AI Says This Mac and Cheese Recipe Is Worthy of a Michelin Star. Here’s What It Really Tastes Like

People have asked ChatGPT how to do pretty much everything. How to cheat on a test. How to build a bomb. How to make a decadent, fat-laden recipe, which is destructive in a different way. Yes, someone asked ChatGPT for a mac and cheese recipe that would be worthy of a Michelin star. I had to make it — I hate cooking, but my family and I like mac and cheese, so it might be worth it. Cue bitter laughter here.

Let's be clear: Making Michelin star-worthy mac and cheese is a multi-step process that involves a lot of stirring over a hot stove (a summer treat), dirtying every pot and pan you have, and making roux, which isn't hard but isn't exactly as easy as opening a packet of powder and dumping it on some noodles. Here's how it went down.

What's in this Mac and Cheese Recipe?

This AI mac and cheese recipe adds a few steps we don't normally associate with mac and cheese, such as creating a caramelized onion jam and making a Mornay sauce, which kind of blows up the traditional mac and cheese model entirely. Also, Velveeta or American cheese isn't used in this recipe, so you can kiss that electric orange color we associate with Kraft and other brands goodbye. The only similarities between regular mac and cheese (homemade or from a box) and this recipe were that both have cheese and both have pasta. But you have to be creative to get that Michelin star, I guess.

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How Do You Make AI Mac and Cheese?

After melting cheese, warming milk and cream, finding a block of cream cheese in my fridge, and patiently waiting for my onions to become sufficiently jammy, I assembled all the ingredients together, lasagna-style. I covered it with olive oil-drenched bread crumbs and popped it in the oven for around 25 minutes. Then I informed my family that they could be fully honest about the dish, because they had no reason to fear I'd ever make it again. 

How Does AI Mac and Cheese Taste?

The reviews, at least from the smaller family members, were not kind. The older kid covered her dish with foil and put it back in the kitchen, where I discovered she'd mashed the mac and cheese around her plate and eaten almost none of it. The younger kid gave it a 3 out of 10, which seemed unnecessarily harsh — but, as I said, I'm never making this again anyway. Of note: Both kids ate all their broccoli, but not the mac and cheese. 

My husband said he could tell it was a fancy dish, and it may be worthy of that Michelin star, but he'd never order mac and cheese at a good restaurant so it seemed like a weird ask of ChatGPT anyway. Agreed.

As for me, I would say it was pretty good. The jammy onions may have been a pain to make, but they were tasty (the two tablespoons of brown sugar probably helped), and the Mornay sauce (let's be honest — this wasn't really mac and cheese) was rich and probably way too fattening. 

Is AI Mac and Cheese Worth It?

Was it worth the trouble? Of course not. While it tasted fine (at least to the grown-ups), it wasn't so great that I'd eagerly stand over a hot stovetop for more than an hour to make it. Even if someone else made it, it was too rich to eat much of it. 

But considering I still have a lot of the mac and cheese leftover, I guess I'll be finishing it off. Unless AI has a second recipe for what to do with leftover Michelin star-worthy mac and cheese.