Creamy Baked Shells and Cheese

I love delicious, creamy shells and cheese, so I created a recipe for the site to go along with my other mac and cheese recipes like my baked mac and cheese and my goat cheese mac and cheese.

The sauce features plenty of cheese as well as sour cream and cream cheese to create a creamy and flavorful base for all the tender shell pasta.

For ease of browsing, you can find all my pasta dishes in one place. Now let’s get on with the shells and cheese!

What Makes a Perfect Shells and Cheese Recipe?

One of the hallmarks of a great, creamy mac and cheese is plenty of cheesy sauce for the pasta. In fact, the sauce should seem like too much sauce, because the pasta will absorb some of the liquid as it bakes.

And reheating is another big test. Are the reheated shells and cheese dry? If so, there wasn’t enough cheese sauce.

One of the first things you’ll note about this recipe is that there is an almost alarming amount of sauce to go with the shells. In the oven, the sauce thickens and concentrates as some liquid evaporates and some is absorbed by the pasta and even a little by the panko topping.

By the time you pull your creation out of the oven, you’ll have a beautifully golden brown, crispy-panko-topped shells and cheese that is the perfect texture with exactly the right amount of creamy sauce. And the sauce warms back up to its lovely creamy consistency even when reheated.

Why Use Shells?

Shells are basically little edible pockets designed to hold things. And what better thing to hold than delightfully creamy, well-seasoned, slightly tangy cheese sauce?

Exactly.

As a matter of fact, shells are so good at holding onto sauce, you want to make sure you blow on each bite really well before digging in. Otherwise an incendiary pocket of, cheese sauce might burn your mouth, which is no fun.

What is fun is letting it cool off enough so that you get a bite that contains a bunch of textures at once: crispy from the panko topping, a little chewy from the pasta itself, and creamy from the cheese sauce.

You’re welcome to use a different pasta shape, of course, but shells are very homey, do their job of holding onto sauce exceedingly well, and remind me of my mom and her macaroni casserole supreme.

Making Shells and Cheese: Ingredients and Procedure

If you are comfortable making a roux and a mornay sauce and already have the ingredients you need, you can skip down to the recipe. Otherwise, read on for the ingredient list, potential substitutions, and the procedure, including hows and whys as well as helpful tips.

Ingredients

For the Roux

Roux is the base of the sauce, giving it body and thickening it. The starch in the flour helps to keep the sauce from getting grainy, especially when reheated, so this is Insurance Policy #1 for a creamy sauce

• butter: Carries flavor and helps to toast the spices. It also coats the flour granules to moderate thickening power. You could also substitute oil or bacon fat
• flour: Thickens the sauce when cooked into a roux with the butter and spices and helps to stabilize the cheese sauce so it doesn’t break or get grainy
• smoked paprika: the predominant seasoning in this recipe. You could use hot smoked paprika if you like things a bit on the spicy side. Even consider using ground chipotle for a deeply smoky heat. If you don’t like heat, use sweet smoked paprika or just plain paprika
• ground mustard: Provides a bit of sharpness and mild heat and is also a very traditional ingredient in a British-style cheese sauce like Welsh rarebit, for example
• garlic herb seasoning: Use your favorite seasoning blend here. If you don’t want to introduce herbal notes, just add some granulated garlic (maybe 1-1 1/2 teaspoons) and a bit of onion powder and call it a day. Personally, I like Kinder’s garlic and herb seasoning, so that’s what I use
• salt: With a bechamel in general and one with so many spices, specifically, the salt is necessary to bring the spices into focus and to keep the flavors from seeming “muddy”
• pepper: I almost always use at least some black pepper in almost all my savory cooking. You can use it or leave it out depending on your preference

For the Cheese Sauce

Before adding the cheese, you’ll have a spiced bechamel sauce. After adding the cheese, you’ll have a spiced Mornay sauce. Adding the cream cheese and sour cream are not traditional for a Mornay, but they do add creaminess and volume to the sauce without adding a lot of extra liquid.

