Sausage & Jalapeno Mac n Cheese
Cook Notes
BBQ Used: Kamado Joe Classic II
Cooking Method: Smoke / Direct / Indirect
Fuel Used: Kamado Joe Big Block Charcoal, Cheery Wood Chips
Cooking Temperature: 160 - 180c
Ingredients
375g Macaroni
45g Flour
45g Butter
900ml Milk
2tsp Salt
1tsp Black pepper
1/2tsp Garlic granules
1/2tsp Onion granules
1/2tsp Mustard powder
Pickled Jalapenos
8 Hot dog style sausages
8-10 Slices of Streaky bacon
120g Mozzarella
100g Jalapeno cheddar
50g Cheddar
Method
Fire up your Kamado Joe and set it up to smoke at a temperature of 150 - 160c. Add your cherry woodchips to the fire and place your Hot Dog Sausages and Bacon on the cooking grates to smoke. When your sausage has reached an internal temperature of 75c, remove them from the grill. At this point, your bacon should have rendered and become crispy but not dry. If it needs a few more minutes then leave it on.
Remove the heat deflector from your kamado joe to create a direct heat zone and place on your skillet onto the grill to heat before we make the cheese sauce. To start the sauce, add the butter to the skillet to melt. Slowly add the flour, stirring all the time until the butter is completely mixed with the flour to form a paste. cook the paste for a few minutes until it is a light, biscuit brown colour then slowly mix in the milk. Continue to stir as you add the milk a little bit at a time until you for a smooth paste. At this point, season the sauce mix with the salt, pepper, onion granules, garlic granules and mustard powder.
To turn your roux into a cheese sauce, you need cheese. Grate in the majority of your cheese holding a little back to top the mac n cheese at the end. You don’t want the cheese sauce to thicken all the way as we want some moisture to finish cooking the macaroni when we add it. If your sauce thickens more than you want, add a dash of milk to loosen the sauce again.
Remove your skillet from the BBQ and place the heat deflectors back in to create an indirect zone. Bring the temperature of your grill up to around 180c to allow us to bake the final mac n cheese. Slice up your sausage and bacon then add 3/4 to the cheese sauce holding some back to top. Add the al dente macaroni and your chopped jalapeno to the cheese sauce and mix everything together. Top the mac n cheese off with the remaining cheese, the sliced sausage, bacon and a few jalapenos.
Place the skillet back in the indirect heat to bake. This last stage will allow the remaining liquid in the sauce to be absorbed into the macaroni and also give the top some colour. If you are cooking on a KJ, for the last 5 minutes, close the top vent of your grill all the way to trap the head in the dome and bake the top.
Serve this up in a bowl or eat it direct from the skillet - it’s heart warming, cheesy goodness no matter how you eat it!
