Mac-n-Cheese Hearts

♫ Listening to: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by XYLØ ♫

Have you been looking for ways to use leftover mac-n-cheese? Or are you thinking, who in their right mind would have leftover mac-n-cheese? Is this website run by robots? I can see your point. However, I have a trick where I make salad and veggie burgers the same night I make mac-n-cheese. Then, assuming you don’t live with an omnomnomnivore, you’ll typically end up with leftovers.

This recipe makes between 12 and 16 hearts, depending on how tall you make them.

Vegan Mac-n-Cheese Hearts Ingredients

• ⅓ cup organic unbleached flour*
• 2 tablespoons organic cornstarch*
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• ¾ cup water
• 1 cup mashed potato flakes (or sub 2 cups cereal)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups leftover vegan mac-n-cheese
• 1 - 1 ½ cups safflower, sunflower, or coconut oil

Vegan Mac-n-Cheese Hearts Directions

Remove the leftover mac-n-cheese from the fridge, and process in food processor until finely crumbled. If you plan to double this recipe, process in 2 batches so it doesn’t get too processed from overfilling.

Press the mac-n-cheese crumbles into a cookie cutter shape of choice (I used a heart one that I got from Daiso). Alternatively, you can form them into balls with your hands.

Place shapes onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and freeze for 1-2 hours, depending on how cold your freezer gets. (Mine look a little funky because I used rainbow bowtie pasta instead of elbow macaroni.)

Pour the safflower, sunflower, or coconut oil into a small pot and turn heat to medium. If you double this recipe, you may want to use a deep fryer for this portion so that you can fry more than one at a time (however, this uses a lot more oil).

Line a plate with many layers of paper towels or one paper towel on top of a rag.

Whisk together ⅓ cup flour, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and ¾ cup water in a bowl.

Combine 1 cup mashed potato flakes and 1 teaspoon salt in another bowl. If you’re using cereal instead, use your food processor to turn the cereal into crumbs and combine those crumbs with the teaspoon of salt.

Remove the hearts from the freezer.

Dip a heart into the wet mixture until completely coated and then dip into the dry mixture until completely coated.

Fry heart in oil until lightly brown, flipping halfway through. (When I use the veganic sprouted Os cereal, the hearts don’t turn as brown as they do when I use mashed potato flakes, but the coating does come out crunchier.)

Remove heart from oil using a fork, and place onto the paper towel.

Repeat with remaining hearts, only adding 3-4 into the pot at once so that the hearts can be in the pot without touching eachother.

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* I use mostly organic ingredients when I cook, but I realize that not everyone has the disposable income to purchase all organic ingredients. Therefore, I only specify organic on the ingredients that really matter - when buying the organic version is the only way to ensure that the item is vegan.