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Cooking With Anadi
12K subscribers · lobster, aged cheddar and pasta with chili garlic butter
Baked Lobster Macaroni and Cheese
When we think of a gourmet mac and cheese, a baked lobster mac and cheese always comes to mind!
At the time of developing this recipe, I was really into a mac and cheese phase. I was eating a new mac and cheese recipe every week! Mac and cheese is tons of fun to play around with, and I was really having a blast experimenting. Not to mention that mac and cheese is a staple comfort food, and who could say no to having some comfort food?
But I have to say mac and cheese has a bad rap of being considered a fast food. I’ve seen some pictures of gourmet mac and cheeses on Instagram, so I thought it was time to bring an elegant flair to the Classic Mac and Cheese. If you’re looking for some more delicious mac and cheese variations, be sure to try out my Ultimate Butter Chicken Mac and Cheese and my Cheeseburger Mac and Cheese!
It's interesting how I got into lobster. Before, I only had lobster at Red Lobster and made a rose sauce with canned lobster. I really love that tender, juicy taste of lobster but unfortunately I didn't get lobster at my grocery store until recently. Once frozen lobster tails arrived I jumped right on it and came up with this gourmet dish! As I always say, no excuses not to indulge at home! I have yet to cook a live lobster so that's potentially my next goal. Advice?? Perhaps I should include cooking a live lobster as part of my picky proteins in my Live to Cook one-month challenge! I give more details how exploring a new ingredient can get you out of your comfort zone in the kitchen and allow you to explore your potential in my 5 Tips to Make Cooking Fun! free guide! If lobster is a protein you’re unfamiliar with, then this mac and cheese recipe is the perfect way to get accustomed to it! I’d love for you to tag me on Instagram if you give this - or any lobster! - recipe a try so I can see and share your amazing creations! Get those free goodies by signing up to my newsletter!
This baked lobster mac and cheese recipe combines gourmet cooking to your house for dinner tonight with this ultra creamy and cheesy lobster mac and cheese! To follow along with me and to ensure you’ve got all the concepts nailed down, don’t forget to watch the video! If you’re not already, please subscribe to my YouTube channel! Be sure to hit the bell button so you receive the notifications for when all my video recipes go live! I love to pair a video with the written recipe because cooking is hands-on and a visual representation helps put all the pieces together! Let’s get cooking!
What’s in This Gourmet Lobster Mac and Cheese?
This baked lobster mac and cheese has three components. We’ve got a classic mac and cheese with a béchamel sauce, topped with a Panko crust. I'll be using a homemade chili garlic butter for the béchamel sauce, to grill the lobster, and to toast the Panko breadcrumbs. You taste the amazing flavors in every single bite, and it is just heavenly! The lobster absorbs the butter so nicely and it really makes the lobster tender and juicy! Finally, the star of the night is the tender lobster tails! This totally transforms your typical mac and cheese.
Worried about using seafood in a mac and cheese? Not to mention lobster out of all the seafood! Don’t worry, I was really nervous too. But with this recipe, I’m going to set you up for success for cooking the best lobster tail. I’m so glad I took a chance and tried this out because this has turned out to be one of my favorite mac and cheese recipes!
Which Cheese Should I use for Creamy Lobster Mac and Cheese?▼
I’ll be using aged white cheddar that is used in the béchamel sauce. I find the taste is absolutely amazing, and I simply chose white cheddar over yellow for aesthetics! Also, I have to add that what brings so much flavor is the chili garlic butter. This mac and cheese definitely has some heat!
What Are We Baking Our Seafood Mac and Cheese In?
I’m using a casserole dish for two because I made this baked lobster mac and cheese recipe for two portions! I love this recipe because you can make it for a crowd or even just for one in a single casserole dish! An issue I tend to come across with mac and cheese casserole recipes is that they’re usually prepared for a family. No leftovers or frustration with conversions with this delicious mac and cheese recipe - enjoy it for any occasion!
Tools Needed
Ingredients in Baked Lobster Mac and Cheese
Let’s go over what’s needed for our chili garlic butter and for the Creamy Lobster Mac and Cheese. Be sure to scroll to the bottom PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD at the bottom of this post for all ingredient quantities and full instructions to save for later! As mentioned earlier, you can scale the recipe based on how much mac and cheese you want to make! No more scratching your head on adjusting the quantities - all the work is done for you in the recipe card!
