The Best Chain Restaurant Mac And Cheese Comes From A Fast Food Chicken Joint

If you know, you know: Fast food macaroni and cheese is a culinary contender in its own right. Anthony Bourdain's love for Popeyes' mac and cheese is well-documented. Here at Tasting Table, however, our go-to fast food mac comes from another popular fried chicken chain. We tried and ranked macaroni and cheese from six chain restaurants, and according to our taste test, Chick-fil-A's leaves competitors in the dust.

When Chick-fil-A introduced its mac and cheese in 2019, it was the chain's first permanent menu side dish since 2016. Nearly a decade later, it's no mystery why this fan-favorite has stuck around. At Chick-fil-A, the mac arrives ultra-creamy and baked for a bowlful that says "elevated comfort food" much sooner than "fast food." Classic elbow macaroni gets folded with a blend of Parmesan, Cheddar, and Romano cheeses for surprising dimensionality. 

Our reviewer noted that the sauce was sharp and tangy, but slightly sweet. "It tasted like cheese, but it was also just a well-balanced, delicious cream sauce in its own right," they shared. The pièce de résistance is the bubbly, mouth-wateringly crispy layer of golden brown broiled cheese on top. It's lumpy in the best possible way, flaunts actual cheese-pull action, and delivers textural interplay of crispy and creamy. That made-from-scratch style is thanks to the fact that Chick-fil-A's mac and cheese is, in fact, made from scratch. The restaurants bake it in-house, and all that thick, gooey payoff is well worth the extra labor.

We're far from alone in our praise. A Reddit thread dedicated to Chick-fil-A's macaroni and cheese raves, "It's phenomenal. It literally tastes like [homemade] baked Mac n cheese. Ya know how sometimes the cheese will brown and get kind of crispy on the top? It has those bits in there. It's so good." Elsewhere on social media, an Instagram commenter echoes similarly enthusiastic adulation, naming this side as their favorite at Chick-fil-A: "Mac and cheese is the very best always! Followed by waffle fries." Fans have even taken to the internet to sound off their own copycat recipes for Chick-fil-A's hyped-up mac, recreating the beloved side dish at home.

Tasting Table has previously heralded Chick-fil-A as a chain restaurant that makes its macaroni and cheese from scratch, an impressive culinary feat for a fast food joint. However, it's worth noting that not all made-from-scratch offerings are created equal. While another chain restaurant — the Cheesecake Factory — also makes its mac from scratch, it doesn't hold a proverbial, cheesy candle to Chick-fil-A's offering. By our count, Cheesecake Factory is serving the worst chain restaurant mac and cheese of 'em all. Even the pipette pasta shape couldn't redeem this disappointing bowlful from the largely flavorless cheese sauce that (worse) arrived separated, thin, and weirdly oily. For a taste of the good stuff, believe it or not, we recommend hitting the drive-thru.