Turn Leftover Holiday Cheeseball Into Sticky Macaroni and Cheese
On a cold winter night in 2017, a friend brought a 20oz cheese ball topped with walnuts and bacon to my Christmas party. This was my first holiday cheeseball experience, and I instantly fell in love with the novelty of accessing a giant sphere of near-endless immersion. But when dawn came the next day, I was faced with an unforeseen problem: what should I do with the leftover cheese balls? The ball was definitely no longer in shape and almost half of it was gone, but I still had half a pound of cheese left. I was looking forward to the opportunity to eat more of it with crackers, but I knew that over time I would get tired of this presentation, and throwing it in the trash was just not an option.
Suddenly my brain went into “rework” mode. Rework is a food industry concept whereby a perfectly good product that no longer needs a finished product is transformed into something new. The same idea can be used to use day-aged bun slices for Sunday French toast. Brioche is a finished product that can be enjoyed as is, but one-day brioche may be too dry for easy consumption. However, it is ideal for soaking cinnamon custard and butter frying.
I looked at my cheese ball, all chopped up but still showing bacon bits, green onions, grated cheddar cheese, cream cheese, walnuts, and condiments. It occurred to me that this could make an amazing pasta sauce. I could transform this cheese ball into great mac and cheese, taking it to the next level with bacon and walnuts!
The result was a terrific dish: a viscous cheese sauce bubbling with herbs and spices, sometimes with a walnut crunch – and most importantly, these were the simplest mac and cheese I have ever made. No dressing and no dry, split, oily cheese lumps. Soft cheese, be it cream cheese, goat cheese, or other spreadable cheese, melts to form a thick sauce that binds and supports hard cheeses like cheddar or parmesan, found in most cheese balls. I swallowed a whole bowl of these fancy mac and cheese and still had enough cheeseball to cook the next day (this time with frozen peas added).
The following recipe is one serving, so you can make this dish even if you have very few cheese balls left. If you have a lot of leftovers, it’s easy to double, triple, or quadruple them. After that, you may want to double down on your next cheese ball to make sure you have leftovers.
Leftover Holiday Macaroni and Cheese with Cheeseball (Yield: 1 serving)
Ingredients:
- ¾ cup (2 ounces) dry paste
- ⅓ cups (2 ounces) cheeseball
- ¼ cups (2 ounces) pasta
In a small saucepan, boil the pasta in salted water as directed on the package. Once the paste has reached the desired texture, drain off all the water except the glass. (If you forget this step or accidentally drain the water, you can add ¼ cup fresh water or milk back to the pot. Pasta water is good for the starch it contains will make the sauce a little thicker and help it stick to it. it won’t stop you from using plain water.)
Return the saucepan to medium heat. Break the cheese ball and toss it into the pot. Stir the mixture slowly but constantly. The cheeseball will begin to melt and mix with the pasta water to form a sauce. When the water from the pasta has evaporated, the mixture thickens and turns into a rich velvet sauce with nuts and other delicious nibs. Enjoy your biggest fork.