Pro Chefs Blind Taste Test Every Boxed Mac & Cheese

[Narrator] We've gathered three professional chefs

to blind taste tests

every boxed mac and cheese brand we could get our hands on,

and see which ones meet their standards.

Don't worry, we are prepared.

Kraft original macaroni and cheese dinner.

Just the visual kind of brings me back

in a time machine right now.

Smells like I'm five years old again.

The sauce is kind of thin,

not as cheesy as I would like my mac and cheese personally.

So what I look for in mac and cheese is sauce.

Is it creamy? Is it glossy?

Does it coat the pasta the way it should?

It's gotta have that cheesy,

not quite real cheese haste.

The more cheese, the better.

Pasta shape is very important

'cause that's what's gonna make the sauce

adhere to the actual pasta.

And of course the actual mix itself.

And a lot of that has to do with the amount

of sodium citrate and sodium hexametaphosphate in it,

which are helping to make the fats not separate

from the actual pasta and the sauce.

When I'm looking at this right here,

that color that's light neon yellow

that lets me know it's money.

Yep, I know what that is.

The scent, the smell, the shape of the noodle,

that's Kraft mac and cheese right there.

This is Kraft mac and cheese.

I do think this is a blue box Kraft mac and cheese.

[Brittney laughs]

There it is. It's Kraft.

The boxes has changed but the ingredients have not.

The thing about this particular mac and cheese,

you always wanted to eat more.

You needed to eat more,

you couldn't just like have like one bite,

you want and go in for it.

A lot of that is that acidity which helps open up the mouth.

The citric acid and the lactic acid.

I grew up on this, I love it.

[Narrator] Annie's white cheddar shells

macaroni and cheese.

A white cheese, maybe a white cheddar.

I always think that shelled mac and cheese

is the way to go

because you get the little pockets in the shell

that are the gooey explosion in your mouth.

The sauce itself coats the pasta

which is a good sign.

The texture is definitely a little looser

with this one right here.

It's not quite as gelatinous or homogenous.

I noticed that the sauce

is a little bit less thick than the last one,

but it is sticking to the shell,

so the viscosity is nice.

Definitely getting notes of like a milder kind of cheddar.

It looks like it's gonna pack like

a really nice sharp white cheddar flavor

that tastes very nice

and it was kind of muted to be honest with you.

I will say that the pasta has a little bit more bite.

This particular mac and cheese

is lacking lusciousness on the tongue,

where I really just want to eat more.

We're only really tasting pretty bland sauce

and kind of a bland pasta noodle as well.

It looks like it possibly could be an Annie's,

but I think Annie's tastes better than this.

Oh- Annie's.

All right.

It is the Annie's white cheddar.

That is hilarious,

'cause in my head I was like maybe this is the Annie's

but I wasn't quite sure.

I'm not opposed to Annie's.

Thank you Annie.

[Narrator] Velveeta Shells and cheese.

That's the color we're looking for,

kind of that quite not natural yellow hue to it.

The sauce is really clinging to the shells

that these pockets right here are just gooey deliciousness,

we hope.

In order to get that beautiful lacquered texture

that you have that coats the outside of the shells,

you wanna have some type of starch present,

maybe potato starch that gives that nice luxurious,

glorious lacquered look on the shells right here.

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

I feel like it's very muted.

Flavor profile of actual cheese,

but it's really good.

And it really doesn't have that cheese factor.

There's a nice salinity to this,

the gooeyness really comes across.

You can make little runway in the sauce,

It's not just [indistinct] down there,

which is always a good sign of proper emulsion.

I think this one is probably a base

with an actual cheese with the melting salt in it.

You do that, real cheese ain't doing that.

It's real homogenous, it's real kind of stiff.

Very salty.

If I had to guess, feel like it would be Velveeta.

I'm gonna go with Velveeta.

[Brittney laughs]

Yes I was right.

Velveeta.

Enriched macaroni product, oof.

This also has the lactic acid, the citric acid

that we enjoyed from the Kraft one.

You want a cheese sauce that actually moves.

This is as slow as molasses.

To feed that to my family, it's gonna be a no for me.

