Tags: vegetarian, gluten-free, spicy
Ingredients:
- 1 - 12oz Bag Gluten-Free Pasta
- 1/4 cup All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour
- 1 - 12oz Can Evaporated Milk
- 10oz Extra-Sharp Cheddar Cheese, shredded
- 1/2 medium Yellow Onion, chopped
- 1 teaspoon ground Cayenne Pepper (1/2 if you’re sensitive to heat)
- 1/2 teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1 stick Butter
- 1 cup “Pirates Booty” Aged White Cheddar cheese puffs
- 1/4 cup milk (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook the pasta according to package instructions, rinse and set aside.
In a sauté pan, melt the butter over medium heat and add black and cayenne pepper; mix thoroughly. Add onion and sauté until the onions start to look glassy.
Slowly stir in the flour using a whisk. Continue mixing until it reaches the consistency of a thin dough. Stir in the evaporated milk until the mixture forms a white sauce.
Set aside a quarter of the cheese. Slowly mix the cheese into the white sauce. Whisk it until the cheese is thoroughly melted into the white sauce. If it starts to get too thick or dough-like, add a little bit of milk.
Combine the cheese sauce and pasta in a medium, covered casserole pan and mix thoroughly. Next, crush the Pirate’s Booty and sprinkle over the top of the casserole as bread crumbs. Put the remaining cheese on top of the bread crumbs.
Cover and bake for 35 minutes.
A note on ingredients – I use bionaturae gluten-free fusilli for the pasta and Bob’s Red Mill all-purpose gluten free flour. They tend to cook to the right consistency. If you can’t find an exact match for the pasta, make sure you don’t get “shell” pasta – as fun as shells and cheese are with wheat pasta, the gluten-free variety doesn’t work well with this recipe.
Allergens
- Milk (dairy) — evaporated milk, cheddar, butter, the Pirate’s Booty cheese puffs, and the optional milk. This dish is heavily dairy.
- Gluten-free as written — it uses gluten-free pasta and flour and (gluten-free) Pirate’s Booty, but this only holds if those specific products are certified gluten-free, so check the labels.
This dish is vegetarian, but note that traditional cheddar is often made with animal rennet, so use a rennet-free cheese if that matters to you. It is not vegan (heavily dairy).
Nutrition
Estimated for 6 servings as a main dish (it stretches to about 8 as a side). Does not include the optional 1/4 cup of milk, which adds little.
Per serving (1/6 of recipe)
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Calories | ~655 |
| Fat | ~37 g |
| Carbs | ~58 g |
| Protein | ~21 g |
| Sodium | ~500 mg |
Whole recipe (6 servings)
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Calories | ~3,930 |
| Fat | ~225 g |
| Carbs | ~350 g |
| Protein | ~123 g |
| Sodium | ~3,000 mg |
This is a rich dish. The biggest contributors are the pasta (~1,220), cheddar (~1,140), and butter (~810). Using less butter or a lighter cheese would bring the fat and calories down.
These values were estimated by Claude (an AI assistant) and may be inaccurate. Treat them as rough approximations, not exact figures.