The week's pick: Creamy Mac and Cheese With Buttered Crumbs, a 35-minute tray with 76 comments
Genevieve Ko's broiled-panko mac and cheese lands a crackly top over a loose cheese sauce in 35 minutes, and it drew the heaviest reader thread of the week's new recipes.
Creamy Mac and Cheese With Buttered Crumbs is the pick this week. NYT Cooking published it on Oct. 6, 2026, and by the morning of Oct. 11 it held 26 reader ratings at 5 out of 5. 1
It also held 76 comments, the heaviest thread of the week's new recipes. It takes 35 minutes and makes 6 to 12 servings. 1
Genevieve Ko wrote it, and the Times ran a companion explainer beside it on what separates creamy mac and cheese from the stiff kind. 12
Why the top crackles and the middle stays loose
Most versions of this dish go into the oven whole, and the noodles drink the sauce while they bake. This recipe skips that step. 1
The pot stays on the stove, the pasta goes into the sauce already finished, and only the surface passes under the broiler. 1
That surface is 1 cup of panko tossed with 2 tablespoons of melted butter, salt, pepper and a half cup of the grated cheese held back for it. It broils for 1 to 5 minutes, and then the dish is done. 1
Underneath sits a butter-and-flour sauce loosened with 4 cups of whole milk and loaded with a pound of extra-sharp cheddar and 12 ounces of Gruyère or Comté. 1
The one seasoning in the sauce itself is 1½ teaspoons of mustard powder, whisked into the butter before the flour goes in. The recipe's own note says the mustard powder is what heightens the cheddar's sharpness. 1
Why it won this week
Ratings and comments are counted separately here, and the week split between two recipes. The numbers below were read on the morning of Oct. 11, 2026. 13
| Recipe | Source and publication date | Reader signal | Time and yield | Main work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creamy Mac and Cheese With Buttered Crumbs | NYT Cooking, Oct. 6, 2026 | 5 out of 5 from 26 reader ratings; 76 comments 1 | 35 minutes; 6 to 12 servings | Whisk a butter-and-flour sauce, melt in 3 pounds of cheese, boil the pasta, broil a buttered panko top. |
| Layered Apple Loaf Cake | NYT Cooking, Oct. 6, 2026 | 5 out of 5 from 38 reader ratings; 44 comments 3 | 4½ hours, 1½ of them active; 8 servings | Slice 6 apples thin, fold them into a batter, bake an hour, cool three. |
| Baked Garlic Rice | NYT Cooking, Oct. 7, 2026 | 5 out of 5 from 15 reader ratings; 30 comments 4 | 50 minutes; 4 servings | Roast 3 whole heads of garlic, then bake basmati with cloves, cardamom and stock. |
| Tortang Talong (Eggplant Omelet) | NYT Cooking, Oct. 8, 2026 | 5 out of 5 from 9 reader ratings; 18 comments 5 | 30 minutes; 2 servings | Broil the eggplants, flatten them, dip them in egg, pan-fry until crisp. |
| Spiced Beef Baked Potatoes | Bon Appétit, Oct. 8, 2026 | Reader ratings not disclosed 6 | 1 hour 10 minutes; 4 servings | Bake 4 russets, then cook a picadillo-style ground beef topping in a skillet. |
| October Meal Prep | r/MealPrepSunday, Oct. 8, 2026 | 619 upvotes; 66 comments; 98.9% upvote ratio 7 | A month of portions cooked in one block | Batch-cook six high-protein dishes and freeze them in single servings. |
The apple cake is the week's most-rated new recipe, and it earns the count: six apples shingled into a custardy loaf that slices into visible layers. 3
It also wants a mandoline, an hour in the oven and three hours of cooling. That lands it on a weekend morning rather than a Tuesday night. 3
Baked Garlic Rice is Yotam Ottolenghi's, adapted from his cookbook "Ottolenghi Simple Too," and it is a side rather than a dinner. 4
Three heads of garlic go in, roasted cut-side down, along with basmati, cloves, cardamom, bay leaves, lemon zest and hot stock. It collected 15 ratings and 30 comments in four days, fast movement for a rice dish. 4
Tortang Talong is the cheapest and quickest thing on this table: 2 Asian eggplants, 2 eggs, cornstarch and fish sauce, 30 minutes, 2 servings. Eric Kim wrote it, and it drew 9 ratings and 18 comments in three days. 5
Bon Appétit published no public reader-rating total on its new recipes this week, so its row cannot be compared on the same scale as the New York Times counts. 6
Its fullest new dinner is Spiced Beef Baked Potatoes, 70 minutes for four. Bon Appétit also put out Frico'ed Brussels Sprouts on Oct. 11, an hour and 4 to 6 servings. 68
Serious Eats published one new standalone recipe in the window, One-Pan Fall Chicken With Sweet Potatoes and Apples, on Oct. 8. Its weekly update on Oct. 9 is a most-saved list drawn from recipes already in its archive. Neither carries a public per-recipe engagement count. 910
On r/MealPrepSunday, October Meal Prep was the week's top post: 619 upvotes, 66 comments and a 98.9% upvote ratio. Its author is a doctor in residency who cooked six dishes in one block and froze them in single portions. 7
Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowls followed at 443 upvotes and 53 comments, with a 99.6% approval ratio. 11
For Beginners: Burrito Bowls drew 345 upvotes and 18 comments within a day of going up. Upvotes, star ratings and comment counts measure different things and do not add up into one score. 12
What to buy
The list below makes 6 to 12 servings. 1
- 1 pound extra-sharp cheddar
- 12 ounces Gruyère, Comté or a combination
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus 2 tablespoons melted for the crumbs, and more for the dish
- 1½ teaspoons mustard powder, preferably Colman's
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 4 cups whole milk
- 1 pound large elbows or cavatappi
- 1 cup panko
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt and ¼ teaspoon black pepper, for the crumbs
- Freshly grated nutmeg, optional
The cheese is where the money goes, and it is three pounds of it. Gruyère is a firm, nutty alpine cheese; Comté is the French version made across the border, and either melts into the cheddar without much pushback. 1
The mustard powder is the one item a pantry may be missing. The recipe names Colman's, and its note explains why: Colman's blends ground yellow and brown mustard seeds, while most other ground mustards use yellow seeds alone and land milder. 1
Panko is the coarse, flaky Japanese-style bread crumb sold in a box in the baking aisle, and it stays crisp where fine dry crumbs go sandy. Cavatappi is the corkscrew tube, and large elbows hold sauce the same way, inside the curve. 1
The cook-through
- Grate the cheese. Set a box grater over parchment and grate the cheddar and the Gruyère on the large holes. Toss them together and hold back a half cup for the crumbs. 1
- Build the sauce. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat, whisk in the mustard powder for 30 seconds, then add the flour and cook until the mixture is smooth and golden, about 2 minutes.
