac and cheese cool completely.
    >To do this in the quickest way, I transfer the balls to a bowl/dish and leave to cool for 10 mins. I then place the mac and cheese into the fridge to cool completely - takes about 30mins-1hr.
    >A shallow bowl/dish is easier as it speeds up the cooling time
  • Using a spoon/ice cream scoop, scoop out 5 large balls of mac and cheese, placing them onto a plate.
  • Prep 3 bowls: 1 with a scattering of plain flour, 1 with a beaten egg, 1 with your breadcrumbs.
  • Roll each of the balls in flour, then dip into a bowl of beaten egg (so its completely covered) and roll in your breadcrumbs.
    >Once the breadcrumbs are on, be quite heaved handed with them. Roll them around in your hands to make perfectly round balls.

Cooking

  • Add approx 1 inch of oil to a frying pan/saucepan.
  • Bring the oil to around 170oC.
    >If you haven't got a thermometer, you're looking for a little sizzle like my picture when the Mac and Cheese balls are placed into the oil They won't instantly brown, but it'll only take 5-10 seconds to start to see a beautiful golden colour appearing
  • Carefully place your mac and cheese balls into the pan. Leave until they're a golden brown on underside then flip and cook on the other side
    >Takes about 20-30 seconds on each side but let the colour dictate the time! You want them to be a nice golden brown.
  • Carefully lift each of the Mac and Cheese balls out of the pan and onto either a cooling rack or kitchen roll (so the excess oil can either drip through the cooling rack or get soaked up by the kitchen roll).
  • Leave to cool for a couple of mins and then EAT!!!!!

Notes

CHEESE
100g of any hard cheese (or combination of different cheeses) will work but here's our favourites:
*Not dairy free: Charlie loves using 75g of a pre-grated cheddar & mozzarella mix and 25g of red Leicester. 
*Dairy free: I love using 75g of Violife mature chedder and 25g of a vegan red cheese (either cheddar with jalpano & chilli or a vegan red leceister style cheese)
 
MILK
*Not dairy free: ideally use semi-skimmed or full fat
*Dairy free: you need a "full fat" option to get a nice, thick sauce. I mix together 50ml of soya cream (carton of alpro long life) and 100ml of full fat soya milk.
 
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