- 1 day ago
Today on Epicurious, we’ve asked mac and cheese experts Jack Logue, Adam Jay Moskowitz, and Shaw-naé Dixon for their unfiltered, honest reviews of some prominent frozen mac and cheese brands found on supermarket shelves. Which mac and cheese packs the most bang for your buck, and which should you avoid at all costs?
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00:00We've gathered three mac and cheese experts
00:02to blind taste test every brand of frozen mac and cheese
00:06we could get our hands on
00:08to see which ones meet their standards.
00:15Stouffers.
00:17The noodles are thick, starchy feeling.
00:21It looks swollen, it looks gummy.
00:23The sauce is having a little bit of trouble
00:25adhering to the pasta.
00:26The color seems artificial.
00:29When we're looking at a great frozen mac and cheese
00:31we're looking for three core things.
00:32First one and most importantly
00:33is gonna be the texture of the sauce.
00:35We want something that is velvety and smooth.
00:39I love the big cheese flavor.
00:41I want big, bold, umami.
00:44You should have at least three types of cheese
00:46in a really good macaroni and cheese.
00:48The last thing that we're looking for
00:49is the texture, shape, and cook of the pasta.
00:51A little bit al dente, a little bit toothsome.
00:54Bar none, this is where a lot of people go wrong.
00:56It's frozen and so you're freezing it
00:58and then you're thawing it.
01:00You want it to kind of be soft enough
01:02where you don't have that tough kind of cut.
01:04And not a gummy, mushy texture.
01:10Sauce, kind of gummy.
01:11Hasn't been really emulsified very well.
01:13The cheese sauce came right off of the pasta.
01:16The cheese had a bit of a chalky taste.
01:18Smells a lot like Kraft mac and cheese smell
01:20that you would remember for when you were a kid.
01:22Which is like cooked pasta meets wet cardboard.
01:25It's also very, very seasoned,
01:26but tastes nothing like cheese.
01:28The quality of the pasta gives me cheap.
01:30Kind of mushy.
01:31It's bloomed a little bit too much.
01:32Basically the wheat has hydrated completely.
01:35And so now it just starts to expand and expand.
01:37With the frozen mac and cheese,
01:38what happens is that there's excess water
01:40because it freezes.
01:42When you're cooking by microwave, you're creating steam.
01:45There's no Maillard reaction.
01:47Pretty underwhelming in terms of the flavor,
01:48the texture of the pasta and also the texture of the sauce.
01:51I'm guessing this is like big box, supermarket,
01:54inexpensive ingredients.
01:56Stouffer's brand macaroni and cheese.
01:58As I guessed, it's cheap.
02:01Stouffer's is a readily accessible product
02:03found in almost every freezer.
02:05We all ate it as a kid.
02:07Pretty basic ingredients actually.
02:09Cooked macaroni, skim milk, water, cheddar cheese.
02:13Not a lot of additives,
02:14which I'm a little bit surprised by.
02:16A little bit of xanthan gum,
02:17which would help with the unfreezing process.
02:19To prevent the sauce from breaking when it's heated.
02:22They have cheddar cheese and cheddar club cheese in it.
02:25Cheddar club cheese.
02:26I'm a cheese expert.
02:27I've never heard of that cheese.
02:29Stouffer's, get your life together.
02:30I'm just not the biggest fan of your mac and cheese.
02:32From here, I think we're just going to be able to go up.
02:37Kraft Deluxe Homestyle.
02:40Immediately off the bat, I can smell the cheese.
02:42Looks very creamy.
02:43They have nice big holes,
02:44so there's plenty of pockets to get the cheese sauce in.
02:47The noodles, I can also see ridges in them.
02:49And those ridges make the sauce cling to the pasta.
02:54The sauce on this is not creamy.
02:56A little bit on the mushy side.
02:57The cheese just really isn't coming through.
02:59Barely a cheese flavor.
03:00More like a flavor that is trying to mimic cheese.
03:04It is chalky.
03:05The noodle, again, looks plump.
03:07The pasta's tough, not al dente.
03:09Again, looks a bit gummy.
03:11We're still in what we'll call like the big box supermarket category.
