We are regular consumers of Michelina’s frozen foods here at Freezer Meal Frenzy. We acknowledge that these might not be gourmet meals, but they’re super cheap, and sometimes Michelina’s does surprise us with something that’s way tastier than we’d expect from a budget brand.
Their mac and cheese tends to fall into the better-than-expected category. We’ve tasted several of their takes on this comfort food, from the Macaroni & Cheese Bake to the Wheels & Cheese, and we generally find them to be pretty decent. So when we saw that they added some macaroni to their Grande line — which is their line of bigger-sized meals — we knew we had to try it right away.
So that’s what we’re doing today; we’re checking out the Michelina’s Grande Mac & Cheese. While the Grande meals are a bit spendier than the regular-sized meals, you should still have no problem finding these for under three bucks at your local grocery store.
With the larger meal size, this does have a longer-than-average cook time. You’ll need to toss this into the microwave for four minutes, then give it a quick stir and pop it back in for another two to two and a half minutes. That’s six-plus minutes of cook time, which we’d expect from a Stouffer’s meal but not from a Michelina’s frozen food. (If you want to read the full cooking instructions for this frozen mac and cheese, check out the package scan down at the bottom of this review.)
Now, one thing we try to point out when it comes to Michelina’s is that they reduce their production costs by skipping the inner tray altogether. The Grande line is no exception, and this one uses the box as the tray. That means this won’t last quite as long in your freezer as, say, a Lean Cuisine meal.
We’re not going to lie; this is a pretty mediocre batch of macaroni. While this is definitely better than some of the worst mac and cheese meals we’ve tried, we definitely won’t be replacing any of our favorites with this one.
Our main problem with this dish is that the cheese is this weird, clumpy stuff that kind of reminds us of Easy Cheese. It’s like someone just cooked up a bunch of macaroni noodles and squirted canned cheese on top of them. Plus, it kind of tastes burnt for some reason.
The pasta is a larger-sized elbow shape, which we have no problems with. While we do prefer shells, we’re not going to argue against a classic elbow. At the same time, though, these noodles are kind of mushy in some places and rubbery in others. The microwave is just not kind to this macaroni.
This probably comes as no surprise, but this is no diet food. With 570 calories and 1,250 mg of sodium, you’ll really be loading up with calories if you eat this. Then again, it is a substantial amount of food, and you might even be able to eat 3/4 of this and save the last little bit for a snack later. It does feel like it’s slightly larger than it needs to be.
We’re not sure what went wrong with the Michelina’s Grande Mac & Cheese, but we certainly don’t recommend it. This is puzzling to us, because we actually really love Michelina’s Macaroni & Cheese Bake. We were hoping they would have brought a little of that magic to this larger-sized meal. Unfortunately, there’s no magic to be found in this low-quality mac and cheese.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this batch of mac and cheese, check out our package scan below.