- Loosen it with milk. Whisk in the milk a quarter cup at a time until the sauce is thick but runny, like pancake batter, then stream in the rest while whisking.
- Boil the pasta. Salt a large pot of water generously, cook the elbows until fully tender, and save a half cup of the pasta water before draining.
- Melt in the cheese off the heat. Turn the sauce off once it starts to simmer, whisk in the cheese until smooth, then fold in the drained pasta and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
- Move it to the dish. Butter a shallow 3-quart casserole and scrape the mac and cheese in, spreading it level.
- Broil the crumbs. Heat the broiler to its lowest setting with the rack at least 6 inches from the heat. Toss the panko with the melted butter, salt, pepper and the reserved cheese, scatter it over the top, and broil 1 to 5 minutes until golden.
Two of those steps run against habit, and they are the ones to hold on to. The pasta is cooked fully tender, later than al dente, so it stays soft once it meets the sauce. 1
The cheese goes into a pot that has already been taken off the heat. 1
What readers say
The comment thread is where the risk shows up. One cook followed the recipe exactly and got a grainy sauce, blaming the cheese choice and the heat of the sauce when the cheese went in. They wrote that they would try again the following week with milder cheeses and a cooler sauce. 1
Another cook's fix for the same problem: stir a few ounces of American cheese in with the aged ones. The processed cheese, they wrote, is what keeps the sauce creamy past the first minutes out of the oven. 1
A third reader offered two habits from years of making this dish: warm the milk before it goes into the roux, which heads off lumps, and keep the ratio of 4 tablespoons butter to 4 tablespoons flour to 4 cups milk. 1
One reader recalled a different method from their mother's kitchen: cheese grated onto waxed paper and tossed with salt, pepper and flour, then scattered over cooked macaroni in a buttered dish. Milk went in nearly to the top, butter was dotted over, and the whole thing baked. They add mustard powder to the flour. 1
Notes and substitutions
Cheese is the lever. The recipe's combination is extra-sharp cheddar for flavor and Gruyère or Comté for melt, and the readers who hit a grainy sauce point at long-aged cheddar as the cause. 1
If Colman's is not on the shelf, reach for another ground mustard that includes brown seed rather than a yellow-only one. The yellow-only blends read milder. 1
This is the part that makes it a Sunday dish as much as a weeknight one. The recipe's own make-ahead note stops at the assembled pot: hold it warm for up to 2 hours, or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days. 1
Reheat it over medium heat with the reserved pasta water to loosen the sauce, then broil the crumb top just before serving. 1
Bottom line
Cook this if you want a 35-minute dinner that feeds 6 to 12, you are willing to buy three pounds of cheese, and you want a crisp top over a sauce that stays loose. It takes the pick on the week's heaviest reader thread and the second-biggest ratings count, at a fraction of the time the top-rated recipe asks. 1
If the week calls for something better suited to a slow morning, the Layered Apple Loaf Cake is the recipe readers rated highest, and it costs an afternoon rather than a work night. 3
References
- 1Creamy Mac and Cheese With Buttered Crumbs recipe
cooking.nytimes.com
- 26 Tips for the Best Mac and Cheese
cooking.nytimes.com
- 3Layered Apple Loaf Cake recipe
cooking.nytimes.com
- 4Baked Garlic Rice recipe
cooking.nytimes.com
- 5Tortang Talong (Eggplant Omelet) recipe
cooking.nytimes.com
- 6Spiced Beef Baked Potatoes recipe
bonappetit.com
- 7October Meal Prep
reddit.com
- 8Frico'ed Brussels Sprouts recipe
bonappetit.com
- 9One-Pan Fall Chicken With Sweet Potatoes and Apples
seriouseats.com
- 10
- 11Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowls
reddit.com
- 12For Beginners : Burrito Bowls
reddit.com
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