03:15I think this is Kraft.
03:17Kraft Mac and Cheese Deluxe.
03:19Original cheddar, homestyle rich and creamy.
03:22This is like a step up from their original brand.
03:25Top with real cheddar cheese.
03:27No unofficial flavors, preservatives, or dyes.
03:29Really?
03:30I just hope there'll be a little bit more cheese flavor
03:32and also just a little more seasoning in general.
03:34They include the ridges on the pasta
03:36to give it the more homestyle taste
03:38and for the cheese sauce to stick to the pasta.
03:41Great job, Kraft, for giving us a better noodle,
03:43but in terms of actual cheese sauce and big cheese flavor,
03:47still not feeling it.
03:48Sorry, Kraft.
03:51I'm pumped.
03:51Amy's.
03:53Off the bat, I'm like excited.
03:56Cheese sauce looks good.
03:57A nice yellowish-orange color.
03:59It's extremely creamy,
04:01which means there is a softer, maybe pasteurized cheese.
04:04In terms of an emulsion,
04:05this is by far the best we've seen thus far.
04:08So by far the most cheesy flavor we've had thus far.
04:11I don't taste any like real seasoning in it.
04:14This needs salt, it needs pepper.
04:16Texture fantastic.
04:17Doesn't taste artificial.
04:19Whoever made this one cares about their customer.
04:22Yes!
04:23Amy's.
04:23Amy does a really great job.
04:25Off the bat, organic macaroni.
04:26They use organic whole durum wheat
04:28as well as regular durum wheat.
04:30It's like healthy.
04:31White cheddar cheese.
04:33It's fine melting cheese,
04:34but not the best melting cheese.
04:35Organic sweet rice flour.
04:37They basically use the sweet rice flour
04:40as their starch thickener.
04:42Actually potentially even adds to the flavor
04:44because it's the sweet rice.
04:45They hit a home run with trying to put better ingredients
04:48into this product.
04:49I want to keep eating it.
04:50Good job, Amy's.
04:53Vicha's world's best mac and cheese.
04:56I could tell off the bat we got real cheese in here.
04:59We also got a good noodle.
05:00We got a penne noodle.
05:01Typically you would find that more in pasta dishes,
05:03but it has holes, ridges,
05:06lots of cavities for the cheese sauce to go into,
05:07so we have no problem with that.
05:08I hate penne macaroni and cheese.
05:10It's not baked ziti.
05:12We have real cheese.
05:13One of the byproducts of real cheese, though,
05:15is broken cheese.
05:16Cheese is made up of protein, fat, water,
05:20and it's held together by calcium.
05:22Too much heat, it breaks.
05:24The water evaporates.
05:25The fat turns to oil,
05:26and you're left with chunks of protein.
05:29Really is a lot of separation.
05:30The emulsification is breaking.
05:32But I'm actually okay with it
05:34because I like the flavor.
05:35There's some nuance to it.
05:36There's some seasoning.
05:37Lactic, tangy, there's an umami vibe to it.
05:40It's a sauce that makes you want to go for another bite.
05:41Possibly the best pasta texture so far.
05:44I can't even guess who would do that
05:46to the macaroni and cheese
05:47because that is just disrespectful.
05:49The best mac and cheese I've eaten so far.
05:52Beecher's, world's best mac and cheese.
05:54I don't think I'm going to call it the world's best,
05:56but I will say it's good.
05:58Beecher's is known for making their own cheeses.
05:59I think they're using cheddar cheese
06:01because that's the cheese they make,
06:03but they're using jack cheese
06:04because they know that you need a cheese
06:06that will hold when being cooked.
06:09Jack cheese melts really great.
06:11Jack cheese is very, very strong cheese.
06:13They put a lot of thought into the flavor
06:14and you can absolutely tell.
06:16I don't like it.
06:19Trader Joe's, Joe's Diner Mac and Cheese.
06:21I'm seeing white cheese and I'm seeing orange cheese.
06:25We do have some cheese pull.
06:27You want to make sure that you put one soft cheese
06:29mixed with a cheddar cheese in order to get that pull.
