7 Highest Quality And 5 Lowest Quality Boxed Mac And Cheese

Mac and cheese is such a staple of modern dinner table fare, it even gets its own nickname. With the most common form of this comfort dish coming from a shelf-stable box, it can be easy to dismiss boxed mac and cheese as a secondary selection, a pale imitation of the homemade dish. But not every box is part of the skip-it club. As with most mass-produced foods, the question of quality comes down to the brand on the box in the company that creates it.

If you look closely enough, you're bound to find mac and cheese on both sides of the quality balance. We pulled out our digital magnifying glass and researched the ingredients on a host of boxed mac and cheese packages to see which names are the cream of the crop and which are stuck to the bottom of the pan. We found a surprising number of high-quality mac and cheese brands you could sneakily pass off as your own homemade recipe, as well as a collection of lesser-quality options — some of which bear the most familiar brand names in the industry.

The famous blue box featuring orange-golden elbow noodles that started the whole easy-to-prepare mac and cheese movement belongs to Kraft, of course. This easy dinner solution dates all the way back to 1937, when the package first hit the market. The iconic Kraft Mac & Cheese formula has become synonymous with quick and creamy cheese-drenched pasta that kids love to eat and parents love to prepare. But popularity doesn't always indicate quality, and this massive player on the mac and cheese game board is one of the lesser choices you can make when trying to feed your family. Though it's a ready grab at almost every grocery retailer in the U.S., its ingredient profile is a study in questionable choices.

There are a slew of chemical-based add-ins in Kraft's well-known original creation, including both sodium phosphate, sodium triphosphate, and calcium phosphate. These are generally safe for consumption according to the FDA, though anyone with kidney disease and bowel issues is advised to avoid exposure — not a great feature for a mass-produced food. In the pageant of high-quality ingredients, this box is an also-ran. Even tossing add-ins into the Kraft blend to upgrade your mac and cheese won't diminish the fact that the base ingredients could be better — and, in fact are better, in other boxed mac and cheese produced by companies with an eye on nourishment rather than ease of use.

What can be said for a boxed mac and cheese that comes as a store-label stand-in for pricier options and can be had by the cartload when a sale hits the shelves? If it's Kroger mac and cheese, the statement could read something like, "You might as well save your money and buy a slightly more expensive version." There's nothing outrageous about the ingredient quality here; it's just a simplistic take on what mac and cheese can be. And if quality is the quest, Kroger is falling behind the pack with this basic box.

Though the front of the package proudly announces, "No artificial flavors, preservatives, or synthetic dyes," you'll find both enriched macaroni and enriched wheat flour in the box — not the most major quality offense, but one that can be worked around with other boxes you'll find while you happen to be in the mac and cheese aisle. The most egregious offense, however, is that squarely in the middle of the ingredients list is the all-encompassing "natural flavors," a term which defies real description because it could be any of a number of things that aren't necessarily mac-and-cheese-worthy. Sure, you could doctor it up with kitchen tricks for making the creamiest mac and cheese ever, but wouldn't you rather start with a more thoughtful version of the core dish? Of course you would.

Let's be honest: Anything that ends in "A-Roni" is bound to be a base contemplation on the nature of pre-packaged food. Whether it's Rice-A-Roni, Beef-A-Roni, or the seriously groan-worthy Mac-A-Roni, it's all a bunch of simple stuff formulated to get dinner on the table quicker and easier. Anything resembling quality in this long-lived line is either an accident or an afterthought, a fact that's easily confirmed when you flip the box and eye up the ingredient on the label.

The recipe starts out promising enough, with the more obvious elements like wheat flour and cheddar cheese making early appearances. Then, your vision hits guar gum, a thickener that's innocent enough but not a necessary component of mac and cheese, and xanthan gum a bit further down. Suddenly, you're finding additives that don't instill confidence in the quality of the product. And between those, the presence of troublesome palm oil, a controversial add-in, the production of which poses a danger to the global environment, and you see why there are higher quality options right next to this inconsiderate concoction. Avoid a major mac and cheese mistake, vote with your wallet and skip-A-Roni to another brand, pronto.

Walmart's efforts to keep up with bigger brands by introducing near-equivalents in its Great Value selection result in a boxed mac and cheese that aims to capture the hearts and dollars of shoppers in the mood for a tasty bargain. The decision to replicate a Kraft-style recipe as closely as possible means recognizable prep and flavor, but it also ends up providing this second-tier option a nutritional blueprint that replicates a lower-quality layout. Brand familiarity may be the prime factor in this value-based noodle knock-off, but the sacrifice in ingredient standards is clear from the jump.

The macaroni is a standard enriched-wheat noodle that's not the best and not the worst. It's the cheddar cheese seasoning combined with cheddar cheese flavor that rings the quality alarm. There's also cream, nonfat dry milk, and butter oil (what?!) as part of the cheese quotient, all of which feels like a definite cheese formula. But nowhere on the label does there appear to be just cheese in the box. Customers aren't shopping for mac and cheese seasoning or mac and cheese flavoring; they're looking for mac and actual cheese. Unless Great Value can provide a better description or include more whole-food ingredients in its production, this processed food is destined for the low-quality bin.

Oregon-based Tillamook takes its cheese business very seriously, which translates into a high-quality version of boxed mac and cheese that leaves the competition on the shelf. This thoughtful recipe is by far the most thoughtful alternative to the usual mix-and-serve dish we could find in boxed form. It has a chef-crafted sensibility that the other boxes don't seem to aspire to, with simple steps taken by the producer that result in a well-crafted boxed meal.

Leave it to a cheese producer to create a specialty mix that incorporates a blend of its Sharp Cheddar and Monterey Jack cheeses with oversized elbow macaroni to achieve top-quality flavor and density. The creamy sauce also uses a roux, a blend of flour and cream that adds thickness without tossing in strange ingredients. With butter, red wine vinegar, and even pretzel crumbs present on the list, Tillamook comes through with a high-quality mac and cheese that gives all the other boxes a run for their money — which is really a run for your money.

If the box of mac and cheese that draws your eye most is the one that includes truffle in the name, you're most likely in for a high-quality purchase. And if Sabatino Truffle Mac & Cheese happens to be the brand you're looking at, you'll be getting an Italian-style mac and cheese that sets the bar as high as possible for processed food. Sabatino's line of truffle-based foods puts a boxed mac and cheese in fine company, bestowing a luxury ingredient upon a humble dinner with intriguing results.

This food producer doesn't get caught up trying to be impressive with the cheese sauce; it's a simple processed cheese powder that gives the noodles something luscious to swim in. The real superstars are the dehydrated mushrooms and dehydrated black truffle. With garlic, pepper, onion, and turmeric powders fleshing out the flavors, you get an earthy step-up that makes mac and cheese a true main dish rather than an ambitious side that worked its way to the center of the table.