Tineke, or “Tini,” Younger is a chef with nearly 6 million followers on TikTok who released her most popular recipe ever — mac & cheese — earlier this month. Tini has gained a massive following over her years on TikToks making delicious recipes from short ribs with a butternut squash puree to cinnamon bun cookies, all with at least hundreds of thousands of views. She especially gained popularity for her series "Cooking for My Boyfriend" where she makes dinner for her now fiance, Antoine, who then tries and rates her dishes. In 2021, she was a contestant on the second season of Gordon Ramsey's Next Level Chef.
Tini has used her culinary school background and work in restaurants to create recipes for her followers fit for a five-star restaurant, but this beginner-friendly mac & cheese recipe took the app by storm like nothing before.
What’s the viral Mac & Cheese?
Since posting the TikTok on Nov. 12, Tini’s mac & cheese recipe has 61 million views with thousands of videos recreating her recipe for Thanksgiving.
Tini’s recipe has three different types of cheeses — mozzarella, colby jack, and sharp cheddar — and a Dijon mustard, a weird ingredient I know but Tini emphasizes that it makes the mac and cheese taste so much better. You can also forget about using regular macaroni pasta, and use the corkscrew-shaped pasta instead to maximize the cheesy goodness.
To make the sauce, melt butter in a pan and stir in half of the spices — salt, pepper, garlic powder, and smoked paprika. Then add flour until it forms a roux. Mix in the evaporated milk until it thickens, then gradually add the heavy cream and Dijon mustard. After that, you add your cheeses! Once you have your cheese sauce, add in the pasta. In a dish, layer the bottom with half the macaroni and cheese and sprinkle a layer of cheese on top. On top, add the rest of the mac and cheese. And top with…you guessed it…more cheese. Bake the macaroni and cheese at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 to 30 minutes or until the top is melted. Once the macaroni and cheese is done, top with chives.
After Tini posted her TikTok, thousands of people flocked to the stores to recreate it for their dinners. The influencer posted a follow-up TikTok joking, “I should have posted my mac and cheese recipe video AFTER I went shopping for mac and cheese.” Tini mentions having to go to four different stores to find corkscrew pasta as fans swept the shelves. Many, like @ayyshel and @dizzyraven, posted their recreations on TikTok praising Tini. The latter user captioned the TikTok with, “omg it’s beautiful this was also my first time making mac and cheese.
On November 29th, Tini thanked all of her fans for the great response to her macaroni and cheese and for quickly surpassing five million followers and nearly the 6 million mark. She continued exclaiming that watching her fans, “Recreating my recipe that I spent almost four years trying to perfect is insane.” If you didn’t manage to stumble upon Tini’s recipe before Thanksgiving no worries, mac & cheese is worth the effort for any occasion you deem fit.