06:33This one tastes a little bit more higher in quality.
06:36This is mushy peas pretending to be mac and cheese.
06:40Yeah, it's just a pretty sad looking bowl right now.
06:42Way more home style than any other
06:44of the ones that I had thus far.
06:46Curdled sauce.
06:47The pasta is mushy.
06:48There is no big cheese flavor.
06:50It feels like food for people without teeth.
06:54Joe's Diner Mac and Cheese.
06:57Trader Joe's.
06:58I didn't even know they even did that.
07:00Advertising cheddar, Swiss, Havarti and Gouda.
07:03Cheddar cheese is going to bring you like a tangy,
07:05bright, buttery note.
07:08Havarti cheese is going to give you texture.
07:10It's going to give you a creaminess.
07:13It's going to give you a lactic cooked milk note.
07:16Gouda cheese can come off as like sweet, fruity,
07:19nutty, umami and Swiss cheese also will give you that umami,
07:23lactic, cooked milk, like sour cream note.
07:27This was like a grown-up macaroni and cheese.
07:29This is not for the kids.
07:30Great job, Trader Joe.
07:32Not that yummy.
07:33Sorry, Joe's Diner.
07:34We're not a big fan.
07:37Lean Cuisine, Vermont white cheddar.
07:40Okay, so it's all white cheese.
07:41I love that like velvety, creamy looking cheese sauce.
07:45The noodles are very large in size.
07:47They also have ridges in them.
07:49It looked good.
07:50And then as I got my spoon in it, it started to look like tapioca.
07:55It's not giving me a strong cheese taste.
07:58Very quickly, my body's like, yeah, not good for you.
08:01Big cheese flavor, there is none.
08:03It's just not a very good flavor, but it's very distinct.
08:05I taste more salt than anything.
08:07The second that you put the pasta into your mouth, it disintegrates.
08:10Very mushy pasta.
08:12So overcooked, it's almost impossible to get a comfortable bite.
08:16What we suspect is that there's something fishy going on here.
08:19Is this Weight Watchers?
08:22Lean Cuisine.
08:23It says modified food starch.
08:25I can taste that.
08:27I've been touting the fact that less ingredients makes a better product.
08:30And this is an example of less ingredients,
08:33but the ingredients are missing something extremely important.
08:36Fat, you need fat.
08:37I want the fattiness of the butter and the cheese and the cream to come together so that
08:43it has that really like beautiful consistency.
08:46When you cut all that out, you're losing so much with the dish.
08:50The funny thing about like sort of diet kind of food is they add so much salt to the food.
08:57Salt sometimes can kill your taste buds so that you don't have to taste anything else.
09:03I'd rather eat salad over that.
09:09All right, this looks beautiful.
09:11It has a cheese sauce that looks like actual cheese sauce.
09:14They may have mixed a white and a yellow cheese together to get it to this color.
09:19We've got a curly noodle, which is like long and fun.
09:22Larger in size.
09:24It smells sweet cream.
09:25It's like almost like sweet buttered corn.
09:30This one is good.
09:31It's got like real cheese flavor.
09:32It had the right texture.
09:34It has the right glossiness.
09:35The sauce was beautiful.
09:36We got creamy.
09:37We got velvety.
09:38We got smooth.
09:39The pasta is cooked properly this time.
09:41Look at that noodle.
09:42That's a fun noodle.
09:43They did achieve the balance between all of the different components.
09:48There's definitely a nutmeg in there.
09:49Some sort of baking spice.
09:51This is probably one of the better brands of macaroni and cheese.
09:55Everything about this was beautiful.
09:56Whatever store it is, it cared.
09:59Wegmans strikes again.
10:01There it is.
10:01Wegmans is truly one of my favorite supermarkets.
10:04They care about everything that they do.
10:06I love this company.
10:07Wegmans is consistently voted one of the best places to work.
10:11As a member of the Artists and Cheese Mafia, I can vouch for the fact that they have an incredible
10:15selection of cheese.
10:16They put buttermilk in it.
10:18And that might be why it's a little more creamy.
10:20And behold, it starts with the processed American cheese.
10:23There's nothing wrong with that word.
