Few dishes feel as thoroughly American as macaroni and cheese. It shows up in blue boxes in college dorms, in cast iron skillets at Sunday dinner, on Thanksgiving tables next to the collard greens, and on steakhouse menus topped with lobster and truffle. Yet the dish is far older than the United States. Its roots run back to medieval Italian and English kitchens, and its arrival in America runs through Paris, Monticello, and the skilled hands of an enslaved chef whose name was left out of the story for generations.
This guide traces where mac and cheese actually came from, who deserves credit for making it American, how a 1937 cardboard box turned it into a national staple, and why the version you order at a restaurant today can look nothing like the one you grew up with.
Pasta baked or tossed with cheese is a medieval European idea. The oldest known recipe appears in the Liber de Coquina, a Latin cookbook from the early 1300s that historians associate with the royal court of Naples. Around 1390, a similar dish turns up in The Forme of Cury, an English collection credited to the master cooks of King Richard II. Both early recipes used flat sheets of pasta layered with grated cheese and butter, closer to a simple lasagna than to the elbow macaroni most Americans picture.
What the United States added was scale, symbolism, and a long list of regional styles. Mac and cheese went from a fashionable European import served at the President's table to the cheapest filling dinner in the country, and then back up to restaurant menus as a celebrated side dish. If you want the deeper background on how pasta itself developed, our guide to where pasta originated covers the journey from ancient grain dishes to Italian factories.
For centuries after those first recipes, pasta with cheese stayed a dish of wealthy households. Dried pasta had to be imported or made by hand, and hard aged cheeses such as Parmesan were expensive. By the 1700s, English cooks had made the dish their own. Elizabeth Raffald's 1769 cookbook The Experienced English Housekeeper included a version that will look familiar to modern cooks: macaroni boiled, mixed into a bechamel style white sauce, topped with Parmesan, and browned in the oven. That baked, sauced, crusty format is the direct ancestor of the casserole style mac and cheese served across the American South today.
The French and Italian traditions continued in parallel. If you want to see how those cuisines shaped American dining more broadly, our histories of Italian cuisine and French cuisine show how techniques like the white sauce traveled across borders and eventually across the Atlantic.
The name most often attached to mac and cheese in America is Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson served as the American minister to France from 1784 to 1789 and developed a serious interest in European food, including extruded pasta. He sketched a pasta machine in his own hand (the drawing survives in the Library of Congress) and arranged for a macaroni maker to come back from Naples. When he became president, he served the dish in Washington. At an 1802 state dinner, a guest named Reverend Manasseh Cutler recorded in his diary that the table included "a pie called macaroni," and he did not care for it.
The credit, however, belongs at least as much to the kitchen as to the dining room. James Hemings, an enslaved man owned by Jefferson, traveled with him to Paris and trained there in French cooking. Hemings became an accomplished chef de cuisine and is widely believed to have refined and adapted the macaroni dish for American tables. Later, Edith Hern Fossett, another enslaved cook at Monticello and at the President's House, continued cooking these dishes. Historians believe the macaroni recipe written in Jefferson's papers was likely dictated by one of these cooks. In other words, the first celebrated American mac and cheese came out of Black culinary skill, even though the fame went to the man at the head of the table.
That history matters to how the dish is understood today. Baked macaroni and cheese has long been central to African American home cooking, especially at holidays and church suppers, and it is a fixture on soul food and Southern menus. The line from Hemings to the modern Thanksgiving casserole is not a straight documented chain, but the dish has been shaped by Black cooks from its first appearance in the United States onward.
The first widely circulated American recipe came from Mary Randolph, a Virginian and a relative of Jefferson's by marriage. Her 1824 cookbook The Virginia House-Wife gave a simple formula: boiled macaroni layered with butter and cheese, then baked in a hot oven. No flour, no white sauce, just three ingredients and heat. That stripped down approach still defines many Southern family recipes, which rely on eggs, milk, and plenty of sharp cheddar rather than a roux based sauce.
Through the 1800s, cookbooks in Britain, Canada, and the United States all carried versions. By the 1880s, macaroni and cheese casseroles were appearing in community cookbooks from Kansas and Missouri. The dish had moved from presidential dinners into ordinary American kitchens, helped along by cheaper factory pasta and the spread of American cheddar.
The single biggest event in mac and cheese history happened during the Great Depression. In 1937, Kraft launched a boxed macaroni and cheese dinner with a packet of processed cheese, marketed with the promise that it could make a meal for four in nine minutes. The idea reportedly grew out of a salesman named Grant Leslie, who had been attaching packets of Kraft processed cheese to boxes of pasta with rubber bands. Kraft hired him and turned the idea into a product.
The timing could not have been better. Families needed food that was cheap, shelf stable, filling, and fast. During World War II, rationing made the box even more attractive: two boxes could be had for a single ration stamp, and a box sold for about 19 cents. Fresh meat and dairy were scarce, but the processed cheese powder kept for months. In Canada, the same product became "Kraft Dinner," a national comfort food so beloved that Canadians still buy a large share of the boxes sold worldwide.
