If you frequently visit Target stores, you’ve probably noticed that a brand called Good & Gather has started showing up on Target shelves. This brand is the result of Target phasing out their Archer Farms and Simply Balanced lines of food.
Since we reviewed quite a bit of Archer Farms products in the past, it only makes sense that we continue the effort and review the Good & Gather line. And since we love mac and cheese (and according to our site stats, our readers do too), we decided to check out the Good & Gather Mac ‘n’ Cheese.
Before we get into this review, we should point out a couple things. First off, this isn’t a frozen food (though you can certainly freeze it); you’ll find this in the refrigerated section of the store.
Secondly, this replaces the Archer Farms Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese, which we reviewed in the past.
This is easy enough to cook. Simply poke some holes in the film, pop the thing into the microwave for three minutes, give it a quick stir, and pop it back in for another minute. (If you want to read the cooking instructions straight of the packaging, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
Now let’s cut to the chase (or cut to the cheese, you might say). This is your very basic, very simple dish of mac and cheese. It’s got your standard elbow noodles (which are a little bit al dente instead of being overly soggy) in a rich and creamy cheddar and parmesan cheese sauce. There are no surprises here.
But sometimes, that’s exactly what you want. Mac and cheese is a comfort food, and while you can get really fancy with it, sometimes you just want a plain old bowl of macaroni. This will definitely satisfy that plain-old-bowl-of-macaroni craving.
But if you find it too plain, one of our staffers recommends adding a little bit of pepper. The rest of us, however, were just fine without adding a thing.
Now, if you squeezed our arm and really forced us to make a complaint, we’d point out that the sauce is maybe just a bit too runny. But really, that’s a teensy-tiny little nitpick. This isn’t soupy or anything, we just like our sauce a little thicker.
This dish is certainly not a lean one, with 760 calories per container. However, this is also more than one meal. We think that half the dish is actually a pretty good serving size, which brings that number down to substantially (that’s 380 calories in a half dish). Still, this is definitely not a diet-friendly meal.
We should point out here that when we reviewed the Archer Farms version, we thought a person could eat a whole dish in one sitting if they really had a serious hunger. We’re revising our position on that. Keep in mind the fact that our eating habits have changed since the COVID pandemic started — we don’t have the sort of appetites we did before. Now, half a dish of this mac and cheese had us feeling incredibly stuffed.
The Good & Gather Mac ‘n’ Cheese is really just a repacked version of the Archer Farms Homestyle Macaroni and Cheese, which means it’s still as delicious as it ever was. We’re quite happy that this wonderful product didn’t disappear with the phasing out of the Archer Farms line.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Target brand mac and cheese, check out our package scans below.
