Ingredients

• Shells Pasta
• Butter, Approximately 25g
• Plain Flour (All-Purpose)
• Milk (I Use Semi-Skimmed)
• Greek Yoghurt, 1/4 Pot
• Wholegrain Mustard
• Salt, Pepper, Cayenne Pepper
• Cheddar Cheese, Grated

Method

1. Put your pasta on to boil in lightly salted water
2. Melt some butter in a pan before adding a little flour to make a roux
3. Add milk in little by little to get it nice and smooth, alongside some Greek yoghurt
4. Add in seasoning and wholegrain mustard before grating in some cheddar cheese and mix well
5. Let this continue to melt and thicken whilst the pasta finishes cooking and you can drain it
6. If you have more sauce than you require remove to a container and add the pasta to the remaining and mix well before serving

Eating And Storage Tips

A lot of ingredients don’t have specific measures next to them as it can vary slightly. I put the amount of butter as a specific figure as it’s a good starting point ahead of making the roux and adding everything else. For instance the amount of cheese you want to add is completely based on your preference and you could easily add so much more than I did here.

Another reason is that it’s so much easier to make more sauce than it is to make less. As a result I did more sauce than I needed and put the rest into a container in the fridge to add to another dish a day or two later. If you really don’t want extra then add maybe a teaspoon of butter to the pan and go from there but make sure you’re using a really small pan or it’s really easy when adding the flour to make the roux way too dry and lumpy.

If you want to make more of this up and set some aside for leftovers that works amazingly too. Because of the ingredients in the sauce I do find that it can set a little in the fridge when cooled so this is something you would very much need to reheat in the microwave or a saucepan before eating. If you do consider sprinkling on a little fresh cheese after reheating too as I find it can lose a little cheese taste in reheating this way.

Should you want to make this even cheesier you have a couple of options. The first, add other types of cheese and more of it to the sauce. The second, place this into an oven friendly dish and top with a bundle of cheese and bake up. If you’re doing this though choose your cheeses wisely as they will release oils that could create an unpleasing mouth feel literally running through the dish.

If you’re curious about the Greek yoghurt choice I do this because I find it adds extra smoothness, creaminess and a little bit of a tang too. I use 10% authentic Greek yoghurt so it also has a higher fat content to continues to contribute to all the other ingredients working well together but also it is slightly thicker than milk so keeps the sauces overall denser consistency.

The wholegrain mustard is completely optional, yellow mustard works as well, but I find that it gives a nice bit of extra flavour depth without a lot of effort and mustard flavours often bring out the cheese flavours a little better making them a delightful combo!