We love mac and cheese here at Freezer Meal Frenzy, and our readers do too. So we decided to check out some dry macaroni to see how it stacks up against the frozen variety. We’ve reviewed quite a few varieties of mac from Trader Joe’s, so it will be neat to check out the dry variety today.
That’s right, today we’re checking out the Trader Joe’s Wisconsin Cheddar Macaroni & Cheese, which is dry and comes in a box. That means this takes a little bit of prep work — you can’t just stick it in the microwave and call it a day. Even so, this is no more difficult to heat up than your basic Kraft mac and cheese. (If you want to read the full cooking instructions, check out the package scan at the bottom of this review.)
Now, despite the box directions being standardized, there are a variety of conflicting opinions when it comes to cooking a boxed mac and cheese. Do you overcook the noodles or undercook? We slightly overcook them. Do you rinse the noodles when you strain them? We’re no-rinsies here at Freezer Meal Frenzy. Do you add butter? Of course!
Now, if you’re used to eating Kraft macaroni (we’ve had no small amount of the stuff, to be honest), then this Trader Joe’s mac will be a bit of a departure. We found this to be less creamy than the Kraft stuff, and the cheese is a lot sharper tasting. In fact, we were surprised at just how sharp this tastes.
We did find this to be a little… dryer than we were expecting it to be? We added more milk than the box recommended, and still, we feel like we could have added even more. Perhaps extra milk would have made this a bit runnier.
Once prepared, a single serving contains 270 calories and 490 mg of sodium. However, that’s just one third of the box. If you go hog wild and eat the whole box at once, you’re up to 810 calories and 1,470 mg of sodium. Yikes! Of course, the good news is that we felt like half a box was actually a pretty good serving size.
The Trader Joe’s Wisconsin Cheddar Macaroni & Cheese is pretty decent for a boxed macaroni, though we’d honestly probably take a box of Kraft over this. This is not bad at all, but we wish it were creamier.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Trader Joe’s boxed mac and cheese, check out our package scan below.
I agree. For whatever reason, my cheese pack clumped up so it wasn’t a good experience. Will look to add more milk
They’ve cheapened the formula and now it’s DISGUSTING. I noticed right away that the noodles looked different. The sauce is now a really fakey tasting artificially creamy orange gunk. I see that the ‘cheese sauce’ first ingredient is now whey, where it used to be actual cheese.
I can’t express how disappointed I am that they did this, and so sneakily. That was supposed to be my Comfort Food dinner and it was completely ruined.