Instant Pot butternut squash mac and cheese
Creamy cheddar mac with a bag of butternut squash cooked right in and mashed into the sauce, so it’s golden, silky and secretly full of vegetables.
- 25 min total
- 10 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 4
- About $1.47 a serving
- 600 calories
- Good the next day
- Vegetarian
Dolly says: I’d make this on a weeknight. It’s on the table in 25 minutes.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 1½ cups cheddar cheese, grated
- 12 oz elbow macaroni
- 2 tbsp butter
- 12 oz frozen butternut squash, one bag
- ½ cup milk
From your pantry
- 3 cups water
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp garlic powder
Each serving has about 600 calories, 24 g protein, 79 g carbs and 22 g fat, and costs about $1.47 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No cheddar cheese? Shredded cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese or Mexican blend cheese works.
- No elbow macaroni? Penne works.
- No butter? Ghee works.
- No milk? Half-and-half works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
the cheddar and set it aside.
Grate. Grating means rubbing food across the holes of a grater to make fine shreds or flakes. It spreads cheese, garlic or ginger evenly through a dish so it melts right in.
How you’ll know: Even shreds fall off the back of the grater, and you stop while the piece is still big enough to hold.
Put the macaroni, water, butter, salt and garlic powder in the Instant Pot, stir, and press the pasta under the water.
Scatter the frozen squash over the top. Don’t stir.
Lock the lid, set the valve to Sealing, and pressure cook on high for 4 minutes.
Timer: 4 min
Dolly’s tip: It takes about 10 minutes to come up to pressure before the countdown starts. That’s normal.When it beeps, carefully turn the valve to Venting with a long spoon, keeping your hand and face away from the steam.
Mash the squash into the pasta with a potato masher or the back of a big spoon until it into a sauce.
Melt. Melting means gently heating something solid, like butter or cheese, until it turns liquid. Low or medium heat keeps it from browning or burning.
How you’ll know: It’s smooth and liquid, and butter may foam a little but hasn’t turned brown.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Dolly’s tip: It melts right into the sauce. A few small bits left are fine.Stir in the milk, then the cheddar a handful at a time, until creamy. Serve right away.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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30-minute dinners ›One-pan dinners ›What to make with pasta and cheddar ›