For 50 people you will need 3 9 by 12 glass casseroles heaped full....4 1/2 to 5 pounds of pasta cooked. I use mini penne or small elbows.
This recipe should sauce enough pasta for 50 people....
Sautee 1 1/2 finely chopped onions ( for a more traditional taste you may want to cut back on the onion....but in 50 servings, that's not a lot of onion!) in 1/2 cup butter and 1/4 cup olive oil until soft.
Add 1 cup flour and stir and cook about 30 seconds and add 2 cups of chicken broth slowly and whisk.
Add 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 cup dijon mustard and 3 cups of milk�.cook and stir until thick and the "flour taste" is gone. Add 5 cups ( about 2 pounds....Ishred the cheese myself as I don't like the bagged stuff) shredded cheddar cheese and 1 cup of grated parmesan cheese,(or you can add one more cup of cheddar...but the parm gives a more intense cheese flavor) about 1 tsp fresh ground pepper and 2 T. lemon juice. Makes about 10 cups of sauce.

Mix the sauce with the pasta and pile into the casseroles....top with toasted bread crumbs or corn flake crumbs if you want. Don't mix all the pasta and sauce at once....you may find you don't need all the pasta you have cooked.
My method is to make the sauce, Then boil and drain the pasta, put about 8 or 9 cups of cooked pasta in a bowl, add 3 cups of the sauce and toss...place in the casserole as much as you can and repeat.
Remember, more sauce is a good thing.....and if you are going to allow the casseroles to sit over night before baking, the pasta will absorb some of the sauce and it may be drier.....so if they will sit, add at least 2 more cups of milk or cream!!...to the reciope.
Taste the pasta after you have added the sauce. Depending on how much salt you added tio the pasta water, it may need salt.
Happy wedding!
Linda c

I would suggest using vegetable broth if you can in case there are any vegetarians. Mac and cheese is generally one of the few meat-free foods that can be eaten. :)

I agree with Linda C, lots of sauce if the macaroni has to sit, it'll soak it up as it sits. I also shred my own cheese, the pre-shredded stuff has some coating to keep it from clumping, which also keeps it from melting smoothly.

I think the best mac and cheese has a couple of different cheeses, at least. Mine gets made when I need to clean out the cheese drawer, so it could have cheddar, colby jack, parmesan, Dubliner, raclette, provolone, swiss, ricotta, cream cheese or any combination of those.

Cream cheese and ricotta will also make it a bit creamier, and my daughter Ashley thinks it's "not right" unless I add some Velveeta, which isn't really cheese at all, I don't think. It does keep it creamy, though.

Annie

i did a experimental batch last week from the family traditions cook book it came out like cake. linda what about the bake temp and time? thanks terry

terrybull, it depends on the size of your pan. Smaller pans could bake in half an hour, the bigger the pan, the more time. I bake mine at the "universal temeprature" of 350F, mostly because it works and I can bake other things at the same time, I never put just one thing in my oven. It's that "never bake an orphan" thing.

It was like cake, and not creamy? Did your recipe have eggs? That will make the consistency different many times, or you may have used too much cheese and not enough "sauce".

I did pasta for 350 in May at my daughter's wedding and I can only tell you that you should make sure to give ample time for baking if you use the large roaster type pans, it takes longer than you might think for the stuff to be hot all the way through, especially if you make it in advance and chill it.

If you could post the recipe, we might be able to tell more easily what the problem is.

Annie

Annie

Yeah.....what Annie said....I also cover it when heating in the oven. But in reality it doesn't need to be in the oven....it's all cooked already. I cover the pan....and make sure it's very "saucy" going into the oven, bake at 350 and test with an instant read and remove at 160 degrees.
Cakey means it didn't have enough moisture going into the oven.
Any way you could make the sauce ahead....keep hot on the stove....or re-heat. Then cook the pasta on site and mix, pile into dishes, top with toasted crumbs (looks baked!) and serve and keep extras warm in a 150 oven?...Or you could dunk under-cooked pasta into boiling water to re heat and them assemble with the hot sauce.

I hang out on the Decorating board but wandered over here tonight.

My DD played volleyball and for the weekend tourneys a mom would always bring mac. I inherited that job and used Paula Deen's recipe from the Food Network. Her recipe has you cook it in a crock pot. I tripled it 3x and have it fit into my 8 quart crock pot.

I did reduce the number of eggs so it wasn't so "cakey". I would get the blocks of cheddar from Sam's and grate it. I would think one crock may feed 50 for a wedding. It fed that number of hungry players and parents (but we always had a pretty nice spread :) ) HTH

Here is a link that might be useful: Paula's recipe

A trick that I learned from the mother of a DF...stir chunks of room temperature garden fresh tomatoes into Mac/Cheese just before serving. (This works best when you're not baking it, esp. in summer when you'd have great fresh tomatoes.)

My family loves it when I add smoked sausage chucks (or dices) to mac/cheese before baking, the winter version of M/C. I've taken to dices to keep the guys from fishing out all of the smoked sausage so there's a tidbit or two left in case there are any leftovers. :)

Prolly won't want to do either for a wedding but I'm including these as ideas for next time & others reading this thread.