Kraft has reported selling more than a million boxes in the United States every day. That box shaped how millions of Americans think mac and cheese should taste: smooth, salty, bright orange, and soft rather than crusty.
| Year | Milestone | Why it matters |
|---|
| Early 1300s | Liber de Coquina includes pasta with cheese | Oldest known recipe, linked to the court of Naples |
| 1390 | The Forme of Cury in England | First appearance in an English language cookbook |
| 1769 | Elizabeth Raffald's baked version with white sauce | Template for the modern baked casserole |
| 1784 to 1789 | Jefferson in Paris with James Hemings | Hemings trains in French cooking and adapts the dish |
| 1802 | "A pie called macaroni" at a White House state dinner | First recorded presidential serving |
| 1824 | Mary Randolph's The Virginia House-Wife | Early widely read American recipe |
| 1937 | Kraft launches boxed mac and cheese | Turns the dish into a cheap national staple |
| World War II | Rationing boosts boxed sales | Two boxes for one ration stamp |
Ask five Americans what mac and cheese should look like and you may get five different answers. These are the main styles you will see on restaurant menus.
This is the sliceable kind: elbow pasta bound with eggs, evaporated or whole milk, and several cheeses, then baked until the top browns and the edges turn chewy. It often holds its shape when cut. In many Southern meat and three restaurants, it is listed among the "vegetables," a running joke that tells you how central it is to the plate. You will find it alongside fried chicken, smothered pork chops, and greens; our history of where fried chicken originated covers the dish it is most often paired with.
Diners, cafeterias, and many family restaurants serve a looser version made with a roux based cheese sauce and finished on the stove. It is closer to the texture of the boxed product and is the style kids usually prefer. Classic American diners helped make it a lunch counter standard.
Barbecue restaurants across the country treat mac and cheese as an essential side, sometimes smoked, sometimes topped with crushed crackers or bread crumbs, sometimes spiked with jalapeno or bacon. It plays the cooling, creamy counterpart to vinegar sauces and peppery brisket. If you are planning a barbecue trip, our histories of Carolina barbecue and Texas barbecue explain the regional traditions you will be eating alongside it.
Since the 1990s, upscale restaurants have treated mac and cheese as a canvas. Lobster mac and cheese became a steakhouse signature, and you will also see versions with truffle, Gruyere, aged Gouda, short rib, or green chile. Fast casual chains and food trucks built entire menus around it, with build your own toppings. These versions are often far richer than anything Jefferson's guests tasted, and portion sizes can be large enough to share.
Because the dish is so familiar, it is easy to overlook how much skill goes into a great one. Here is what professional cooks and food critics look for:
- Cheese that tastes like cheese. A blend usually works best. Sharp cheddar brings flavor, while a good melter such as Gruyere, Fontina, or American cheese keeps the sauce smooth.
- A sauce that does not break. Grainy or oily sauce usually means the cheese was overheated or added too fast. A silky sauce clings to every noodle.
- Pasta with some bite. Pasta that will be baked should be pulled from the water early, or it turns mushy in the oven.
- Contrast on top. Toasted bread crumbs, crushed crackers, or a browned cheese crust give texture against the creamy interior.
- Proper seasoning. Salt, a little mustard powder, and a pinch of cayenne or paprika lift the cheese flavor without announcing themselves.
When you are browsing menus, a restaurant that makes its mac and cheese from scratch will often say so, name the cheeses, or describe how it is baked. That level of detail is usually a good sign about the rest of the kitchen. Our American restaurants near you directory is a good starting point for finding comfort food done well.
Mac and cheese has survived seven centuries because it adapts. It was a luxury in medieval Naples, a fashionable novelty at the President's table, a thrifty Depression supper, a wartime ration hack, a soul food essential, and now a premium steakhouse side. Each era kept the core idea, pasta plus cheese plus heat, and rebuilt it around what people could afford and what they craved.
The next time you order it, remember that the dish on your plate carries a longer and more complicated history than its comfort food reputation suggests, including the overlooked work of James Hemings and generations of cooks who never got credit. You can explore more stories like this in our American food history collection.
Frequently asked questions
No single person invented it. The oldest known recipe for pasta with cheese appears in the Liber de Coquina, a Latin cookbook from the early 1300s associated with the court of Naples. A similar dish appears in England's The Forme of Cury around 1390.
No. Jefferson helped popularize it in the United States and served it at an 1802 state dinner, but the dish existed in Europe for centuries before him. His enslaved chef James Hemings, who trained in French cooking in Paris, is believed to have refined and prepared the version served at his table.
James Hemings was an enslaved man owned by Thomas Jefferson who trained as a chef in Paris in the 1780s. He became a highly skilled French trained cook and is widely credited with adapting macaroni and cheese and other European dishes for American dining.
Kraft introduced boxed macaroni and cheese in 1937 during the Great Depression. It was marketed as a meal for four that could be made in nine minutes, and it became even more popular during World War II rationing.
Southern style is usually baked with eggs and milk and sets firm enough to slice, with a browned top. Stovetop style uses a cheese sauce, often thickened with a flour and butter roux, and stays loose and creamy.
Most chefs use a blend. Sharp cheddar provides flavor, while cheeses that melt smoothly, such as Gruyere, Fontina, Monterey Jack, or American cheese, keep the sauce creamy instead of grainy.
Reviewed and verified by the Restaurant Listings Editorial Team for accuracy and relevance. Our content is researched using official restaurant sources, public records, government agencies, and recognized food safety and hospitality industry resources.
Last reviewed: October 2026
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