High-Protein Mac and Cheese With Chicken
Comfort food that pulls its weight. The sauce hides a full tub of cottage cheese, the chicken doubles the protein, and it still tastes like the real thing.
You need
- 1 large pot
- 1 oven-safe dish
- 1 blender or stick blender
Ingredients
For 2 servings
- 180 g (6.3 oz) macaroni or short pasta, dry
- 250 g (9 oz) cooked chicken breast, shredded
- 150 g (2/3 cup) cottage cheese
- 100 ml (scant 1/2 cup) milk
- 80 g (2.8 oz) mature cheddar, grated
- 1 tsp mustard
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- salt + pepper to taste
How to cook
Boil the pasta in well-salted water for 2 minutes less than the pack says. It finishes in the oven.
Blend the cottage cheese with the milk, mustard, garlic powder and half the cheddar until completely smooth.
Blending is the whole trick. Unblended cottage cheese stays grainy; blended it becomes a silky sauce nobody can identify.
Drain the pasta, return it to the pot, and stir in the sauce and the shredded chicken over low heat for 1 minute.
Season with salt, pepper and the paprika. The sauce should taste slightly too salty now, pasta mutes it as it bakes.
Tip everything into an oven dish and top with the rest of the cheddar.
Bake at 200 C for 12 to 15 minutes until the top is golden and bubbling at the edges.
Rest 5 minutes before serving. The sauce thickens as it settles.
You will hear the bubbling slow down, that is the sauce setting.
Why it fits a build muscle goal
- 52 g protein per serving from chicken plus cottage cheese, most of a training day's target in one dish.
- 780 kcal is a clean surplus meal: the cottage cheese sauce replaces most of the butter and cream of a classic mac.
- Cheap to scale: double the pasta and chicken for a 4-serving meal-prep tray.
Cooking guides
Pann plans meal prep around the days you pick: one cooking session, a box for every meal with its day and how long it keeps, and the shopping list. Free for 7 days.