I think this is by far actually the best tasting one.

I think the sweetness from the Kraft

kinda overpower the saltiness that you want

from mac and cheese,

and I think the Annie's just didn't really have that

much natural flavor.

Whereas the Goop quote unquote carries a lot of flavor,

and really packs a lot of flavor,

and it's a high sodium content

which translates to gooey, glossy, delicious,

tasty mac and cheese.

And that that's it,

I really dunno any more mac and cheese brands now.

[Narrator] Great value original macaroni and cheese.

Lovely, beautiful neon yellow.

It looks very similar to the Kraft.

It's going for that exact same marketability.

I don't see much white spacing on the actual pasta,

it's just cheese sauce through and through.

Hmm. Hmm.

That is not Kraft.

Very sweet, surprisingly.

Not a fan of the pasta noodles.

A little denser.

The sauciness of the Krafts

was a little bit more consistent,

whereas even as you can see now

as this is starting to cool,

we get a little bit more of these like runny puree marks.

I think it's a very good imitation from the look standpoint,

but from the taste standpoint,

it doesn't quite hit those same notes

as the Kraft, honestly.

It's not giving a super buttery rich flavor profile

that's just linear.

We know most of these products

don't have the real cheese product in it,

but it tastes extra chemically,

kind of a metal kind of minerally taste to it.

Ooh, Great value.

Okay, this makes sense.

Just looks exactly like Kraft.

Are you even allowed to mark something like this?

I know there's melting salts

that we discussed in the Kraft Mac and cheese,

and also in the Velveeta there's no sodium citrate,

there's no sodium hexametaphosphate.

So the sauce that looked very consistent

and very glossy right when it came out

starts to look like it's no longer an emulsion,

It's 'cause there's nothing helping to bind it.

But this is just gonna kind of die in the plate right away.

[Narrator] Cheetos mac and cheese.

Now y'all know I'm gonna give yada face.

The Jamaican auntie face.

I have never seen a cheese this color.

The color is a bit much.

kind of a Cheetos orange thing going on here.

It's well coated.

I do see a lot of the cheese sauce here.

Just based off looks now,

there is fat and starch in there

that's causing it to coat the noodles.

Hmm. I'm smelling spices in here.

I'm getting packaged cheese snack vibes.

Yep.

Hmm.

Hmm, okay.

It doesn't taste like mac and cheese at all to me.

Can I confirm if it's cheese?

Oh, kind of does taste like Cheetos, actually.

The only thing missing right now

is the cheese powder on my fingers.

It looks like it, yes.

It tastes like it.

Really, really good flavor,

hinges on the cusp of too salty.

It's just full of seasoning additives and flavors,

but not cheese.

There's a sweetness to it as well,

and there's just a salinity of that balance

that makes you want to go back for more.

It's kind of scary to look at, but it's good.

That's wrong.

So wrong but so right in all the good ways.

[Brittney laughs]

Ah, all right.

I guess Cheetos has the market on this color of orange.

That flavor, that taste, that smell,

everything pointed towards this.

It has some buttermilk and nutritional yeast

and it has the melting salt.

So kind of combination of a lot of the things

that we've tried overall.

Solid mac and cheese.

It's like there you go. Cheetos,

[Narrator] Trader Joe's organic shells

and white cheddar macaroni and cheese.

Shells again, do they not make any other pasta shapes?

So we have that viscosity again,

that sheen and shine.

Compared to the last white mac and cheese

it has a more consistent sauce.

It's slightly starting to split.

It's a little lumpy,

that means the sauce isn't as emulsified as it should be.

Hmm. Hmm.

Not bad.

There's not really much cheese taste at all,

but it's tasty.

I would definitely add more cheese culture,

cheese S in, or actually have more cheese in there.

When comparing this to the Annie's and the Velveeta,

I like the shelves right here this size.

It's good, it has a nice chew to it.

It's very snackable.

Tasting this mac and cheese,

there is no flavor at all.

For me, zero out of 10.

What do you have here?

Trader Joe's Trader Joe's.

I'm disappointed Trader Joe's.

Definitely Trader Joe's,

gimme more of that organic white cheddar cheese,

but overall I'll eat it.

