Frozen Mac and Cheese Meals, Ranked

If we were to hit ourselves with a quick little “Family Feud”-style poll about what comes to mind for “comfort food,” I’d be stunned if macaroni and cheese didn’t land as the number one pick. It’s the king of comfort. There are no two ways about it. 

But making it from scratch takes forever. Even grabbing a great boxed mac and cheese can be too daunting if it’s a sweatpants kind of day. You know what makes it easy? Your microwave. Want to know which mac and cheese is the best choice at the grocery store to stick in? I grabbed eight brands of frozen mac and cheese and found out. 

Executives of Evol Foods, please pull up a chair. I’m here to drop a ton of free advice on you while also hitting you with a first place rating. You are so very welcome. 

First of all: You simply must change your logo. Or your name. Or both. I eat macaroni and cheese for a living, so clearly my brain doesn’t work properly, and trying to read this logo feels like a trick. I made several bets with myself about whether this word was Evol or Love written backwards, which I assume is the cutesy little thing you’re going for, but holy moly, this threw me for about 100 loops. Yes, I am an idiot, but there are lots of us. 

Second: Here’s an incredible idea for you, free of charge. Stick the breadcrumbs in a little packet that comes separately from the bowl. Then people can either dump them in the bowl if they choose to ruin them in the microwave, or toast them if they’re willing to go the extra mile for something that makes an enormous difference. I’d do it, Evol, or Love, or whatever your name is. I’d toast those sons of guns right up every time. 

OK, whew. Here’s the food review portion of this food review: This is so much better than everything else available out there, but what the hell did you expect? It’s got truffle and parmesan as opposed to a sticky cheddar sauce like most of the others. Hardly a fair fight. I love the tiny little tubetti pasta shapes, and if only I could TOAST UP THOSE DAMN BREADCRUMBS TO MY LIKING, then we’d really be in business.  

Our gal Marie has been serving up homey, classic microwave meals as long as anybody, and for the most part, she’s a reliable name in the freezer section. Her mac and cheese bowl is a very tasty beast, loaded with gigantic cavatelli-ish noodles and thick Vermont cheddar. This tastes like melted cheese more than a cheese sauce, and to me, that’s the key. Do not be fooled, though: This thing is a nuclear warhead. I can’t imagine what eating an entire bowl of this would do to you. 

The bummer is, we’ve got the breadcrumbs issue again. What I wouldn’t give to be able to toast those breadcrumbs separately. The microwave obliterates them into a pasty mush and it ruins what is usually the highlight of a good mac and cheese. Why don’t I just bake it in the oven, then, you ask? Well, smartypants, even though this takes five minutes to microwave, it also takes a full hour to bake in the oven. That’s lunacy to me. I can’t be waiting a full hour (over an hour, with preheat time) for a single-serve bowl of macaroni and cheese. Kraft only takes 10 minutes in the oven. Lean Cuisine doesn’t even bother putting oven directions on the box because they know it’s a waste of your damn time. I just want my toasty breadcrumbs, dammit.

When you shovel garbage into your mouth for a living as long as I have, there are a few things you start to pick up on. Usually, the biggest, baddest brand that you loved as a kid doesn’t quite hold up when you go back to it. I took one look at frozen Kraft macaroni and cheese and thought, “There’s no way this is as good as the other stuff.”  

Wrong! This is good. This hits in an undeniable way. There’s a lot more flavor from the four cheeses, so I prefer this to the classic cheddar. The addition of Asiago, parmesan, and mozzarella makes it all feel rounder, fuller, and sharper. 

I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference between these frozen noodles and ones made on the stove. The texture is perfect and there’s no shortage of sauce that coats and clings to every single noodle. This is the classic Kraft experience you know and love, but in a far more convenient package. If you’re looking for that classic boxed mac and cheese experience, this is the brand to grab.

There’s something about the Kraft noodles that hit in a chewier, ooier, gooier way. Other than that Stouffer’s is almost the same, and most certainly hits the spots for any classic mac and cheese craving. This reminds me of fast-food mac and cheese; nothing special, but it’ll do in a pinch. Oh, and they have the audacity to ask for a 40 minute oven time. 

This is a very short cook time, and everything is almost there, but there’s just no flavor. I love the texture and the fluffiness of the pasta and cheese, but truly, it tastes like nothing. Where’s the flavor, Lean Cuisine?  

Though it’s the cheapest by a landslide, something is odd about this. There’s a funk to it, but what is that funk? Is it the funk of real cheese, or is it the funk of food that has taken on the flavor of the container it’s been sitting in? These are the questions that Michelina’s dares to ask.

The directions tell you to leave the plastic film on for this one, which is very interesting to me. Most tell you to slice or cut them, or let them ventilate in some way. Not these babies, No ventilation needed, I guess. These are the details you focus on when you eat eight very similar microwave meals in a row. 

Despite having the shortest cook time of all, these can’t outrun their main affliction: Tasting bad. Yikes. This white sauce is milky and thin in all the wrong ways. Skip it.