Big Daddy Mac Mix

I was looking for a way to make Mac and cheese still taste the same for my kid, but use my own noodles. This delivered perfectly. My kid - who can tell the difference in taste between the microwave Kraft Mac & cheese and the stovetop Kraft Mac & cheese, approves of this cheese mix. The taste is perfect. I’m sure you can use it for lots of other dishes, but I really just wanted to make mac & cheese. I read a lot of reviews before purchasing, and I think the people who complain about grittiness just aren’t mixing it enough. The instructions clearly say to mix the power with your milk/butter, and then add that to your drained noodles. It mixes easily for me - but I also use a mini-frother to easily mix it into the liquid.

AT LAST, I've found the "blue box" mac and cheese powder! I feel like the formulation of the original has recently changed, as well as the quantity given in the package. This is an exact match taste wise and so easy to add to or to make your own pasta meal. Easily customized to individual taste and creaminess.

This is really good! More potent than I expected. I will adjust the amounts for our liking, I think I need to switch the milk vs powder portions. 1/4 cup of the powder to 1/3 cup of milk. I made it as called for and I had to add extra milk because it was sooooo strong. With a couple adjustments I will be a happy Mac and cheese maker again. That brand that starts with a K tastes watered down these days. So I am happy I found this for those times I want the old comfort boxed Mac and cheese from days past

For a while now I've been using Hoosier Hill's cheddar cheese powder if I want to make a cheese sauce for whatever noodles I want (usually ramen). It's not really designed for the purpose, though, and doesn't quite produce the classic Kraft flavor profile I'm looking for, although it's darn good. Last year Kraft introduced a shaker of their own signature orange powder, and it was amazing, but it was also short-lived. So I thought I'd finally give this a try. This review is based on the strength of one use, but suffice it to say I'm thrilled with it. I made two packages of ramen without the flavor packet (that's way too much ramen for one person by the way—learn from my delicious mistake!), and I scaled down the recipe on the Big Daddy box to 3/4: so that's 1/4 cup powder, 3 tbsp. butter, and 1/4 cup of milk. I did save a little of the water, but not a lot. This was perfect for covering two packs of ramen, so for one pack, just use 2 tbsp. powder, 1 1/2 tbsp. butter, and 2 tbsp. of milk. This had a very classic blue-box flavor for me, even more than I'm used to getting from Kraft anymore. In a way it reminded me of that certain indefinable something my grandmother's mac & cheese had. She was making the same blue box, but hers was somehow better despite having all the same ingredients. It tasted just right and was scrumptious, and didn't have a big clumping problem like I get with the cheddar powder. However, I expect the lack of clumping was because this was a fresh package and that will change in the future; if so, sifting works just fine. So I'm excited to use this on other pastas as well whenever the mood strikes me to have that great blue-box experience but with a different noodle. And ramen cooks really fast, so I'm sure I'll still use it mostly for that. Update: I've used this quite a few more times now and I have discovered it can clump a bit if you try mixing it the same way you would a normal Kraft mac & cheese box. The powder seems to do better when you're mixing it into a warm liquid. If you mix the sauce in the same pot as the pasta, I suggest scooping pasta to the side, putting the cheese powder down, adding the butter and milk, and letting it hang out a minute or two while the milk warms up a little. Also I've discovered this doesn't work well for large pasta, unless you do something to thicken it; it's really best with small noodles. I still love the flavor and it hasn't clumped up yet in the container like the cheddar powder normally does. Update 2: Three years later, I've reordered this product multiple times. This is a staple in my pantry. I use it for ramen & cheese a lot, but sometimes I'll also add it to other cheese sauces to pump up the flavor and add extra emulsification power. It's also great on potato chips: throw some chips in a plastic zip bag with a bit of this powder, and shake it up for cheesy chips. This is more versatile than the plain cheddar cheese powder, I always make sure to have plenty on hand.

Love this stuff!! I add to kids Mac n cheese and my popcorn

My son loves this for pasta! Mixes great. Might be a little salty flavored if you are sensitive to salt.

Pricey, but tastes good. The container was smaller than expected, but it was the correct weight. It didn't have a lot/batch code or any manufacturing code. Nor did it have an expiration or best-by date anywhere on the product. I had to rely on appearance and smell to determine its edibility. I will still repurchase. I look forward to buying on sale and better labeling.

Excellent product. Good for Long term food storing.

Great Product. Very Happy with the flavour

After seeing all those videos on Facebook re: bugs in KD noodles, I decided to try this mix instead of buying maggots from Kraft. The container is smaller than I expected and it calls for 1/3 cup powder for each cup of dry noodles so I was thinking "well this isn't going to last long". Tonight I made 2 cups of macaroni with this sauce mix. It was delicious! So much better than Kraft Dinner. My four year old ate his bowl full in record time. I was super impressed. It's worth the money and I will definitely buy this again. I cooked the noodles then drained them. Added the butter. Stirred. Mixed the cheese powder with milk then added it to the buttery macaroni. Stirred. Added pepper and a bit of garlic powder on top. It was awesome. 5 stars for sure. No bugs in sight!

I’m a grown person with a well-developed palette. Yet, I still occasionally have a craving for the good ol’ technicolour-orange KD of my childhood. However, we all know that KD has almost no nutritional value, which is a bit of a downer. I decided to buy this cheese powder so I could make fake KD with high-fibre Catelli Smart pasta, to get at least some nutritional benefit. The positives: It mixes well, and it has a completely ridiculous orange shade similar to KD. The negatives: It’s quite salty, and the flavour is a bit more aggressive than KD. It’s not an awful product (as long as you go into this understanding that it is far from gourmet), but I don’t think I’ll buy it again. It’s a large quantity of product, and I’m finding that I’m eating it more often than I’d like. I think I’ll just go back to eating two or three boxes of KD per year.

If you grew up eating KD in the 90's this is a real nostalgia trip. This is REAL. CHEESE. Kraft changed the formula years ago to a 'dairy' based product, but it's not real cheese. KD has tasted like garbage for years now. This tastes like the CLASSIC Kraft Dinner you grew up with. My tips: Add salt. They went light on the salt for this powder and that's good for people who need lower sodium. But to get the REAL taste of classic KD, be sure to get generous on the salt when preparing. I usually use about 4TBSP of the powder, plus a little milk and butter and of course, salt. Another tip: Mix the powder with the softened butter FIRST to help cut down on clumping. Then add the milk, while stirring slowly. Add hot pasta and you're done! IF IT'S BLAND: You either didn't a) use enough salt, and/or b) didn't use enough powder. Add more powder for a stronger taste!

If you want to know what cardboard that's been dyed orange and ground into a fine powder tastes like, I highly recommend this product. If you want something that tastes like cheese then DON'T buy this. My idea was to make my existing mac and cheese just a little bit cheesier, so I prepared it as usual, and sprinkled this in for that extra oomph. OMFG, I wanted to cry. I've wasted more money on stupider things so its not a cash issue. Its more about me having to through away a whole meal of KD. It overpowered the deliciousness of the other cheese mix and corrupted every single helpless elbow macaroni in my bowl. I tried. First bite was a WTF moment. Second taste was a confirmation of the foulness. Third taste was me trying to figure out exactly what that taste was. Yup, it was cardboard. And trust me I know my cardboard. This wasn't a freshly open package of crafting cardboard. This was old moving box, sitting in your basement for 6 years cardboard. I'm going to keep it though. It will go with a small collection of things that I will eventually dare somebody to eat. You know, like ridiculously hot sauces or cans of foul tasting foreign fish.