For the Chili Garlic Butter
- Butter
- Thai red chilies
- Fresh parsley (optional)
- Salt
For the Chili Garlic Béchamel Cheese Sauce
- Chili garlic butter
- Salt and pepper to taste
- All-purpose flour
- Milk
- Aged white cheddar cheese
For the Lobster and Pasta
- Lobster tails
- Chili garlic butter
- Elbow macaroni
- Parmesan cheese
- Panko breadcrumbs
- Olive oil
Tips for Cooking the Lobster
- Overcooked lobster is very unpleasant to eat. A well cooked lobster should be moist, juicy and immensely sweet. Cook the lobster first in boiling water for a few minutes to help easily release the meat from the shell. Make sure to set up a timer and take the lobster within 2-3 minutes.
- Grilling the lobster with the butter allows it to get slightly smoky and charred. The butter, along with the chilies really help to flavor the lobster as it releases steam on the hot grill. Make sure to lightly press the lobster on the pan to really get that nice sear. We are only cooking the lobster about 60% of the way since it will finish cooking in the oven.
- The lobster, finally finishes cooking in the oven. The meat is removed from the shell and chopped into generous chunks. The Mac and Cheese only bakes for 10-15 minutes at 400 F, which is just enough to bring the dish together and finish cooking the lobster all the way through. Still juicy, smoky and sweet as ever!
How to Make Baked Lobster Mac and Cheese
For the Chili Garlic Butter
To make the chili garlic butter, combine the butter, Thai red chilies (or even substitute with Calabrian chili peppers as I did in these photos!), minced garlic cloves, and salt in a small bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and chill until ready to use.
For the Chili Garlic Béchamel Cheese Sauce
Heat a medium size pan on medium heat and melt 1 1/2 Tbsp of the chili garlic butter.
Once melted, add the flour and whisk well to combine. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the rawness of the flour has cooked out.
Add in cold milk little bit at a time while whisking to work out any lumps. Once all the milk is combined, let sauce come to a simmer.
As soon as the sauce comes to a simmer, it will begin to thicken. Once the béchamel is thick enough to evenly coat the back of a spoon, season with salt and pepper. Bring the pan off the heat and add in the cheddar.
Mix until the cheese has melted, and your sauce is ready!
For the Lobster and Pasta
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Get a large pot of water to a boil. In the meanwhile, cut the lobster tails in half (lengthwise) with a sharp knife.
Season the water with salt and add lobster tails. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
Using tongs, remove lobster tails and pat dry. Brush the remaining chili garlic butter directly on the lobster.
Heat a grill pan or frying pan on medium high heat and sizzle the lobster tails, meat side down for 45-60 seconds or until seared and smoky.
To remove the lobster meat, pry through the thick-end of the meat and going along the shell, scoop out the meat (the lobster should be about 60% cooked at this point, translucent).
Reserve the shells and chop the meat into bite sized pieces and set aside.
Add the lobster shells to back to the pot of water and bring it to a boil.
Cook the macaroni in the same water as the lobster shells and cook until pasta is al dente (6-7 minutes). Reserve some pasta water for later.
Once the pasta has cooked, drain it and add it to the cheese sauce.
Transfer to your casserole and add the lobster chunks. Mix well so the lobster is evenly distributed.
Top with Parmesan cheese and bake for 10-15 minutes.
While the pasta is baking, heat a pan on medium heat and add a teaspoon of olive oil. Add the breadcrumbs and toss every 30 seconds until the breadcrumbs are toasted and golden brown.
When the pasta has finished baking, top with the breadcrumbs.
Serve hot and enjoy!:)
Can I make Baked lobster mac and cheese ahead of time?▼
NO! Please don’t even think about it!
I’ll never give a blanket statement without sharing the reasons behind it, so let me quickly explain. Firstly, the pasta will get soggy if you reheat it. I find white sauce is never good reheated. You just lose the creamy texture and it becomes curdled and disgusting.
Next issue here is the lobster. You need to have fresh lobster so that it’s tender and juicy. If you try to reheat your lobster, I promise you it’ll become it’ll become tough and hard like bullets.
