Kraft Deluxe Macaroni & Cheese Dinner With Four Cheese Sauce Review

[Emmy] and I tried a box of this Kraft Deluxe Macaroni & Cheese Dinner with Four Cheese Sauce  for supper.  This product is a newer twist on the classic Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner offering that’s been around for decades.  Unlike that original meal however, this deluxe version comes with a foil bag of actual cheese sauce (not a powder like the original used).  Apparently, Kraft has perfected the art of food preservation to the point that they can put actual cheese in this unrefrigerated dinner, yet keep the shelf life fairly long, at approximately six months.  So, no margarine or milk is added to this deluxe mac ‘n’ cheese dinner.

Now I’ve consumed lots of the original Kraft dinner throughout adulthood.  So, I have a decent idea of what good taste means for these types of pasta products.  I find this Kraft deluxe version of macaroni with cheese delectable and satisfying.  Since the deluxe comes in a substantially bigger box, I actually have some leftovers, since I cannot eat the whole box of deluxe like I could the original flavor.

As with Kraft macaroni products of yesteryear, Kraft continues to set the standard against which all other macaroni and cheese products are measured with their four cheese macaroni and cheese dinner deluxe offering with this extra thick cheese sauce.

 

 

Benefits, Pros, Advantages, and Features

  • At roughly $2.00 per box, near-instant macaroni and cheese is still a fairly cheap yet tasty meal.  But whale this deluxe version has four real cheeses within, it’s still good to eat it as one course of several in a nutritionally balanced dinner.  Thus I’d recommend that you eat this exclusively for only a few meals in a row (one or perhaps two at the most).
  • You might be temped to stock up on this product.  However, remember that there’s fully hydrated real cheese in this product.  So the shelf life for this deluxe mac and cheese dinner product is somewhat less than the dry-cheese-flavored original.  Stock pile this only if you’ll use it all up within six months to a year.
  • The cooking instructions for this Kraft Mac and Cheese dinner are quite simple to carry out.  You simply cook the pasta in eight cups of boiling water for eight to ten minutes, drain it, and then add the cheese sauce packet.
  • Not much of a cooking food smell when making this product.  There was a weak pasta aroma, but not much cheese scent filled the kitchen at all.  So you could make this food late at night without fear of waking up people sleeping in adjacent rooms with kitchen scents.
  • No additional ingredients except for the liquid cheese packet that comes in the box are required.
  • Clean-up of the colander and pot used to prepare this dinner was simple so long as you immediately wash off the macaroni water from them   The cheese sauce took a bit more doing to remove; it’s quite sticky.  But it was pretty easy, especially with hot water.  Hot water softens the cheese sufficiently for fairly easy cleaning.
  • Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Deluxe Dinner contains 320 calories per serving, and each 14-ounce box contains four servings.   Still, for the excellent flavor found in the deluxe version, this calorie count seems reasonable.
  • This product is sold at most bigger grocery stores.  We found ours at Giant Eagle here in PA.
  • The four cheeses that Kraft chose for this product go very well together, and include cheddar, asiago, Parmesan, and Colby.
  • Kraft also supplied a recipe for cheesy sausage & peppers skillet on the box back.

 

Disadvantages, Cons, Problems, and Concerns

  • Warning: This macaroni and cheese product contains 860 milligrams of sodium per serving (a significant amount).  So those watching your blood pressure should eat this product with discipline.
  • Indeed, this is a highly processed food in my opinion.  The list on the box of technology-based ingredients is copious.
  • The cheese sauce is more thick than that found in the original recipe dinner.  This took some getting used to.  But you can add a bit of milk or margarine if desired to thin it out a little.
  • Getting the cheese sauce out of the pouch made a bit of a mess, and required lots of spooning to completely clean out this bag.
  • Also, mixing this cheese sauce with the cooked pasta proved somewhat difficult, and required extra stirring.  More stirring than the classic Kraft mac and cheese requires.  But again, not terrible.  They might make the cheese sauce a little bit thinner, or offer a couple ounces more of it in the foil pouch.
  • This Kraft product also contains enriched flour as a main ingredient in the pasta.  Perhaps one day, they’ll switch to all whole-grain flours; thus eliminating the need for vitamin enrichment.

 

Our Rating

Over all, I indeed find this Kraft Deluxe Macaroni & Cheese Dinner with Four Cheese Sauce a fine-tasting meal course at a reasonable price and with reasonably long shelf life, and would thus rate it at 90 out of 100.

 

 

Where To Buy Kraft Deluxe Macaroni & Cheese Dinner

Look for it at almost any larger grocery store or lager Internet grocery shop in the blue and purple box.  It’s delicious!

 

References

 

Revision History

  • : Moved this post to the   Tom’s Diet Quest   blog, added whitespace, adjusted ad placement, and tweaked the content.
  • 2012-04-11: Originally published.