It hasn’t been all that long since we reviewed the Fresh Thyme Organic Mac & Cheese, so you might be wondering why we’re checking it out again so soon. Well, when we wrote our previous review, we tried cooking this in the microwave, and we thought it would probably turn out a lot better if it were cooked in the oven. With that in mind, we picked up the Fresh Thyme Organic Mac & Cheese with 3 Cheese Sauce. This massive batch of food won’t fit into a normal-sized microwave, so it needs to be cooked in the oven. This seemed like the perfect chance for us to give this a second tasting.
So, even though we’ve had the smaller version of this fairly recently, we’re quite excited to dive into the Fresh Thyme Organic Mac & Cheese with 3 Cheese Sauce.
Obviously, cooking this thing will take a bit more effort than it takes to heat up the smaller version. You’ll need to pull the gigantic tray out of the box, remove the plastic wrap, then cover it with aluminum foil — yes, make sure you have aluminum foil on hand before attempting to cook this Gigantamax mac and cheese. After the first 25 minutes, you’ll need to pull this out and stir it about every ten minutes. Yes, there’s a lot of stirring in this process.
Once all that is done, you’ll have yourself an enormous batch of macaroni and cheese — there’s definitely enough here for multiple people.
We weren’t entirely sold on this the last time we tried it, and we’re not entirely sold on it now.
The sauce is our biggest issue, as it’s runny and not very cheesy. We tend to prefer a cheese sauce that errs on the savory side — cheese blends that make use of sour cream are great — but this one is sweeter. In fact, it almost tastes like it’s been sprinkled with cinnamon, which we think is due to the inclusion of nutmeg. But even that sweetness doesn’t cover up the plasticy flavor of the sauce. It’s thin, runny, and fake-tasting. It’s just not very good. We thought the oven would produce a better version of this meal, yet this ends up somehow being worse than its little sibling.
The noodles are fun, though. These are short, stocky versions of your traditional elbow. In fact, we’d say these are somewhere between an elbow and a shell. This would actually be a really good shape for a thicker sauce. The runny sauce doesn’t do these noodles any favors.
If you compare the nutritional content on the package with that of the smaller version, you’ll notice that both claim a cup is a serving size, yet the family-sized offering estimates 330 calories per serving while the smaller version estimates 430. We’re going to go out on a limb here and presume that the “about a cup” size is smaller here than for the single-serve meal.
The Fresh Thyme Organic Mac & Cheese with 3 Cheese Sauce is a pretty mediocre take on one of our favorite dishes. It’s not offensively bad, but it’s not that great either. While there’s plenty here to share with your family, we’re not sure they’ll thank you for it. If you’re looking for a better version of a family-sized mac and cheese, Stouffer’s has you covered. Save yourself the trip out to your nearest Fresh Thyme and pick up some Stouffer’s at your local grocery store (or Target) instead.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen mac and cheese, check out our package scan below.