You missed the mark on that one.

[Narrator] Banza Mac and white cheddar

made with chickpea pasta.

Finally we got elbow mac and cheese in the house.

The coating on the sauce still seems a little bit loose.

Not really coating the spoon

and not really sticking that nice kind of homogenous,

kind of texture.

So it does seem like some of the pasta is broken up.

Either that means the pasta was overcooked

or it means that maybe this is a gluten substitute,

which sometimes that can happen to.

Hmm, the smell itself is a lot more earthier.

Hmm. Hmm, okay.

That's interesting.

As soon as I bite into it,

it kind of disintegrates and falls apart.

There's a little bit of a chalkiness to the pasta itself

and it kind of disintegrated in my mouth.

So I think this is gluten-free pasta.

You know you want the cheese to be the flavor

and the pasta sort to be the vessel,

whereas in this case the pasta is the flavor

and the cheese sort of exists.

It's lacking that yellow color,

it's lacking that cheesiness.

It's gotta have that starch,

it's gotta have that fat in there to make it stick,

it's lacking that.

It's not vibing with me.

Of all the mac and cheeses that I've had thus far,

this one like a little step above everybody else.

This one is probably least favorite so far.

I think we're eating gluten-free vegan mac and cheese.

Oh no, Banza mac and cheese made with chickpeas.

It's lacking that starch that wheat has,

so it's not gonna have that toothy kind of feel

when you bite into it.

Pea starch,

okay, that's where that earthiness comes from

in the cheese sauce itself.

I think if you were to add some more cheese to the sauce,

maybe the pasta wouldn't be as overpowering

and maybe this would be a really good substitute

for people who are gluten-free.

But with the straight out of the box sauce that they have,

it's just not enough to overpower that flavor.

Not a fan of chickpea pasta, no

[Narrator] Daiya deluxe mac and cheese cheddar style.

It has that nice yellow hue.

It's really coating the pasta well.

I like the ridges that are in the pasta as well,

'cause ridges mean more flavor, more cheese sauce.

The cheese sauce looks for lack of a better term, crazy.

It's too light for the pasta itself.

It gets creamy towards the bottom

as though the sauce itself sinks.

Hmm.

Hmm, interesting.

Now that is an interesting tasting mac and cheese.

My eyes are telling me mac and cheese

but my mouth is saying a whole different story.

There's definitely nutritional yeast in there.

Quite a bit of sodium in there.

It has like this kind of thick film

that's coating my tongue as well.

I don't quite like that.

I'm gonna look at this sauce is what I'll do.

I'm at a ballpark 'cause it looks like nacho cheese sauce.

No cheese is this orange.

Completely mimics a gorgeous Velveeta cheese sauce.

But then from a taste standpoint

we really get a lot of nutritional yeast.

So there there's some sweetness.

It's a product that kind of plays

with your mind a little bit

because of all the way that it looks exactly like a cheese

but then it doesn't really taste much like cheese.

I think we finally got our vegan option here.

Mm.

Daiya.

Deliciously dairy free.

That makes so much sense.

Pasta is a brown rice pasta.

I'd definitely go the brown rice route

over the chickpea

'cause it kind of holds up with that firmness.

If it tasted like cheese,

I would say it was a really great mac and cheese.

It just doesn't taste like cheese.

Outside of looks and sense,

not my bag.

[Narrator] 365 by whole foods market,

organic macaroni and cheese.

Not as sauce heavy as the others.

So you don't really have as much of the gooey,

drippy, velvety texture

that you would kind of want from mac and cheese.

It looks kind of oily,

like it's starting to break apart,

or on the verge of breaking.

I'm not sure if it's lacking the starch,

or the fat from the cheese, or the dairy.

Hmm, some elements of seasoning there.

Some elements of cheese or cheese substitute in there.

It's not overwhelming in sweetness.

It's one of the more bland ones we've tried so far.

It's a bit more palatable in my opinion.

The sauce itself is staying the same consistency

as it started,

but there just wasn't that much sauce.

And the cheese is not here for me at all.

Just not good mac and cheese.

Is it 365?

