French Onion Mac n’ Cheese

Birthday dinner for a friend: beef wellington, french onion mac n' cheese, pumpkin pie. featured in this episode: my friend who doesn't eat vegetables LOL

9 ingredients•Prep: 15 mins•Cook: 2 hrs 5 mins

Ryan Nordheimer•

October 31, 2025

October 1st is my friend Matt’s birthday. Last year, we celebrated by going out to dinner at Quality Meats. I brought a funfetti cake. I think you know by now how that night ended. As we were leaving the restaurant, we all laughed to each other and aligned that the restaurant ate half of Matt’s birthday cake. Oh well, toss it to Matt’s bad luck. I guess the next day I was feeling a little cheeky and ended up posting what would become my most viral TikTok ever. It was a video style I almost never post: centered on story-telling & drama without any recipe or cooking involved. I didn’t really know how it would be received. I honestly thought it wouldn’t “hit the algorithm” and the video would end up barely reaching 10k views. A swing and miss but at least I tried.

What ended up happening was quite a bit different. Within an hour, I noticed really emphatic and genuinely perturbed people commenting on my TikTok absolutely roasting the restaurant. Someone connected the cake to Quality Meats (I didn’t name them in my video out of respect), and that comment got upvoted to top comment. I went to bed a little giddy, not entirely knowing what would happen the next day, but pretty confident I just hit a virality nerve on the internet. The next day the video received close to 10 million views. On a video that was almost 3 minutes long—so long Instagram wouldn’t even support me posting it at the time. People started to make TikToks about my TikTok, flaming the debate. Someone posted a 10-minute long YouTube video investigation. I got over a dozen media requests for interviews. The only one I ended up taking was the TODAY show because the reporter seemed vested in getting the whole story.

Matt found the whole thing hilarious. That TODAY show reporter actually told me something that I believe to be true. If this story was about any other food or dessert, nobody would care. But for birthday cakes, the internet will wage war.

So it’s a year from that moment. I was considering making the same birthday cake again. But I still feel like I need to give that cake a little air. Instead, I focused on Matt’s true obsession: meat.

Matt loves steak, actually all protein for that matter. And he hates vegetables so much my friends and I have a shared album entitled “Matthew not eating his veggies again :(”, wherein we post uneaten vegetables that Matt left abandoned on his dinner plate (it’s currently up to 17 photos, and we started over the summer). Other of Matt’s favorites include: French food, bougie sushi i.e. omakase, potatoes, pasta, and broccoli. He’s also allergic to coconut, if anyone is interested.

A lot of those favorites felt like supporting actors. I knew I had to focus on the steak. And I did promise my friends when I hit 500k Instagram followers that I would make them a beef Wellington. So that felt like the only main appropriate for the occasion. We’re lining up for Thanksgiving, so I thought I would make a few other autumnal things to round out the menu. A pumpkin pie with salted maple whipped cream (which Matt happens to love), and a bussin’ French onion mac n’ cheese (which everyone happens to love).

I aced the cook on this Wellington. This was the fourth one I’ve ever made. I highly suggest you use a oven probe; it removes all the guess-work. For perfect rare/medium-rare, aim for 115F and let the dish rest for 15 minutes out of the oven. That’ll ensure the juices don’t run too.

Happy birthday Matt,

Ryan

Ingredients (9)

Sweet onions(4 large, thinly sliced)
Unsalted butter(6 Tbsp, divided)
(2 tbsp + 4 tbsp)
Kosher salt(to taste)
Black pepper(to taste)
Large pasta shells(1 lb)
or whatever shape you like for mac
Gruyere or comte cheese(1 lb, shredded by hand or in a food processor)
you can also sub out half with white cheddar
All-purpose Flour(¼ cup)
Whole milk(2 ½ cups)
Chives
for garnish

Instructions

In a large pot (non-stick works great) or Dutch Oven over medium-high heat, add 2 tbsp of the butter, onions (4 large), and 1/2 tsp kosher salt.
Add the lid and cook for 10 minutes undisturbed to help sweat the onions.
Remove the lid, reduce heat to medium, and continue to cook stirring occasionally until the onions have reduced by a lot and start to turn light brown / stick to the bottom of the pot. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue cooking and stirring frequently until the onions have turned a rich brown color, about 1.5 hours in total.
If onions are sticking too much, add a bit of hot water and use that to scrape them off the bottom. Remove onions to a small bowl.
Meanwhile, toward the end of cooking the onions, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Season with a large handful of kosher salt.
Boil the pasta (1 lb) until al dente. Drain (to keep pasta from sticking together, either drizzle with some oil or keep it sitting in a few cups of the pasta water).
Preheat oven to 400 °F In the pot that had the onions (no need to clean it out), heat over medium and add the remaining butter and the flour (¼ cup). Cook stirring constantly for 2 minutes.
Gradually stir in the milk (2 ½ cups). Then add 3/4 of the gruyere. Stir in half of the onions. Season with salt (to taste) and pepper (to taste) to taste. Then stir in the drained pasta.
Add to a large baking dish. Top with remaining cheese and dot over with remaining onion. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until golden and bubbling.
Garnish with chives and serve hot.