• evaporated milk: The first liquid added to the roux, evaporated milk is a bit sweeter than whole milk (but do NOT confuse it with sweetened condensed milk) and has a slightly cooked flavor. It provides our second insurance policy: starting with a minimum of liquid. The thicker and more luxurious your base, the less chance of curdling/separation when you add the cheese. Evaporated milk is a great place to start because all mac and cheese, whether you think so or not, should have a touch of sweetness. Evaporated milk is a way to get that sweetness without adding sugar
• half and half: Adds more volume to the sauce as well as some richness. Yes, there’s cheese in it, but still, you might as well go for it without going full-on heavy cream
• whole milk: Adds a bit more volume and liquid, which is generally not a great thing for cheese sauce. At the same time, you’ll reduce the sauce on the stove before adding the cheese, and we do need the volume to ensure lots of creamy goodness per bite
• extra sharp cheddar cheese: This is my favorite cheese for mac and cheese. It doesn’t melt quite as smoothly as a medium cheddar, but that’s what all our insurance policies are for, and the sharp flavor is the way to go as a foil for all the creaminess. If you’d like, feel free to substitute any good melting cheese here
• Monterey jack cheese: Jack cheese doesn’t add a ton of flavor, but it does add volume and melts into a very smooth, delicious goo that is creamy and not stringy. And we want the maximum amount of cheesy goo per bite. Sub Colby jack or a mild-to-medium cheddar.
• cream cheese: Adds subtle tang and super creamy goodness
• sour cream: Gives us more tang and volume. It’s a great addition to shells and cheese. Substitute Greek yogurt, if desired

• medium shells: don’t forget the pasta! You’ll need a full pound

For the Panko Topping

You can choose to leave off the panko topping and serve the shells and cheese straight from the pot as a stovetop version. I like the contrast of a crispy layer on top of a creamy one. If you are into textural contrast, make the topping. You can use anything crispy, really, from crushed cheese crackers to potato chips, but panko makes a nice, neutral base for the topping and is inherently crispy.

• panko: By nature, panko is light, airy, and crisp, so it makes the perfect main ingredient for a contrasting texture to the creamy shells and cheese sauce. Other options include crackers, cheese crackers, potato chips, etc
• Parmesan cheese: Adds a sharp, nutty element to the topping. You could also go with Gruyere for a more mellow nuttiness or use more extra sharp cheddar to carry that theme through the whole dish
• melted butter: To carry flavor and assist in browning. If starting with crushed potato chips, you’ll need less butter since the chips are already on the oily side
• garlic herb seasoning: Again, to carry the flavors from the cheese sauce into the topping. You can substitute with a bit of garlic powder or any of your favorite seasonings. Smoked paprika might be another nice addition
• salt: Just a small pinch, because panko is very bland

Procedure

Here’s how to make the shells and cheese:

1. Make the spiced roux: Melt the butter, then add the flour and all the spices. This will not be a runny roux. It’s very thick and chunky. Cook, stirring, until the roux is sizzling, about 2 minutes
2. Make the bechamel: Slowly pour in the evaporated milk, whisking well. Then whisk in the half and half and milk. Make sure your milks are all at room temperature (evaporated) or chilled (half and half and whole milk). Adding cold liquids to a hot roux help to keep the roux from getting clumpy
3. Turn it into a cheese sauce (Mornay): Once you have your bechamel sauce, melt in shredded cheese, a big handful at a time, moving the pot on and off a low burner to allow the cheese to incorporate slowly. Only heat at this point when the cheese seems to have stopped melting. Once all the shredded cheese is mixed in, thoroughly whisk in the cream cheese followed by the sour cream
4. Add the pasta: Add the pasta straight from the boiling water, along with any starchy water clinging to it. I scoop mine out and into the cheese sauce using a spider. Once I figured this out, no more carrying heavy vats of boiling water and pasta over to the sink and colander! Once you get the pasta into the sauce, turn the heat up to high and bring everything to a boil, stirring constantly. The roux, the evaporated milk, the pasta water, and to a certain extent, the cream cheese all work together to keep the sauce silky smooth, even at a boil. Boil for 2-3 minutes, until the sauce thickens up again after being thinned by the starchy water
5. Top with panko and bake: Pour your cheesy shells into a 9″ x 13″ baking dish and spread it out evenly. Top with the panko and bake at 375F for 30 minutes until bubbling all around the edges and golden brown on top. Finish under the broiler for 1-2 minutes if you want to make sure the panko layer is super crisp

Insurance Against Grainy or Clumpy Cheese Sauce

If you just want to follow the recipe, you can jump straight to it. Otherwise, read the following Sciencey bits to learn the different methods employed in this recipe to keep the sauce super creamy and magical, even when reheated.

