We were very excited when we discovered the Wicked Kitchen brand of frozen food at our local grocery store. This is a line that features some high-quality items, and the Wicked Kitchen Hatch Chile Mac and Cheese really caught our eye. We were quite impressed with the Chorizo Mac and Cheese, so we had high expectations for the Hatch Chile Pepper version of this delicious meal.
Typically, Hatch chile peppers come from the Hatch region of New Mexico, which is known for its superior pepper-growing climate. Of course, this is more urban legend than truth, but the Hatch region continues to produce peppers nonetheless (and frozen food companies continue to use these peppers in their mac and cheese dishes). And really, we haven’t yet had a bad batch of Hatch peppers, so the legend might have something to it.
Cooking this meal is a bit strange. You’ll just toss the whole box into the microwave, then pull it out and open up your box to see what’s inside. The box warns you to let it sit in the microwave for two minutes before you pull it out, and that’s a good idea — you don’t want to burn yourself on this thing when it’s piping hot.
When you get this whole thing unpacked, what you’ll find is a bag — yes a bag, not a tray — filled with mac and cheese. Don’t be tempted to dump this back into the box and use that as a tray; the instructions on the box strictly forbid this kind of behavior.
Some of the cheese sauce soaked through the bag while we were heating this up, so the whole thing got a bit messy. It’s not a huge deal, but this emphasizes some of the weakness of the whole mac-in-a-bag concept.
Now, this is one seriously spicy meal. When we reviewed the Chorizo Mac & Cheese, we called that one of the spiciest meals we’d ever reviewed here at Freezer Meal Frenzy. Well, this one is even spicier. Just a little dab of the sauce on the fork was enough for us to rush for a cold glass of milk.
The white cheddar sauce is delicious. It’s creamy, though not as rich as it is spicy. It’s also loaded with chile peppers. In fact, we were surprised by just how much peppers there were in this dish. The peppers are good for the most part, though some of them have a tough skin on them, which made us spit them out instead of trying to chew or swallow them.
The noodles are a sort of chubby elbow shape. In fact, we’d call these a cross between an elbow and a shell. It’s a good shape that combines two of the all-time classic macaroni noodles into one hybrid piece of pasta.
This sucker has 410 calories, which is a little high for a frozen meal but it seems right about average for a frozen mac and cheese. We’ve eaten meals with more (such as Devour’s White Cheddar Mac & Cheese with Bacon) and meals with fewer (such as Amy’s Light & Lean Macaroni & Cheese) in our time writing frozen food reviews here at Freezer Meal Frenzy. The sodium level is pretty high at 840 mg.
The Wicked Kitchen Hatch Chile Mac and Cheese is phenomenal. Just be warned that this is extremely spicy. Spice-ophobes are going to be running for the hills. Oh, and unlike the Chorizo Mac and Cheese, this one is vegetarian friendly.
If you want to learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients in this frozen mac and cheese, check out our package scan below.
The best Mac and cheese to eat at work in a total recyclable construction after the fact. I can’t find this in the USA anymore. What’s up with that ??