These prosciutto wrapped mac and cheese bites topped with Cheez-It crumbs are a perfect and easy Super Bowl snack. To prepare this recipe, fill a mini cupcake tray with proscuitto, fill with macaroni and cheese, and top with Cheez-It crumbs. The total preparation time is under an hour!
Course Appetizer
Cuisine American
Keyword mac and cheese, mac and cheese bites, macaroni and cheese bites, super bowl recipes, super bowl snacks
Prep Time 30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 15 minutesminutes
Total Time 45 minutesminutes
Servings 15people
Ingredients
About 15 slices of Prosciutto
½poundof Elbow Pasta
1tablespoonplus 2 teaspoons Butter
½cupof Cheez-Its crushed into crumbs.
2tablespoonsFlour
1cupMilkI use 2%
¼teaspoonMustardI used stone ground
1 ¾cubed Cheddar Cheese
½cupShredded Cheddar Cheese
a dash of salt and pepper
Instructions
Put a pot of water on to boil and heat your oven to 375 degrees. While you are waiting for the water to boil, line a mini cupcake tray (or two if you have two) with prosciutto. I found that cutting the prosciutto into thirds with kitchen shears was a good way to do this. Fill all of the space in each individual cup, cutting small pieces of prosciutto to fill holes. Gently press the prosciutto into the cups so it holds its shape.
By now your water should be boiling. Add your pasta and cook until a little extra al dente. Rinse the pasta in cold water. I don't usually rinse my pasta, but in the case, you want to add cold pasta to the cheese cause. This prevents the pasta from soaking up too much of the sauce - you don't want dry mac and cheese. Set the pasta aside.
In a small skillet, melt 2 teaspoons of butter over medium low heat. Add the crushed Cheez-Its and toss them in the butter, and let them toast for 30 seconds. Set aside.
Now you want to prepare the cheese sauce. In a medium sized pot, melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Once melted, whisk in the butter. Let the butter and flour cook together for 1 minute, then whisk in the milk. Whisking frequently, bring the milk to a slow and steady boil. One it beings to boil, let thicken for 1 minute while whisking.
Whisk in the mustard and cubed cheddar cheese. Season with a dash of salt and pepper. Once the cheese has melted and the sauce is smooth, stir in the pasta.
To assemble the mac and cheese bites, spoon macaroni and cheese into the prosciutto cups, filling them to the top.
Sprinkle some of the shredded cheddar and the Cheez-It crumbs on top.
Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees. Then remove from the cupcake tin and serve right away. Resist the urge to eat them all yourself.
Notes
Once assembled, the mac and cheese bites go into the oven for just 15 minutes. If you are having a party you can prepare the macaroni and cheese bites in advance and then bake them later. In that case, you will want to slightly increase the cook time since the macaroni and cheese won't be warm when they go into the oven.This recipe makes about 40 macaroni and cheese bites. I made one batch of 24 macaroni and cheese bites because I only have one mini cupcake tray, I did have plenty and macaroni and cheese left over.I used a mini cupcake tin for this recipe. If you want to make full sized cupcakes instead, I would recommend pre-cooking the prosciutto cups for 5 minutes just so that they are extra crisp and sturdy so they can hold more macaroni and cheese.