Please plan accordingly and make this dish fresh! If you need to save some time, have a nice mise-en-place so you have all your ingredients prepped and ready to go when it’s time to cook! It won’t take more than an hour from start to finish if you have everything out and portioned, you just need to make your sauce, cook the lobster and pasta, and then bake!
There Is No Heavy Cream in This Lobster Mac
Plenty of lobster mac recipes get their richness by pouring in heavy cream. There is none here. The sauce is a proper bechamel: one and a half tablespoons of the chili garlic butter melted in a small saucepan on the stovetop, the same amount of all purpose flour whisked in and cooked for two to three minutes to take the raw edge off, then one and a half cups of milk added a little at a time. The recipe simply says cold milk, and cold is the word that matters, because cold liquid into a hot roux is what lets you whisk out lumps before they set. Whole milk will give you the richest result.
Two details decide whether the sauce is silky or grainy. First, the pan comes off the heat before the cup of aged white cheddar goes in. Cheese added over direct heat splits and turns oily. Second, grate the cheese yourself. Pre-shredded cheeses are dusted with anti-caking starch that never fully dissolves, and it is the most common reason a homemade cheese sauce ends up sandy. Gruyere is the swap if you want something a little more grown up, and sharp yellow cheddar tastes identical to the white if the color does not bother you.
The heat does not come from cayenne. It comes from two fresh Thai red chiles finely chopped into the compound butter along with two garlic cloves, and that butter is the thread running through the whole dish: two and a half tablespoons of butter made up at the start, then split between the bechamel and the lobster. Serrano peppers are the milder swap, and a quarter teaspoon of red pepper flakes per chile will do if fresh chiles are out of reach.
Why the Lobster Goes Into the Dish Undercooked
This is the part worth getting right, because lobster is expensive and unforgiving. The tails are split lengthwise and dropped into salted boiling water for one to two minutes only. Then they come out, get patted dry, brushed with the chili garlic butter, and hit a hot grill pan meat side down for forty-five to sixty seconds to pick up a bit of smoke and color. At the point you pry the meat out of the shell it should still be about sixty percent cooked and slightly translucent in the middle.
That is not an oversight. The meat gets chopped into bite sized pieces, stirred through the pasta, and then spends another ten to fifteen minutes in a 400 F oven. If you cook the tails through at the start, that bake turns succulent lobster into rubber. Take them out early and they finish gently in the sauce, which is exactly where you want the last few minutes of cooking to happen. If lobster is not in the budget, large shrimp are the listed swap and want their cook time reduced further still; langoustine tails come closest to lobster in both flavor and texture.
Cook the Macaroni in the Lobster Shells
Do not throw the shells away. They go straight back into the same pot of water, which comes back to a boil, and the six ounces of elbow macaroni cooks in that water for six to seven minutes to al dente. It is a thirty-second decision that turns plain pasta water into a quick shellfish stock and carries lobster flavor into every piece of macaroni. Note that the recipe gives you a time rather than sending you to the package directions, and it is deliberately short, because the pasta has a bake still to come.
From there the pasta goes into the cheese sauce, the mixture goes into a casserole or baking dish, the lobster chunks get folded through so they are evenly distributed, and a quarter cup of finely grated parmigiano reggiano goes over the top before it bakes. The Panko is the one thing that does not go in the oven. Two tablespoons toasted separately in a teaspoon of olive oil over medium heat, tossed every thirty seconds until golden, then scattered over the finished dish. Bake the crumbs on top and they soften; add them at the end and they stay crisp.
Leftovers go into an airtight container in the fridge and are good for two or three days. Reheat gently in the microwave with a splash of milk stirred through, because the bechamel tightens as it chills and will look claggy straight out of the fridge until you loosen it.
If you liked this recipe please let me know in the comments. Tag your post on social media using #cookingwithanadi and mention me @cooking.with.anadi. Thank you!
Recipe by Anadi Misra
Creamy, cheesy, and loaded with tender lobster, this baked mac and cheese is pure comfort food at its finest. Topped with a golden Panko crust for the perfect crunch!
Oven-baked
5.0 · 1 rating
10 min
Prep
30 min
Cook
40 min
Total
2
servings
hard
Level
Ingredients
Ingredients
Tap any quantity to scale
For the chili garlic butter
For the chili garlic béchamel cheese sauce
Instructions
For the chili garlic butter
- 1
To make the chili garlic butter, combine all ingredients and chill until ready to use.
