Creamy Yogurt Mac and Cheese with Spinach

A quiet week between Halloween and Thanksgiving. The kind of week that doesn't have a story — just the rhythm of pack lunches, drive to work, assess a farm, come home, cook dinner, help with homework, check on Dad, do it again. Most weeks are like this. Most of life is like this. The dramatic weeks make for better writing but the quiet weeks are the ones that build the foundation, the ones where the hotdish gets made and the lunches get packed and nobody notices because nobody's supposed to notice. The invisible work of feeding a family is invisible on purpose. It's infrastructure. You don't notice infrastructure until it fails.

I made a crockpot full of pulled chicken for dinner — chicken breasts, barbecue sauce, a little chicken broth, cooked on low for six hours until the chicken shreds with a fork. Served on buns with coleslaw. It's the laziest meal I make and it's one of the best, because the crockpot does the work and I get to pretend I cooked something complicated. Noah ate two sandwiches. Emma ate one, no bun, because Emma has decided buns are "unnecessary carbs," which is a phrase she learned from a friend's older sister and which has no place in a nine-year-old's vocabulary. I told her carbs are fuel. She said fuel is overrated. She ate the bun.

Kevin and I had a conversation about money this week. Not a bad conversation — just a real one. His promotion helped. My insurance income is steady. We're not rich. We're Iowa comfortable, which means we can pay the mortgage and fill the pantry and put something in the kids' college funds every month and not panic when the furnace makes a noise. Iowa comfortable is not what I had on the farm — on the farm, we were Iowa uncertain, which is a different financial state that involves checking the grain prices every morning and praying for rain but not too much rain and knowing that one bad year could end everything. Iowa uncertain ended for us in 2015. Iowa comfortable began in Des Moines. I'm not sure which one I preferred. The comfortable one is easier. The uncertain one was more alive.

Jack asked me to help him plan next year's garden. He wants to double the tomato plants and add peppers. He wants a compost bin — a real one, three-section, with turning capability. He drew the plans. He priced the lumber. He presented the proposal at dinner like a business plan. Kevin said, "That's a two-hundred-dollar compost bin." Jack said, "It's an investment in soil health." He is six. I am terrified and delighted.

The pulled chicken was for that Tuesday — the crockpot doing its quiet work while I did mine. But the meal that keeps coming back to me from that week is the one I made on Thursday, when the leftovers were gone and I needed something fast and warm and something the kids would actually eat without negotiating. This creamy yogurt mac and cheese with spinach is that kind of recipe: it looks like comfort food, it tastes like comfort food, and it has enough going on nutritionally that I don’t feel like I’ve surrendered. Emma didn’t notice the spinach. Jack asked for seconds. That’s the whole review.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

12 oz elbow macaroni or cavatappi
1 cup plain whole-milk Greek yogurt, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, freshly shredded
1/2 cup Gruyere or Monterey Jack, shredded
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole milk
2 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook macaroni according to package directions until just al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water before draining. Drain and set aside.
Make the roux. In the same pot over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour and cook for 1 minute until the mixture turns lightly golden and smells nutty.
Build the sauce. Slowly whisk in the milk, a little at a time, until smooth. Cook for 2–3 minutes, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens slightly. Reduce heat to low.
Add the cheese. Remove pot from heat and stir in the shredded cheddar and Gruyere, one handful at a time, until fully melted. Stir in the Dijon mustard, garlic powder, and smoked paprika.
Fold in the yogurt. Add the Greek yogurt and stir until fully incorporated and the sauce is silky. Do not return to high heat or the yogurt may curdle — keep the heat on low if you need to warm it.
Wilt the spinach. Add the chopped baby spinach and stir until wilted into the sauce, about 1–2 minutes.
Combine and serve. Add the drained pasta and toss to coat. If the sauce is too thick, add reserved pasta water a splash at a time until you reach your preferred consistency. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Creamy Yogurt Mac and Cheese with Spinach — The Quiet Work of Feeding People Who Don’t Notice