Throughout my life, my mom and dad always made sure that every night my brother and I had a homemade meal. Not just so we were well fed, but because they enjoyed cooking and putting different ingredients together to create something we all thought was delicious.

We would sit down as a family every night, pass around our plates as my mom served us the food that her and my dad made, and we would enjoy the delicious meal together.

My friends were always jealous that everything I ate was homemade: homemade ice cream, homemade chicken pot pie and my mom’s famous homemade mac and cheese, which was always a crowd favorite.

She starts with the elbow pasta, adding in rich milk, an egg and a secret ingredient that everyone should start adding in: mustard. Theses three base ingredients help the noodles retain a rich flavor that is far from bland. She lets you choose your own cheese blend, a perk to making your own mac and cheese, and then tops it with italian breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. A perfect combination of a creamy and crunchy texture.

My mom always used fresh ingredients and even added a twist to the recipe every now and then. She would add broccoli, a type of meat or even a drizzle of sriracha on top.

With homemade, you can make your mac as customizable as you want and as creative and specific to you as you want. You can create a batch to last you a week or a simple serving to last you for the night. Or, you can be like my mom, who made them into little cupcakes for me to bring to college my first week of freshman year.

She gave me a little bit of home to take with me to a place unfamiliar.

Comparing a boxed mac and cheese to my mom’s is not even a question. Boxed mac and cheese has chemicals, powdered cheese and plastic-ish noodles. You pick up the tiny little bowl, stick it in the microwave and wait for the powder soup to thicken up.

With homemade, you watch the process of creating something out of barely anything. The satisfying sensation of taking it out of the oven, slowly starting to smell it as it bakes and waiting for the melting cheese to cool down is unparalleled.   

There’s nothing better than being able to feed your family and your friends something you took your sweet time with. There’s nothing better than being able to pass something down to generations after, and nothing better than having the memories of your family and your mom in a simple meal that will never go out of style. Homemade mac and cheese is always the way to go.   

Sydney Spann is a sophomore advertising major from Greensboro, North Carolina.