To make the chili garlic butter, combine all ingredients and chill until ready to use.
For the chili garlic béchamel cheese sauce
- 1
Heat a medium size pan on medium heat and melt 1 ½ tbsp of the chili garlic butter. Once melted, add the flour and whisk well to combine. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the rawness of the flour has cooked out.
Heat a medium size pan on medium heat and melt 1 ½ tbsp of the chili garlic butter. Once melted, add the flour and whisk well to combine. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the rawness of the flour has cooked out.
- 2
Add in cold milk a little bit at a time while whisking to work out any lumps. Once all the milk is combined, let the sauce come to a simmer.
Add in cold milk a little bit at a time while whisking to work out any lumps. Once all the milk is combined, let the sauce come to a simmer.
- 3
As soon as the sauce comes to a simmer, it will begin to thicken. Once the béchamel is thick enough to evenly coat the back of a spoon, season with salt and pepper.
As soon as the sauce comes to a simmer, it will begin to thicken. Once the béchamel is thick enough to evenly coat the back of a spoon, season with salt and pepper.
- 4
Bring the pan off the heat and add in the cheddar and mix until the cheese melts. Your cheese sauce is ready.
Bring the pan off the heat and add in the cheddar and mix until the cheese melts. Your cheese sauce is ready.
For the lobster and pasta
- 1
Preheat the oven to 400 F.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C).
- 2
Get a large pot of water to a boil. In the meanwhile, cut the lobster tails in half (lengthwise) with a sharp knife. Season the water with salt and add lobster tails. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
Get a large pot of water to a boil. In the meanwhile, cut the lobster tails in half (lengthwise) with a sharp knife. Season the water with salt and add lobster tails. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
- 3
Using tongs, remove lobster tails and pat dry. Brush the remaining chili garlic butter directly on the meat. Heat a grill pan or frying pan on medium high heat and sizzle the lobster tails, meat side down for 45-60 seconds or until seared and smoky.
Using tongs, remove lobster tails and pat dry. Brush the remaining chili garlic butter directly on the meat. Heat a grill pan or frying pan on medium high heat and sizzle the lobster tails, meat side down for 45-60 seconds or until seared and smoky.
- 4
To remove the lobster meat, pry through the thick-end of the meat and going along the shell, scoop out the meat (the lobster should be about 60% cooked at this point, translucent).
To remove the lobster meat, pry through the thick-end of the meat and going along the shell, scoop out the meat (the lobster should be about 60% cooked at this point, translucent).
- 5
Reserve the shells and chop the meat into bite sized pieces and set aside. Add the lobster shells back to the pot of water and bring it to a boil. Cook the macaroni in the same water as the lobster shells and cook until pasta is al dente (6-7 minutes).
Reserve the shells and chop the meat into bite sized pieces and set aside. Add the lobster shells back to the pot of water and bring it to a boil. Cook the macaroni in the same water as the lobster shells and cook until pasta is al dente (6-7 minutes).
- 6
Add pasta to cheese sauce and mix well. Transfer to casserole and add the lobster chunks. Mix well so the lobster is evenly distributed. Top with the parmesan cheese and bake for 10-15 minutes.
Add pasta to cheese sauce and mix well. Transfer to casserole and add the lobster chunks. Mix well so the lobster is evenly distributed. Top with the parmesan cheese and bake for 10-15 minutes.
- 7
While the casserole is baking, heat a pan on medium heat and add a teaspoon of olive oil. Add the breadcrumbs and toss every 30 seconds until the breadcrumbs are toasted and golden brown.
While the casserole is baking, heat a pan on medium heat and add a teaspoon of olive oil. Add the breadcrumbs and toss every 30 seconds until the breadcrumbs are toasted and golden brown.
- 8
When the pasta has finished baking, top with the breadcrumbs. Serve hot and enjoy!:)
When the pasta has finished baking, top with the breadcrumbs. Serve hot and enjoy!:)
Did you make this recipe? Tag @cooking.with.anadi on Instagram and hashtag it #cookingwithanadi
Tested & written in Anadi’s kitchen
Recipe history
- April 16, 2026 — Reworked and refreshed for the 2026 relaunch — new photography, restructured and standardized ingredients & instructions.
Filed under
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