You’ll need about a 5-quart Dutch oven or pot to hold everything. If you have a Dutch oven or a oven-proof pot, you can use that instead of a baking dish, which is what I did. I increased the amount of cheese from the original recipe but then I like my mac-n-cheese on the cheesy side. So maybe even a good substitute if the Gruyere is expensive in your region. Some of the milder version (such as Danish) of Fontina can taste a bit like Gruyere and is often a bit cheaper than Gruyere. I thought the flavor of Fontina would go well with Gruyere.
I played around with the various cheese a bit and decided to add one more kind of cheese that I really like, Fontina. The recipe doesn’t state how much 1 cup of shredded cheese is in weight so I approximated it in the recipe below. Also freshly grated Parmigiano cheese is better than the Parmesan cheese from the container. This recipe calls for Gruyere cheese, which is kind of expensive if you’re on a budget. Sure you can do everything in one pot if you want to cook everything in series but 2 pots really is the better way to go. Rachael said this recipe can be made in 1 pot. I was actually thinking this would be a great Thanksgiving side dish and another way to serve cauliflower. I loved her method of steaming the cauliflower whole in chicken stock.
I don’t watch Rachael Ray’s cooking shows very often but recently, I caught her new show on the Cooking Channel which featured a Cauliflower Mac N Cheese dish that looked promising (recipe here).