Baked Lil' Smokies N Homemade Mac-N-Cheese

Chefcrystal's Note:

This is a great kid-pleasing meal. You can make it ahead and refrigerate it until you are ready to pop it into the oven. I actually came up with this one day when I realized I had to make a pack of smokies or throw them out (But alas, no other ingredients on hand). So I just took my mom-taught homemade mac and cheese recipe and added smokies.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 15 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 45 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 (16 ounce) box macaroni noodles (cooked)
• 1 (14 ounce) package Little Smokies sausages
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 lb cheese (more if desired ( fresh grated is best, but not necessity)
• 3/4 cup milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Cook Macaroni noodles according to package directions. Drain and rinse.
3. Saute lil' smokies in pan until warm.
4. Grate cheese while the above is cooking.
5. Grease a baking dish (the deeper the dish the more layers you can make).
6. Layers: Noodles (enough to just cover bottom of dish). Smokies (divide the by the # of layers to get them equally distributed). Cheese (cover noodles and smokies to your taste: Just make sure to reserve enough for the other layers).
7. Butter (dot this on).
8. Then begin over with the layers until all is used up (finishing with the butter).
9. Finally pour the milk over top (Important: the milk is an estimate; I never measure, just pour until it feels right but this should be about right. Just adjust according to your taste on subsequent makings).
10. Cover and bake 30 minutes.
11. Remove cover and bake another 15-20 minutes.

Reviews

[Pattyinthekitch]

Why not promote how well it cooked in the Deep Covered Baker?

[Braunda]

What a wonderful fast easy meal!!! I had everything on had and we had our meal in no time. Nothing to change at all. Thank You for sharing.

[Chef on the coast]

The only change I made was the pasta. I was out of macaroni so used Rigatoni. My family loved the flavor the little smokies gave the macaroni and cheese. I did use a cup of milk as the pasta was thicker and bigger than regular macaroni. I will be making this again - both with and without the little sausages. I used colby jack cheese and didn't have any problems at all. Thanks for a great recipe!