Macaroni cheese

[AtleastitsnotMonday]

What sides do you serve with it? I can’t stand the stuff and never really serve it. But I have guests including dc, one of whom apparently adores it. So I’m going to do one. I’m not worried about that at all, I make a good cheese sauce and am under strict instructions to make it extra cheesy! However I just can’t get my head round what you are meant to serve with it. To me it screams for veg, maybe grilled tomatoes and mushrooms? Or peas? I did think salad to keep it light but can’t get past the through of gloopy cheese sauce getting on my leaves! I like the idea of leeks but not very summery.
Should I do garlic bread? Do I need to add any more carb, it’s stodgy enough as it is?
I fear I’m over thinking this!

I love it with added bacon bits, and peas!

I do chunky chips with Mac cheese, my boys like a smoked sausage with it as well

I'll tell you what's good with mac cheese, baked tatties!!! Absolutely THE best food ever. Or just good old garlic bread if you're not quite as gluttonous.

An apple, cucumber, green pepper and celery salad (all chopped into small cubes) with lemon juice.

Broccoli and peas here

I do it with sides of grilled-to-crisp streaky bacon, grilled tomatoes, petit pois and cauliflower.

I put some fried chorizo & peas in mine, and make it with cheddar, gruyere and Parmesan - makes it a bit less boring!

I’d probably do a tomato and basil salad and a crispy green salad (otherwise everything has a squishy bouncy texture)

Peas and enough ketchup to qualify as a vegetable in its own right. All you need.

Tomato and basil salad.
Loads of sliced cucumber.

You just eat it on its own? It would never occur to me to serve anything with it!

I put ham and onion in mine and to me that makes it a meal in its own right

DD has it with a mix of peas, sweetcorn, broccoli and cauliflower. Some mixed in and some on the side.

I have it with chicken thighs and coleslaw. Sounds weird but it's great.

I roast green veg with it (then everything just gets bunged in oven) - broccoli, sprouts, courgette, asparagus or similar.

@Germolenequeen

Birds Eye peas and Heinz tomato ketchup 😋

Noooooo. It would be a pink mess!

Green salad to cut through it. I'm not an iceberg fan but with this it works, crunchy to add texture.

Skinny fries and a green salad. Sliced tomatoes on top of the macaroni cheese before it goes in the oven. Put the macaroni cheese in its own individual serving dish to stop the salad leaves being gooed on. Dip the skinny chips in the (lashings of) cheese sauce, lovely 😛

It’s a meal on its own.

A baked potato is good but you don’t eat macaroni cheese to munch a salad alongside.

Chopped up frankfurters.

And that's why I gained 2 stone during uni worth it though.

A fennel and apple salad, tomato salad and green salad.
It needs something with a bit of flavour to cut through the dairy overload. Fennel is good for that.

One of my major disappointments as a parent is that dds don't like it. Neither does dh or my mother who I can usually rely upon to help me out. This it's a very rare treat for me.

I say peas or a tomato based salad.

Noooooo. It would be a pink mess!

@userxx I manage to eat my food quite tidily so no pink mess here 😅

I use cauliflower too, but blitz in the sauce.

My little boy is dairy free. I make white sauce but with oat milk. I
Also boil cauliflower and sauté white onions, so I can blitz them both and add to the white sauce, chuck in some frozen peas (which you don’t blitz) before adding cheese. When it comes to adding the cheese to it, I split it out so son gets his own portion with his cheese, and the others get normal dairy. You can’t taste the hidden veg, but it’s just a way I sneak it in.

It goes in the oven, you so r need to grill it.

I like the idea of tomato on top -think school did the same.

Oh and garlic bread 😋😋