Traditionally, mac and cheese features elbow noodles. That’s not a hard rule, though, as there are several other pasta shapes that turn up in macaroni dishes. Some people prefer spirals to elbows, and we here at Freezer Meal Frenzy tend to like shells. One shape that’s not often a part of the conversation, however, is the wheel.
Yes, the classic wheel. Like fire, the wheel is a hallmark of mankind’s innovation. And now it’s also a pasta shape.
Today, we’re looking at the Michelina’s Wheels & Cheese, which brings together macaroni with the world-changing, culture-shaping wheel. Of course, all of this verbiage might be a little grandiose for a macaroni dish that costs around a buck, but hey, we get excited about our mac and cheese here at Freezer Meal Frenzy!
Anyway, this is a simple dish to cook. Lift a corner to vent the package, then pop it into the microwave for three minutes. Give it a stir and pop it back in for another one or two minutes. Boom, bam, badda-bing. (You can read the cooking instructions straight of the box if you scroll down to the bottom of this review.)
As we mentioned earlier, this is a budget-friendly meal, with a price tag of around a dollar. At our local grocery store, this particular meal was priced at $1.39, and we got it on sale for $1.00. That’s one cheap tray of macaroni! Of course, that also means that some corners have been cut — quite literally. There’s no inner tray here. The outer box does double-duty as both the packaging and the tray, as you can see in the image above.
Obviously, there’s nothing complex about this. It’s just wheel-shaped pasta in cheese sauce. If you’re expecting a fancy-pants macaroni, you’ve come to the wrong place. However, if you’re just looking for a simple tray of mac, this one ain’t half bad.
The cheese sauce is watery and a little generic tasting. It’s not a far cry from the flavor of Kraft cheese and macaroni, though with a little bit of a plastic aftertaste that’s subtle but unappealing.
The wheels are actually a decent pasta shape. Because of the inner spokes, they end up having a lot of nooks and crannies for sauce to hang out in. Overall, that ends up being a positive. However, because the cheese sauce is so runny, the pasta isn’t allowed to see its true potential. A slightly thicker sauce would have really shown off the potential of the wheel shape.
This meal contains 280 calories and 820 mg of sodium. While the calorie count is very much diet-friendly, the sodium level is a bit high, even for a frozen meal. If you’re watching your sodium level, you should avoid frozen food in general, and this frozen meal in particular.
The Michelina’s Wheels & Cheese is a one-dollar tray of mac and cheese, and it has little ambition to be anything beyond that. It holds up as a budget-friendly macaroni option, but it certainly doesn’t hold a candle to gourmet brands such as Devour or Dan’s Gourmet. Still, for the price, it’s really hard to go wrong with this frozen macaroni.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen mac and cheese, check out our package scan below.
I find myself eating this often. Its such a nostalgic childhood meal its very comforting to me.