To recap and point out, we’ve utilized several ways to keep the cheese sauce creamy and beautiful, even when at a full boil:

• Starting with a roux: The cooked butter/flour mixture that is a roux introduces starch at the very beginning of cooking. The starch impedes the coagulation of proteins, helping to keep the cheese from getting clumpy. If you are gluten-free, use cornstarch to make your roux
• Using evaporated milk as part of the dairy: Evaporated milk is slowly cooked to reduce water content by about 60%, so using it to start the bechamel allows you to thin the roux out a bit without introducing too much water
• Reducing the bechamel: It’s a balancing act to add enough liquid to a cheese sauce to increase the volume and keep it from being too stodgy without using so many watery ingredients that your cheese gets grainy. Keeping the bechamel at a low boil for a few minutes helps to reduce the liquid in the sauce, making it less likely that your cheese will get grainy. Balance, achieved!
• Adding the cheese slowly: Once you have a lovely, thick bechamel sauce, you want to keep it as stable as you can by introducing the cheese slowly, allowing it to slowly melt into the base as you whisk. Moderating the heat here is key, along with adding the cheese gradually, in about 6-8 additions rather than dumping it all in at once. It’s rather similar to adding one egg at a time to a cake batter rather than dumping all the eggs in at once and ending up with a thin batter
• Using cream cheese in the cheese sauce: Cream cheese is a miracle of American food technology. It’s one of the few cheeses that stays creamy even in a boiling sauce. Adding cream cheese is sort of a no-brainer, especially if you’re trying to achieve a creamy texture. It’s in the name: cream cheese
• Harnessing the power of starchy water: Adding starchy water to the cheese sauce adds another layer of protection against curdling. We finally bring the sauce to a boil when introducing the pasta and starchy water, and the pasta starch in conjunction with the starch from our roux–remember our roux?–allows us to bring our now-high volume sauce back to a boil without anything bad happening.
• Reducing the shells and cheese before baking: This last piece of the puzzle is why we want to use pasta water in the first place. Just stirring in well-drained pasta into a cheese sauce isn’t enough. You need to bring your mixture back to a boil and further reduce the sauce so it’s roughly the same texture and consistency as it was before adding the water. It’s the same way I finish making my penne in vodka sauce: add pasta and pasta water and then boil to reduce it to a thick sauce that clings to every noodle
• Baking: Baking the shells and cheese, either with or without panko topping, not only browns the top, but it also further concentrates the sauce as even more liquid evaporates from it in the heat of the oven. What you end up with is an intense sauce filling the shells and coating them with cheesy, creamy perfection

Avoid Acidic Ingredients

Another factor to consider when making a creamy, stable cheese sauce is to avoid adding acids, even a little bit. While a tiny amount of hot sauce (vinegar) or mustard (vinegar again!) might not make a difference, if you are a little too exuberant adding it, the acid could absolutely mess with the texture of your sauce.

That’s why I call for dry mustard instead of “squeeze mustard.” If you want a spicier mac and cheese, use pepper flake, a shake of cayenne, or another ground spicy spice. And if you simply need to use some Frank’s because you put that 5h!t on everything, add it at the table!

Reheating Tip

Questions?

If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.

Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask question in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.

If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.

A Note About Measurements

My recipes are almost all written by weight, including liquids, unless otherwise specified.

For accuracy and consistency of results, I encourage you to buy–and use–a kitchen scale.

I promise that baking and cleanup will be so much quicker and easier.

This is the scale that I recommend for home use. I have owned and used one for years.

[O]h my gosh! [T]his Shells & Cheese (aka mac & cheese) is delicious! 

Reader Jo-Anne

Love These Shells and Cheese? Please Rate and Review. Thanks!

And there you have it, friends. Super creamy and luscious shells and cheese with a delightfully crisp baked panko topping. I think you’re gonna love it!

Thanks for spending some time with me today.

Take care, y’all.