[Brittney laughs]

Yes.

It was giving Whole foods guys.

Made with real organic cheddar cheese.

Huh? I'm not tasting that.

It's completely eluding me.

I think that they just don't give you enough

in their packet to serve with the pasta.

I'm not really getting that nice luscious mouth feel

that I'm looking for.

A little bit more nuanced than Kraft,

has more of an appeal for the adult palette,

but still good enough for the children.

You gotta feed the children.

[Narrator] Stouffer's macaroni and cheese.

The sauce is a lot thicker than the rest.

The noodles look well cooked

as if like you made this at home.

Hmm.

For the look I expected there to be a lot of flavor.

It's not as luxurious or velvety on my tongue

as I would expect.

You're eating with your eyes,

you wanna devour this,

and then you taste it and it's just one note and flat,

and there's nothing going on there.

As it gets colder,

that sauce starts to separate more and more,

which is not very pleasing,

but overall taste wise, not bad.

And you got a little bit

of like some sharp cheddar flavors going on here,

I kind of appreciate that.

[hand drumming]

Stop it, its Stouffer's? Stouffer's.

I knew it's Stouffer's.

I knew it was gonna come sooner or later,

I did not think it would be this one.

You gotta give 'em credit

for a frozen product in the microwave.

It really comes out with all the texture

that you would want, quite impressive.

They just need to work on their flavor.

Cooked macaroni, skim milk, water, cheddar cheese.

The first four ingredients

of the mac and cheese seems legit enough for me.

[Narrator] Muscle Mac macaroni and cheese.

Very reminiscent of a Kraft.

The noodle shape, the way it kind of clumps together.

I hate to use the word weird but this is weird.

Flavor it's a little muted.

Not as cheesy as I thought it might be from scent,

but it tastes good.

It doesn't really seem to have much cheese flavor in it.

Is so gritty. What do we have?

Muscle Mac? Muscle Mac.

High protein mac and cheese.

I've never heard of this, never seen this.

Surprisingly it has pea protein isolate.

The grittiness makes sense

because you know protein shakes.

There was really no flavor there,

and unless you really, really love mac and cheese

and wanted to get ripped,

I don't have any reason

why you would choose this as your option, but-

I feel my muscles engorging already.

Not bad Muscle Mac.

[Narrator] Sabatino Tartufi truffle macaroni and cheese.

This looks more like a gourmet kind of take.

Get you a pepe, that's what this reminds me of.

Pretty impressive as far as presentation.

I could smell the the truffle in there.

I see some-

Specks, which also indicates

that we have fresh black pepper involved in this.

I love the shape because it's giving

something outside of just your normal mac and cheese.

This is kind of a smart vessel

for a good mac and cheese.

'Cause of the grooves you're gonna allow

a lot more of the cheese sauce to adhere to it.

And the sauce is well coated on the pasta.

It looks like something you might get in actual restaurant.

Hmm.

Definitely a mushroom meme.

[David] And you sat this bowl right in front of me.

I would not think this is box mac and cheese.

I wouldn't call it mac and cheese myself,

but I would definitely eat it.

There's a lot of cheeses that will add enhanced flavor,

but that can also stand up to the truffle,

whereas I think with a box mac and cheese

flavor from the truffle really overpowers.

It's not Chef Boyardee.

I know when it's not, but it's good.

[Brittney laughs]

Sabatino Tartufi.

I wish they would talk a little bit more about

what's in the cheese blend,

but they just say cheese blend.

You would need to add some cheese yourself to this

to make it really a mac and cheese,

and even if it's just grating Parmesan on top,

or something like that

just to really like feel more cheesy.

It looks good, I'll tell you that much.

But on the palette it was,

it was missing some notes for sure.

This is my first time trying this,

but I will be buying one today,

if not taking this one home today.

[Narrator] Nature's Promise

organic macaroni and cheddar cheese.

That beautiful neon yellow cheese like color.

[Jack] Traditional T-shaped noodle.

I'm not taking it to be that creamy

just by the look of it.

[Jack] The sauce sort of dissipates from the noodle.

It's not really coating very well.

Look at the back of my spoon, nothing.

