I'm sure a lot of us grew up on Kraft Mac and Cheese in the famous blue box. I remember making many a box as a latchkey kid so I'm all too familiar with the neon orange powder. When I saw Annie's Macaroni and Cheese had a freebie at the grocery store, I decided to give it a go since it'd been eons since I had or made the powdered version.
Here's a peek at the nutritional info...
It's pretty comparable to it's Kraft counterpart except the carbs are quite different from what I compared on
Kraft's site. They list theirs as having 16g of carbs and you can see here that it's 46g of carbs. But 40's is typical of pasta so I sure am curious how Kraft's version could be 16!!
You gotta love how pushing a bunny bum will open the box.
The macaroni looks pretty similar but thinner than I remember but that seems to apply to most everything these days.
But it cooked up to the pasta noodles I remembered.
So I drained it and then it was time for the magic powder.
Looks on par with the childhood stuff.
It even clumped like the childhood stuff.
(Remember when you didn't mind biting into those clumps as a kid?)
With a little skim milk and a few stirs, it was ready to roll.
So how did it taste?
Well, again remember it's been probably almost 6-7 years since I've had this kind but it tasted about like I remember except kinda bland. I don't know if it's because of my adult taste buds or what but yeah, on its own it didn't taste like much of anything. So it didn't taste like my childhood mac and cheese as far as having that slight bite of artificial cheese but given the reviews on Kraft's site of the newer no artificial anything not having any taste then I guess they're comparable? When we both dumped ketchup on it, THAT tasted just like childhood but I'm sure that had more to do with the ketchup and the look of it than the actual taste of the product. :-)
I certainly wouldn't steer people away from this especially if you want a healthier version. They also have other flavors too so they might be a little higher up on the taste scale than this mild cheddar version. I've always been curious about Annie's so I'm glad I got to try it and I'd probably get it again if we babysat and had some finicky eaters on our hands.
Do you buy Annie's products and if so, what are your favorites?
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I wasn't impressed but then again I've never been all that impressed with the Kraft version either. I didn't grow up with that kind of Mac n cheese, though, so I don't have the nostalgia factor coming into play.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kraftmacandcheese.com/products/bluebox/original-cheese
ReplyDeleteI think they list 47g of carbs. Unless there are different versions?
I have two family members who just love the Annie's version of mac and cheese, but I haven't had either Kraft or Annie's in such a long time, my comment wouldn't be relevant. What do love from Annie's are their bunny pretzels, which are, unfortunately, very difficult to find in the stores.
ReplyDeleteI'm finding that a lot of mac and cheeses are bland like this. Cracker Barrel has some good ones that have some kick that I have liked, but they cool off very quickly. If you eat them straight up hot, they are quite good. But the powdered ones do seem very bland. I'm glad you reviewed this because I had a coupon I was considering using.
ReplyDelete