Mac and cheese is one of the ultimate comfort foods. We’re always happy to review more of it, so when we saw that Stouffer’s had a new addition to their macaroni line, we got pretty excited about it.
So today we’re checking out the Stouffer’s Family Size Fried Chicken Macaroni & Cheese.
This is a big meal designed for a family rather than a single-serve meal, so the cook time is quite a bit longer than what you’d expect from a microwavable solo meal. If you go with the microwave, you’re looking at 21 minutes of cook time. If you do what we did and toss this in the oven, you’re boosting that cook time up to 75 minutes. Yes, this is a meal for the patient.
Thankfully, it’s also a good one.
Stouffer’s mac and cheese is normally pretty great, and this is no exception. The cheese is rich and creamy, and it has a lovely sharp cheddar flavor. We’ve always thought that Stouffer’s basic mac was a winner, so we knew going into this that we were in for a treat. Still, it’s nice to be able to say we were right about that now that we’ve tasted this.
The pasta here is shell-shaped, and shell pasta is the superior shape for mac and cheese, if you ask us. There’s just something so wonderful about those little shell-shaped scoops that get gobbed up with cheese sauce. Obviously, we’re quite happy that Stouffer’s went with a shell here instead of the traditional elbow.
There are chunks of breaded chicken inside this dish, and they’re alright. It’s a white-meat chicken, which means it’s not super rich in flavor, but it’s a juicy meat with a nice consistency. The breading ends up a little soggy as a result of soaking in the cheese sauce, but we suppose that’s to be expected.
Now, this is not a low-calorie dish. If you stick with the recommended serving of 1/4 of the tray, you’re already up to 340 calories. If you do what we did and end up eating half the tray in one sitting, you’re up to 680 calories. And hald the tray isn’t an enormous meal; the image above shows that that looks like. And the sodium is even worse. With 990 mg in a quarter pan, our half-dish serving has 1,980 mg of sodium in it. Ouch.
The Stouffer’s Family Size Fried Chicken Macaroni & Cheese doesn’t reinvent the mac and cheese wheel, but it’s a satisfying comfort food that’s worth keeping on hand. We think there’s plenty to enjoy here, so long as you eat this as a once-in-a-while treat and not a daily meal.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen mac and cheese, check out our package scans below.
thought we would try this..followed directions for microwaving . chicken was so hard to chew that we threw it out. mac and cheese was ok