Kind of thick.

Hmm.

Cheese where are you?

Cheese, dairy, it's not in here.

It's a little bit too dry.

It needs salt.

Pasta's cooked very well,

but that's all I taste.

Woo.

Okay, Nature's Promise.

See, you know what, they sold me a lie.

In this picture it's sauce galore,

in this bowl is very dry.

I think if they had doubled the amount of sauce

for pasta ratio,

then this would actually be

a really tasty box mac and cheese.

If you're looking to maybe be health conscious,

this might be the one for you.

But come on people,

you're eating store bought mac and cheese,

we're looking for comfort, cheese and fat.

I don't feel comforted.

I don't feel embraced with this one.

I want this mac and cheese.

Okay, not this one.

I want the one that's on the box.

Thank you

[Narrator] Cabot Seriously Shop shells and cheese.

And back to the shells.

Which again is a great thing

because it gives you more cheese in every single bite.

Nice flossy sauce.

Very wet, like water based almost.

It actually smells creamy,

like there's actual milk in this product.

Sticking to the spoon, always a good sign.

Hmm.

Hmm.

The very first thing you get is cheese.

It's sweet, which leans more towards a mild cheddar,

or a white cheddar.

Shell's really held up.

It has like a nice bite to it.

A lot of great texture there.

Each one of the shells has a nice amount of sauce in it.

No grittiness anywhere, is kind of coating my tongue,

which lets you know the fat's there,

the starch is there, and it's comforting.

A good sign when I go on for a second bite immediately.

So far, I'm actually digging all of the pasta

with the white sauce,

because I know for a fact that

snap pump with the additive of annato for coloring,

this is a more natural sense of the cheese.

This is very similar to the Annie's as far as flavor.

Forgive me Annie,

I actually like this one a little bit more.

I mean a little jijing with some black pepper

and some microplane parm on here would go a long way,

but what I have in front of me, it's not bad.

I wanna say it's Annie's mac and cheese

is better this time, but-

Oh, Cabot, okay Oh Cabot.

Oh yes.

Good cheese company.

That makes a very great commercial cheddar.

We use it in a lot of the restaurants

for a lot of our sauces and stuff like that.

I did not know that this product existed.

Their cheese product is, tastes like cheese.

Its the one that smelled like cheese, it tastes like cheese.

It looks and smells like what it is,

that's a winner.

I'd eat that again.

For a box mac and cheese, I would,

I'd go with them.

[Narrator] Goodles cheddy mac.

I'm getting reminiscent vibes

of the Cheetos mac and cheese with this one here.

Judging by this color,

it is definitely filled with the nato.

It is quite creamy, I'll give you that.

It coats this pasta very well.

The hole is not very big though,

so we can't really count on much sauce

getting inside the pasta.

On the nose, it's slightly earthy,

almost like a vegetable aroma.

I smell butternut squash

or sweet potato or something like that,

but I don't want to commit to that until I-

Hmm.

I think it's definitely a butternut squash mac and cheese.

Flavor is still lingering on the taste buds,

which I like, which makes me wanna dig back into it.

The pasta is very snappy, I can give it that,

but immediately at the forefront is sugar.

I don't get any cheese at all.

It's a sweetness, it's a starch,

I mean it just tastes like butternut squash.

I can see the separation.

I mean if there's a cheese,

it's so disguised underneath

like a very pronounced flavor

of what I think is butternut squash.

But yeah, if there is, it goes away immediately.

Gives like this almost burnt flavor profile.

I'm really curious to know who this is,

'cause I'm writing a letter to corporate,

'cause this is not okay.

Goodles Cheddy mac.

Okay, there's pumpkin and sweet potato in here.

So I was right.

Sweet potato, pumpkin, kale,

sunflower seed, broccoli, cranberry, maitake mushrooms,

shiitake mushrooms, and then a cheddar cheese blend.

Well that's where the whole vegetable quality

was coming from.

Dried maple syrup,

that is an interesting sweetener for some mac and cheese,

I'll tell you that much.

Although I think maybe that is the problem,

it's a little too sweet because the sweet potato,

the pumpkin and maple syrup, it's just overpowering.

