The Best Boxed Mac And Cheese Of All Comes From This Beloved Brand

For those moments you're craving easy bowls of comfort, boxed mac and cheese comes to the rescue. Instead of having to compile ingredients and whip up mac and cheese from scratch, store-bought options can help banish hanger pangs. Alas, these boxed products are not made the same. Not every package leads to a dish that tastes like something you want to keep digging into. To avoid disappointment, a Tasting Table team writer ranked boxed macaroni and cheese from worst to best to analyze the noodles, sauces, and flavors. One version stood out among the rest. 

Cracker Barrel's sharp cheddar was the star, providing a tangy cheese sauce that coats spoonfuls of tender pasta noodles. By simply adding milk and butter, you'll have a dish that tastes nearly as good as a recipe that was made at home. While some boxed cheeses can taste artificial, the sharp cheddar cheese is rich and complex, and the elbow pasta hangs on to the thick sauce. Cracker Barrel's boxed mac and cheese dinner has been noted for its volume as the large, textured noodles add mass to the prepared ingredients, and the chewy pasta pieces offer just the right amount of bite per spoonful. Not only are the noodles and the cheesy sauce delicious, but the proportion of the ingredients provided yields bowls that are satisfying on all levels. The sauce provided in the package is impressively creamy, with the cheese offering an authentic flavor.

Netizens agree. For some, there is simply no competition, with dedicated fans barely attempting to try others since they discovered Cracker Barrel's. Some customers will admit that it doesn't quite live up to the homemade version, but even the most fastidious buyers acknowledge that this is as close as you can get, and they're not mad about it. The winning element for people really comes down to the cheese sauce. Anyone can make a good, tender noodle base, but customers greatly appreciate how genuine the taste and texture of the sauce is compared to one made from scratch. In addition to flavor, some samplers have noticed that even the color of the sauce is closer to that of real cheese, instead of some artificial substitute.

Some home cooks add ingredients to the ready-made mix and stir in burnt ends of brisket, pieces of sausage, crab, or lobster into the creamy pot of noodles. Others have used air fryers and pressure cookers to prepare the dish. In addition to sprucing up the packaged recipe with ingredients, garnishing batches with bacon bits, crispy fried onions, or breadcrumbs can turn servings of Cracker Barrel's mac and cheese into a meal that could easily be mistaken as homemade.