10:24Maybe that's why it's like so smooth and so soft.
10:27That is the smartest way to use an emulsifier or a binding agent.
10:30They're made with those.
10:32And so they're the perfect addition to a mac and cheese because they act as the emulsifier or the binding
10:37agent.
10:38Sharp cheddar cheese.
10:39That gives it more flavor.
10:40Modified cornstarch.
10:41Smart.
10:42At the end adds a little bit more of the emulsified agent.
10:45Salt, spices, and annatto extract.
10:47But not too much annatto extract.
10:48So it gives you still that white cheddar vibe, but it's a little bit hewed.
10:53That's great.
10:54This is a well-made product.
10:56I could have eaten the whole thing, but I got a bunch more to go.
11:01Marie Callender's Vermont Cheddar.
11:03First time we've got shells here, which is great.
11:06It just kind of like scoops and holds the cheese.
11:09The sauce itself is not very homogenized.
11:12We also got breadcrumbs here.
11:13I've never done macaroni and cheese with breadcrumbs on top of it.
11:17This one is definitely coming off like a more homestyle,
11:20hearty macaroni and cheese that your grandma prepared.
11:24Cheese is a little flat.
11:26It lacks seasoning and it lacks cheese taste.
11:29Noodle turns out a little gummy.
11:31Unfortunately, if you try to microwave macaroni and cheese with breadcrumbs on it,
11:35you're not going to have a good time.
11:36It's not super crispy or crunchy.
11:38It almost comes off a little stale and it's like super hard to chew.
11:42I want more robustness.
11:43I want more volume.
11:45I want the cheese to kind of bounce.
11:46I'm actually guessing this is a medium to low quality trying to be high quality.
11:50I don't want to call out Marie.
11:52I don't want to say that that it's her,
11:54but I would think a grandma needs something like this.
11:57I finally got her.
11:59Grandma.
12:00Marie Callender's Vermont Cheddar Mac and Cheese Bowl.
12:03Now I can't taste the Parmesan cheese in here with the white cheddar,
12:06but that may be why it's a little bit smoother.
12:10It tastes because Vermont cheddar is sharp.
12:13I love Vermont cheddar.
12:14There's no Vermont cheddar notes in this cheese.
12:16It's a low quality product trying to look like a high quality product.
12:22Sorry, Marie, but we're not a fan of this one.
12:26Banquet.
12:28Back to orange.
12:31The cheese sauce is very creamy.
12:33We can see it's not really sticking to the pasta very well.
12:36This is not good.
12:38Cheese does not taste like cheese. That is super artificial.
12:41But it's seasoned very well.
12:42And it lacks any real macaroni and cheese consistency.
12:47This is bland as F.
12:49It tastes like somebody poured yellow paint over the pasta noodles.
12:53The texture of the pasta is pretty good.
12:55Not overcooked, but they are kind of soft.
12:58The yellow color typically comes from a natto and it's used to mimic beta carotene,
13:03which is inherently in cheese because beta carotene comes from grass.
13:08Did you know eating cheese is like eating sunshine?
13:11I think this is more likely a low end product than 99 cent frozen mac and cheese.
13:17Banquet.
13:18Banquet is like one of the cheapest TV dinner products.
13:22Yeah, this is really bad.
13:24If you have to advertise that it's made with grilled cheese,
13:27it's probably not made with a lot of it.
13:29All these like fake ingredients on here, it's not cheese.
13:33It's called cheese flavor.
13:35They're really basing this entire recipe on water and emulsifying everything into that water.
13:40I can't take one more bite of that.
13:41Don't eat it.
13:44Kid Fresh Wagon Wheels.
13:47We have the dreaded wagon wheel pasta shape.
13:51Definitely was supposed to appeal to the children.
13:54Possibly the worst pasta shape to ever be used for a mac and cheese.
13:58We can essentially get cheese in every single nook and cranny and crevice of this pasta shape.
14:02So great pasta shape, fun for the kids.
14:04When you reheat it, those areas often can become very brittle and or mushy.
14:10The cheese sauce is a little light.
14:14Wow, that's really bad.