I kind of wish you tasted all the stuff that's in here.

It's not giving mac and cheese.

We're trying to pump so much health

into what isn't necessarily healthy.

Clean, simple ingredients goes a long way.

It's a little bit too much for me.

[Narrator] Cracker barrel macaroni and cheese

sharp white cheddar.

It's like quite creamy.

Shiny, glossy.

[David] I see those ridges peeking through.

[Brittney] I like the noodle shape.

We have the C noodle with the large holes.

As we break through the sauce, it adheres together.

It could be a little cheesier

'cause it's not clinging as much as I'd like it to.

The sauce is really emulsified together nicely.

It's not breaking, it's not splitting out at all.

Hmm. Hmm.

Whoa. That's like a solid mornay sauce.

This sauce is super velvety, I really respect that.

However-

Not getting much cheese.

It's kind of uncommon in some of these,

so that doesn't really mean anything.

So it's the first one that's actually,

I feel like is a little over salted of the sauce,

but then the pasta is not so salty.

So it's like a bland pasta and very seasoned sauce.

The saving grace is the creaminess of it,

where even though the cheese is not present,

the consistency is giving me macaroni and cheese type vibes.

Ah, Cracker Barrel.

Cracker Barrel, which is super surprising

'cause Cracker Barrel is known for cheese.

I grew up eating Cracker Barrel, the cheese itself,

I've never had the macaroni and cheese,

so this makes me a little happy inside.

But it still seems like there's a lot of

additives incorporated.

I feel like it could have been

a lot cheesier Cracker Barrel

[Narrator] Kraft mac and cheese dinner

with unicorn pasta shapes.

I was waiting for there to be some fun shapes.

Because I see stars, I think I see rainbows.

Stars and sailboats maybe.

I mean, these fun pasta shapes

actually are really quite conducive for mac and cheese

because there's a lot of holes within them.

So there's nooks and crannies to get all the sauce into.

Straight sugar guys.

I mean, it only makes sense.

You want your child addicted to these things.

So this tastes like it's in the family of the OG Kraft

type of mac and cheeses.

You immediately get that exact same

sweetness followed by savoriness.

It's got great texture, it's velvety, it's smooth.

I just wish that the sauce was a little thicker.

It's almost wasted on such a fun pasta shape

because it is such a thin sauce.

I'm just gonna say Kraft mac and cheese with fun shapes,

but we'll see.

Is it Kraft again?

Ah. Ah, there we go.

Oh, oh, you got me.

To start and to end on a high note,

Kraft mac and cheese, of course.

Unicorn shaped craft mac and cheese.

Oh, so those sailboats were unicorns apparently.

Honestly, the unicorn shape is better

than the traditional noodle,

but just because it just has more opportunities

for the sauce to get into the pastas.

I would love to taste this type of pasta shape

with some of the other sauces that we've had,

because I think that would be really fun.

For a child they will love it.

[Narrator] Let's see which products

our chefs like the most and the least.

After today you can say I am macaroni and cheesed out.

My favorite of them all is Cabot.

It's just velvety, tastes good, no additives.

It's like real cheese, real milk,

all of these things that really make a good mac and cheese.

That Cabot cheddar is quite delicious.

I think that was by far the most true cheesy flavored one.

I'm definitely going with that Italian one,

the truffle mac and cheese, delicious.

Cheetos, I didn't know you exist,

now I do, I'm getting you.

For whatever reason, cheetos, man, I don't know.

Even though the color was a little scary,

the flavor was a lot of fun, it was very tasty.

Let me tell you something about

these Cheetos Mac and cheese, because,

no, okay.

I didn't care for the 365,

the Trader Joe's, the Daiya, you can keep that.

And the one at the chickpea flour.

The chickpea pasta was just too overpowering flavor.

I think that didn't quite hit for me as well.

I hate to say this 'cause I generally do love Annie's,

but the Annie's one was a little bit disappointing.

If you're doing box mac and cheese, don't skip cheese,

don't skip dairy,

I'm going all in because I want to be satiated,

and I want to be comforted,

'cause macaroni and cheese is comfort.

If it isn't, I don't want it.