We’ve been surprised by how many varieties of mac and cheese Michelina’s makes. From basic macaroni to hamburger-filled mac to macaroni shaped like wheels, they do it all. Today, we’re diving into yet another frozen macaroni from the brand, the Michelina’s Macaroni & Cheese Bake. This takes your traditional macaroni and adds a crumbly topping of stuffing and blue cheese.
One thing we need to point out right away is that Michelina’s makes budget-priced frozen meals. We got this particular dish on sale for a dollar, but we typically see these in the $1.39 to $1.59 range. We’re not expecting a gourmet meal.
As you can see in the image below, part of the budget price is the fact that Michelina’s completely removes the inner tray from the equation. If you buy a Michelina’s meal, you’ll be eating it right out of the box (unless you scoop it into your own dish). This does mean these don’t last as long in the freezer as, say, your typical Lean Cuisine dish. But it’s hard to complain about that too much when the meal costs a dollar.
With that out of the way, let’s dig in.
Now that we’ve cooked this, we have to point out that the stuffing content seems to have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, we didn’t find any in our dish. We thought perhaps it was just buried under that pile of sauce, but even after stirring, we found not a single piece of stuffing here.
There are vague hints of bleu cheese in the scent of this meal, but we didn’t see any chunks of it or anything. This is mostly a basic mac and cheese dish, despite the fancy-pants promises made by the box.
As a basic mac and cheese, though, this isn’t bad. In fact, this is actually really good. The hints of bleu cheese add an extra bite to the sharpness of the cheddar, and it works really well. The cheese sauce is also nice and creamy.
The pasta comes in your basic elbow shape, but there’s nothing wrong with that. We thought this particular pasta was just a little bit rubbery, but not enough that it caused us any real concern. It’s definitely a lower-tier pasta, but the sauce does a lot to make up for that. This tastes a lot less cheap than it feels, if that makes sense.
Michelina’s is great about keeping the calorie count low, and that’s certainly true here. With 280 calories, this meal won’t wreck your diet. The sodium is a bit high, at 820 mg, but that’s really not that far outside the average for a frozen meal (we typically expect a frozen dinner to have about 700 mg of sodium).
The Michelina’s Macaroni & Cheese Bake is a surprisingly competent comfort food, especially at its low, low price point. Even though the box overpromises the crumbly topping (which seems to be mostly, if not entirely, absent), this might be our favorite mac and cheese from Michelina’s yet.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen mac and cheese bake, check out our package scan below.