14:15I don't really taste cheese.
14:17Lacking umami texture.
14:19It's not a sauce.
14:20That thing is like sticking to that pasta-like paste.
14:23Pasta was a bad choice.
14:25It tastes like butter mixed with wet cardboard.
14:28I think it's just a fun children's mac and cheese.
14:31Kid Fresh Wagon Wheels.
14:34Mac and cheese pasta with cheddar cheese and pureed carrots.
14:38It's most likely a way for kids to eat vegetables.
14:40I used to sneak mushrooms into my kids' spaghetti all the time.
14:43That's why it tastes much sweeter, but it also might be the reason why the sauce is more of like
14:49that chalkier, not creamy consistency.
14:53When you add vegetables to a product like mac and cheese, you're adding a new level of moisture and a
14:58new interaction with the ingredients.
15:00Part of why this particular sauce doesn't really carry much texture and much velvety-ness is because it sort of
15:07leaches out some of that water.
15:08I'm way too old to be eating wagon wheels.
15:11I think these guys have done a really good job making a mac and cheese for kids.
15:14This isn't for me.
15:16I love the wagon wheels.
15:22This one's yellow.
15:23It's cheap.
15:24A bloated elbow noodle.
15:26The ratio of the liquid in the emulsion is significantly higher than the ratio of the fat.
15:31So it's a little bit looser than we would want it to be.
15:35That's really bad.
15:36I don't get any taste.
15:37It's very, very bland.
15:38The flavor is like unsalted margarine.
15:41I wish there was more cheese flavor.
15:43There's not really any cheese pull here.
15:45Just tastes like artificial cheese sauce on an overcooked noodle.
15:51Macaroni is like gummy.
15:53So the texture is just gross.
15:56Nothing good.
15:57I don't really even want to look at it.
15:59Michelina.
16:01Macaroni and cheese quality ingredients since 1990.
16:04It's considered more of like the one of the higher grade kind of TV dinner-ish.
16:11Made with real cheese.
16:12Again, we will advertise that.
16:14Interestingly though, pretty low calorie per serving package.
16:17Margarine.
16:18I freaking nailed it, dude.
16:20And now I'm pissed off because I don't eat margarine.
16:23It's disgusting.
16:24Margarine is fake butter.
16:25I noticed that the fat content was significantly lower.
16:29It's acting like butter, but it really is an oil.
16:32In this case, it looks like soybean.
16:34Margarine is basically an example of using an inferior product to provide a certain flavor.
16:41So they want that butter flavor, but they don't want to use real butter.
16:43So they'll use margarine.
16:45For the sake of an actual cheese sauce, we want butter.
16:48And then blue cheese flavor.
16:50Fascinating.
16:51We're not getting any blue cheese flavor, but I did taste a lot of seasoning.
16:55And I think a lot of that is coming from the addition of that blue cheese flavoring.
16:59What are we doing with this?
17:00Michelina, see you later.
17:07I think we're back to flavor town, people.
17:09I don't know if they threw any kind of like tomato base in here,
17:12because it's giving it a lot of color.
17:14Seashell as the macaroni.
17:16I love shells personally for mac and cheese.
17:18I think I smell like chorizo or something.
17:20Is this meatballs?
17:21Looks like a fried chicken.
17:23It's spicy.
17:25I think I just ate chicken.
17:26They hid it in that pasta.
17:29Cheese sauce.
17:30It's good.
17:30It's creamy.
17:31It's coated.
17:32Somebody's hand was super heavy on cayenne.
17:35It's not big cheese flavor, but it's big flavor.
17:37This is kind of just like when you're a kid and your mom makes you some mac and cheese and
17:42some chicken nuggets and you just mix them all in a bowl and poured some hot sauce on it.
17:45The pasta is cooked well.
17:47I will say that.
17:48Al dente.
17:49Like it has a nice bite to it.
17:51And the flavor, I will say, because I like spice, is good.
17:57I like it.
17:57This is not macaroni and cheese.
17:59This is something else.
18:01TJF Rodders.
18:03Devour buffalo style chicken mac and cheese.
