The Pioneer Woman Tasty Kitchen
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Buffalo Chicken Macaroni & Cheese

4.83 Mitt(s) 6 Rating(s)6 votes, average: 4.83 out of 56 votes, average: 4.83 out of 56 votes, average: 4.83 out of 56 votes, average: 4.83 out of 56 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5

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Level: Intermediate

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Description

Creamy macaroni and cheese studded throughout with bits of buffalo-sauce infused chicken, all topped with a crumbly buffalo breadcrumb topping.

Ingredients

  • 2 whole Chicken Breasts
  • 1 bottle (12 Oz. Bottle) Buffalo Sauce (I Prefer Anchor Bar - They Invented It!)
  • 1 pound Elbow Macaroni
  • 1 cup Sour Cream
  • 8 ounces, weight Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
  • 8 ounces, weight Monterey Jack Cheese
  • 8 ounces, weight Blue Cheese
  • 3 Tablespoons Butter
  • 3 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour
  • 3 cups Milk
  • 1 cup Breadcrumbs

Preparation

Notes:
You can vary the cheese amount depending on how it’s packaged at your store. It’s not exact! Also, I use 1% milk because it’s already plenty rich with all the cheese.
Marinate the chicken in the sauce ahead of time. I didn’t include marinating time in the prep time!

Prep ahead of time:
Cut chicken breasts into very small pieces. Toss in a bowl with enough buffalo sauce to coat plus a little extra, and let sit for at least an hour. Stir it every now and then. The chicken will start to look like it’s just slightly cooked; that’s the acid denaturing the proteins. It’s normal.

Cooking:
Simmer the whole bowlful in a pan, sauce and all, on medium heat until the chicken is cooked. Drain the cooked sauce/chicken liquid from the chicken and toss the chicken bits with a little more buffalo sauce. Set this aside to cool some while you do the sauce and pasta.

Shred the extra sharp cheddar, Monterey jack and crumble the blue cheese into a big mixing bowl. Set aside about a half cup of the cheeses in a separate bowl to make the topping later. Stir the rest in the big bowl together with sour cream and some black pepper to taste.

Heat the oven to 350F. Start a pot of boiling salted water for the pasta.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat and when melted, whisk in the flour. Keep whisking while it cooks and bubbles for about 2 minutes. (This is called a roux.) Whisk the milk into this mixture and stir often.

When the mixture is starting to get hot, put the pasta in the boiling pot to cook for about 8 minutes. During this time, keep whisking the milk sauce until it’s thickened. (At this point, you’ve now made a bechamel sauce!)

Mix the sauce into the cheese and sour cream in the big bowl and stir well to get the cheese mostly mixed into the sauce. Stir in the pasta. Fold in the chicken. Pour into a 13×9 casserole pan.

Using a fork, mix the breadcrumbs, the small bowl of cheese and a drizzle of buffalo sauce, adding more sauce as needed until it has a crumbly texture. Sprinkle this topping over the macaroni and cheese.

Bake for about a half hour or until the sauce is bubbling around the edges and the topping is starting to get browned.

Makes 6-8 servings, depending on how hungry your family is!

3 Comments

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aainmexico on 9.30.2010

This was great! I already have a mac & cheese recipe that I love and is my favorite comfort food (plus I already had all the ingredients), so I sort of combined our two recipes and created pure magic. Thank you for sharing. Or at least I think I’m thanking you – the only problem with this recipe is that I am going to want to eat it all the time!

By the way, I don’t live in the USA so I had to make my buffalo sauce from scratch. Following a recipe for the sauce I found on another site, I combined equal parts hot sauce and melted butter with a splash of vinegar. It worked just fine, although I have already found a different sauce recipe that I need to try soon… see? I told you I would want to eat it all the time.

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ziggerbean on 5.9.2010

My pickiest eater really enjoyed this! I only used 4 oz bleu cheese (because it is so expensive!) but next time I would use the amount called for in the recipe.

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shayna41 on 3.22.2010

Delicious! I made this the other night and my husband said it was one of the best things I’ve ever made.

6 Reviews

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candice on 9.29.2011

Very good and not too difficult to make! I
would use more chicken next time though.

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tayleeprit on 8.29.2011

Really, really loved this. I used Texas Pete buffalo sauce – came out good and spicy and downright delish. Will DEFINITELY make it again!

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athenagwis on 3.13.2011

I used Frank’s Red Hot sauce for this and made it for a pot luck dinner tonight. I didn’t tell anyone it was ‘buffalo’, but even the non-spicy eaters loved it!! It was super yummy and just had that little kick at the end. It wasn’t super hot, so it was a good meal to be eaten by a crowd with a wide variety of tastes. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe! It’s in my official pot luck rotation. :) I have to say too, I have never made mac & cheese from scratch, and I followed the recipe to a T and it came out perfect! Great job writing it.

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calispiderman on 3.8.2011

This is so good. I’ve made it for a few people who have responded by declaring me the champion of delicious foods.

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brpitty on 2.23.2011

Yum. My picky three year-old loved it too.

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