I made ‘The Bachelor’ villain Corinne’s cheese pasta recipe and it was awful

Yesterday, US Weekly published the secret family recipe for Cheese Pasta that belongs to Corinne, the current villain on this season of The Bachelor.

Last night, I made the Cheese Pasta. Because I am an American. And what could be more American than making a dish comprised entirely of melted cheese and carbs? From a recipe that a reality TV star — who inherited all of her wealth from her father, thrives on attention, and gives out criticism freely but can’t take it — gave to a celebrity magazine?

Sorry, wait, I wasn’t totally accurate about the origins of the recipe. It is actually Corinne’s nanny Raquel’s recipe for Cheese Pasta. That’s right: This 24-year-old contestant competing for a 36-year-old man’s heart, a woman who says she runs a multi-million dollar company, still has a nanny.

Here is the recipe for Cheese Pasta:

1. Boil pasta for 10 minutes (add some salt to water).

2. Strain out all water.

3. Add pasta back to pot, keeping it on low heat.

4. Add a lot of shredded cheese.

5. Mix until all the cheese melts.

Side note: no salt with cheese.

And here is the account of my culinary adventure:

I put my headphones in, pressed play on “My President Is Black (Remix),” and walked out the door of my Washington, D.C. office into the dark and somewhat swampy night. Helicopters thumped overhead and police cars with lights flashing raced through the city as I walked the mile it takes me to get to the grocery store.

When I got there, I immediately placed a red velvet cake, an apple (?!?!), and a rotisserie chicken into my basket. Then I made my way to the pasta aisle. I documented my experience:

As I said in the short film above, there was a problem: The recipe doesn’t include an ingredients section nor any types of measurements.

I therefore didn’t know what kind of pasta I was supposed to buy in order to make Cheese Pasta. “Is Cheese Pasta spaghetti with Parmesan?” I asked myself as I stared at boxes of rigatoni and penne. Maybe! “Could it be a mac-and-cheese, elbow-pasta type situation?” I mused as I picked up a box of wheels. Sure! What about lasagna — could I have used lasagna? Probably, yeah, because thanks to this Mad Libs of a recipe, CHEESE PASTA COULD LITERALLY BE ANYTHING!

I decided on a box of medium-sized shells but also bought a box of alphabet pasta in case I need to spell out “HELP ME” during a strange hostage situation in the near future.

I had the same problem when it came to figuring out what type of cheese I was supposed to buy, because it didn’t tell me what kind. The recipe does say, “Side note: no salt with cheese,” but I don’t know what that means. Is it supposed to say, “No cheese with salt?” Or, “Don’t add salt to your cheese?” Because “no salt with cheese” isn’t, like, a thing.

Regardless, there was no way I was about to buy cheese that didn’t incorporate salt. Salt is the best thing about cheese. Also, I didn’t see a single bag of saltless cheese in the cheese aisle, because if you sell saltless cheese you’re a communist, and this is America.

I settled on cheddar, because that’s my favorite, and because cheddar is orange.

As I got deeper and deeper into this endeavor I realized that there was no way I could handle making Cheese Pasta without drinking. So I went to the liquor store section and grabbed a bottle of wine.

You know how they say, “don’t grocery shop hungry?” They are right.

I paid for my strange collection of items and walked the half mile back to my house as the helicopters continued to thump overhead. One of my roommates was home making an actual adult dinner of salad, fish, and cauliflower when I walked in.

“I’m making Cheese Pasta because the villain of The Bachelor gave her nanny’s recipe to Us Weekly today,” I said, putting my bags down on the counter.

“Yup, sure,” he said. He was watching hockey and didn’t bother to ask any more questions about the Cheese Pasta because he’s used to living with me.

I knew that the first step was boiling water. But I didn’t know how much water I was supposed to boil, because I didn’t know how much pasta I was supposed to cook, because this stupid recipe doesn’t include measurements, because it’s not actually a recipe. It’s really just a collection of words in a celebrity magazine that vaguely have to do with food.

I put a bunch of water in a pot and turned on the stove. The water came to boil, and I dumped in half the box of shells. I figured I should err on the side of excess in homage to Corinne.

The pasta cooked, I drained it, and then it was time to add the cheese. Again, I had no idea how much cheese to use, so I just dumped in half the bag. I kept the flame on low the way the recipe said and waited for the cheese to melt.

Once the cheese melted, my Cheese Pasta was complete. I put some in a bowl and tried it.

You wouldn’t think that cheese and pasta melted together could be bad, right? What’s not to love? Cheese? Good. Pasta? Good. Melted cheese? The greatest!

But this Cheese Pasta was so bad. Like, unbelievably bad. Like, maybe the worst thing I’ve cooked since that time I tried to fry Kraft singles like they were strips of bacon at 2 a.m. in college and almost burned down a dorm.

Let me put it this way: Corinne’s Cheese Pasta tastes like you melted orange Silly Putty onto boiled despair. It tastes like taking the SATS for a third time. It tastes like a bad Tinder date that you bail on after one drink by telling the guy your roommate lost her cat and you have to help her find it, even though you live with all dudes and none of them have a cat.

I don’t think this is Raquel’s fault — I bet Corinne just commands her to make terrible pasta.

But I was bummed. I was hoping this recipe would make Cheese Pasta great again, but instead, it’s a hot mess of a dish. A white, orange, bland disaster. I tried to salvage it by adding lots of butter, salt, pepper, and hot sauce, but even then it was still pretty gross.

I ate most of it anyway.