18:06Pasta shells in a creamy buffalo style cheddar cheese sauce with breaded white meat chicken
18:11and rich blue cheese.
18:13Very tasty.
18:14Extremely unconventional.
18:15I'm still not sure I'm ready to call this mac and cheese.
18:17It's like a meal in one bite.
18:19Significantly better than I think you would think it would be.
18:22There's actually blue cheese, not blue cheese flavor.
18:25It also makes sense because buffalo chicken loves a blue cheese dip.
18:29I don't taste the blue cheese in there.
18:30But you know what?
18:31That could be because it's so spicy.
18:33But all of the other things that are in there are working together.
18:37Pretty tasty bowl of pasta and chicken.
18:40Can't really call it mac and cheese though.
18:43Vital Pursuit.
18:44Vermont white cheddar mac and broccoli bowl.
18:47It's a white cheese.
18:48It's creamy.
18:49We've got some color.
18:51Very courageous task of making a frozen mac and cheese with a cruciferous vegetable like broccoli,
18:58which retains a tremendous amount of water.
19:00The sauce is kind of creamy but grainy looking.
19:04Either the fat ratio is too high or they use too many different hydrocolloids that didn't quite
19:09smooth out during the cooking process.
19:13It's not bad.
19:14It has a very great, well-balanced big cheese flavor.
19:17The sauce is a little grainy.
19:19There is a bitterness to this one.
19:21A little bit more of a heavier pinch of maybe garlic powder or something that's in there, onion powder.
19:26Kind of tastes like chewy broccoli cheese soup.
19:30And then the pasta was cooked pretty decently.
19:32The texture in the mouth feels not as bad as the look.
19:34Broccoli has crunch to it.
19:35It's pretty impressive actually.
19:37Frozen vegetables can absolutely ruin a cheese sauce.
19:39It's going to automatically give off water and that's going to loosen the cheese sauce.
19:44The noodle doesn't look super bloated,
19:46which is impressive given the potential issue of too much moisture in the product.
19:51I don't know.
19:51Would this be a Cracker Barrel dish?
19:53Is this 365?
19:56Vital Pursuit.
19:57Vermont white cheddar mac and broccoli bowl.
20:01Clearly it's a new product because they put GLP-1 friendly right on the box.
20:06Pasta made with protein.
20:08If you're on one of the GLP-1s, you need protein.
20:11You forget that you need protein.
20:13This is like one of my top three.
20:16And you are getting the vegetable component in it.
20:18Overall, it's a pretty solid product.
20:19I just wish that they hadn't messed up the sauce so much.
20:27Beautiful gloss, beautiful shine and sheen.
20:30It's neither white nor orange.
20:33Probably a diet macaroni and cheese.
20:37Smells yummy.
20:39It's got big flavor, but it doesn't scream cheese.
20:43It tastes like soup.
20:44Beef bouillon note to it.
20:46This is a slightly cheese substitute or a full cheese substitute.
20:49It has a glossiness. It has a nice texture.
20:51The pasta is cooked properly. It's seasoned well.
20:53A lot of onion, a lot of powder.
20:55The texture of the noodle is really, really good.
20:58The garlic is taking over. At this point, I can't have a conversation with anybody when I leave here.
21:02It looks identical to mac and cheese, but it doesn't really taste like mac and cheese.
21:06It doesn't scream cheese, but it is good.
21:09I'm very curious what this is.
21:10Did my mommy make it?
21:13Strong Roots Creamy Mac.
21:15The big daddy of comfort food with all the tastes you love, minus the dairy.
21:19Yep, there we go.
21:19I nailed it again. There is no cheese in here.
21:22They got vegan cream alternative in here, potato starch, flavoring olive oil, coconut oil.
21:28Healthy vegan mac and cheese has more of the food grade chemicals in it than every other one.
21:33This says creamy mac, not mac and cheese.
21:35So right off the bat, I love this product because they're not pretending to be something they're not.
21:39Not trying to mimic the cheese, forgetting about that, but just creating something that reminds
21:43you of that umami, that richness, that soulful feeling.
21:46I think that's where they've actually very much succeeded here.
21:48You could have fried chicken with the stuff that they put in that macaroni and cheese at this point.
21:52This is actually delicious.
21:59This cheese sauce looks like grandma's cheese sauce right here.
22:01The sauce is just starting to split.
22:03We can probably fix that by emulsifying it back up.
22:07I don't taste any cheese at all.
22:09A little bit springy texture.
22:11It's a little grainy slash kind of like pudding.
22:14What we thought was going to be sort of a glossy-ish emulsion,
22:17really disintegrated and kind of almost tasted like pastiness.
22:20Actually, the first slightly undercooked pasta I've tasted today.
22:24The small noodle choice is a little strange, but it does work with it because it's letting the cheese shine
22:31and not the pasta shine.
22:32It's the first pasta that we've tasted that actually hasn't over-bloomed in the freezing and reheating pastas.
22:38I don't know, there's something artificial about this.
22:40It's a non-gluten pasta.
22:41Maybe it's a vegan gluten-free.
22:44Ooh, it is.
22:45Okay.
22:46It's gluten-free.
22:47That's surprising.
22:48A gluten-free frozen pasta is very difficult.
22:52The minute that you boil gluten-free pasta, it immediately starts releasing starches from the pasta
22:59and the water gets very like murky and thick.
23:01Most likely, they did use pasta water to help thicken the cheese sauce.
23:06Somehow they've been able to execute that, but the cheese side of it is gross.
23:11It does have a cheddar cheese blend.
23:13It also has Monterey Jack cheese, but we really weren't tasting much cheese flavor in this.
23:18Not that yummy.
23:19Now let's see which brands our experts liked the most and the least.
23:24I really loved the Wegmans.
23:27Their mac and cheese was absolutely delicious.
23:29I liked the choice of pasta that they had.
23:32I loved the consistency of the macaroni and cheese.
23:35Viscosity, velvety texture.
23:37And it tasted very fresh.
23:39Like they cared about who they were preparing that macaroni and cheese for.
23:43Another favorite was the Amy's.
23:45Really great color, really good texture, but the cheese flavor was on point.
23:49The Vital Pursuit macaroni and cheese was really good.
23:52That GLP-OZ one was on the money.
23:56Maybe I'm not as much of a purist as I thought I was, because the two mac and cheeses that
24:02actually had additional ingredients, the one with the broccoli and the one with the buffalo chicken,
24:05I actually really enjoyed those.
24:06The balance of flavor using vegetables and pasta and cheese are very, very hard to execute.
24:14Special shout out to the Strong Roots vegan creamy mac.
24:17I really liked it.
24:18It had a lot of flavor.
24:19It had really good texture.
24:21Typically the vegan ones fall very, very short.
24:24They don't remind you of mac and cheese.
24:26Strong Roots went the opposite direction, but really focusing on the feeling of mac and cheese,
24:31the nostalgia, that creaminess in the mouth.
24:34It's maybe my second favorite of the entire day.
24:37And now for the ones I don't like.
24:39Lean Cuisine.
24:40Get out of here with that.
24:41Lean Cuisine needs to give it up.
24:43The gelatinous nature of the sauce was really off-putting to the eye.
24:47Zero flavor.
24:48You need fat for flavor.
24:50Disgusting.
24:50I also didn't like the Udi's gluten-free mac and cheese.
24:53And while they were absolutely able to hit the nail on the head with the gluten-free pasta element,
24:58I could not get over how bad that cheese sauce was.
25:02I did not like Banquet.
25:04It cost $1.99 and it tastes like $1.99.
25:07I didn't like the Michelinies.
25:09It feels like the Michelinies was trying to be like Amy's, but not.
25:12It was just boring, bland.
25:14Frozen mac and cheese exists for a reason.
25:17It's convenient.
25:18It's quick for people on the go.
25:19Select the things with less ingredients.
25:22Pick the things that you can read and understand.
25:25You want to make sure that you get it and it says real milk, real cheese, real butter.
25:30If you're buying on price, just know that you're usually sacrificing flavor.
25:33And if you really can, make your own cheese sauce.
25:36Have an exciting experience with macaroni and cheese.
25:39Make your own.
25:40Music playing.