Big Daddy Mac Mix

I love this mix, I've bought it three times already. It lasts forever, and it adds a lot of flavor to everyday recipes, not just Mac + Cheese (though it elevates Mac & Cheese to the next level, especially boxed mix!!) It's not gritty and melts easily, versatile enough to use in any recipe.

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.

Strong cheese flavor. Taste clean and not heavy on after taste.

If I let my mother tell stories, she'd give you an exhaustive list of all of the 'boxes Mac & Cheese's that she went through in my youth to lure me away from the Blue Box. She would tell you that I'd give it a sniff or a single bite before I would refuse it for not being the RIGHT Mac & Cheese. It's a terrible habit that I've kept into my adulthood. My favorite and most nostalgic Mac & Cheese has been and will always be of the Kraft variety, with its delicious neon orange cheese. Even when they altered their flavor to be healthier for the children, I stuck by it. Then I found this. I bought it, suspicious of the other reviews that said it was on par or better than Kraft Powdered Magic Cheese. I've heard those comments before, they always lied! When I first opened it, I was hit by the strong cheese scent wafting out of the plastic jug. Delicious, cheddary air. I picked up a bit between my fingers, expecting it to be chunky - I was surprised that it had the texture and softness of flour. The next test was giving it a small lick to see if it was palatable... The cheddar flavor was amazingly strong. It was delicious. Cheesy mana from heaven. Next was doing a dry run of their recommended preparation, adding 1/3 cups to 1/4 cups of milk. I'd seen comments that it clumped, and I can confirm it does clump if you use a spoon. However, this is easily fixed by adding the milk first, then adding the cheese and using a round-bottomed bowl and a whisk. It will come out perfectly smooth every time with a whisk. The practical test came next. I decided that my noodles weren't NEARLY vibrant enough to take on this neon cheese, so I colored my seasoned water and tossed the noodles in to cook. Just some basic egg noodles. They came out a fantastically blinding radioactive-like orange. Once I added the cheese (and the recommended amount of butter), it looked like Chester Cheetah himself had blessed the bowl with his touch. A garnish of some bacon bits and my gloriously orange masterpiece was complete. Every bite was the kick in the mouth that I remembered as a child. I can honestly say that I've now placed Hoosier over Kraft. This cheese is everything I was promised.

I eat too much Macaroni & cheese powder, this is really good, but I am quite sure that I ordered the White powder, but I received the orange powder!

This stuff is seriously amazing! I’ve been using with gluten free elbow noodles (I use 6oz of pasta cooked with the recommended 1/3 cup of powder). It is life changing! I don’t really love the cheese sauces with some of the boxed gluten free Mac and cheeses so this is such a great (and cheaper too) substitute. Very Kraft Mac and cheese like

I was excited to try this after reading multiple reviews that stated the flavor was very cheesy and you didn't even need the full 1/3 cup recommended per serving to get a strong flavor HOWEVER I did not agree and I was very DISAPPOINTED. I love the flavor of Kraft but I like my mac and cheese extra cheesy so I typically prepare Kraft with only 1/2 a box of noodles and a whole packet of seasoning so the flavor is stronger. I decided to try this product because I was looking for something healthier that I could mix with any type of noodles or rice. I had no issue with mixing or clumping and it creates that classic Kraft unnatural orange color but the flavor fell short in my opinion, it does taste very similar to Kraft but it was NOT CHEESY ENOUGH for me personally. I followed the recommended portions of powder, butter, and used slightly less milk with macaroni noodles. Of course it would be easy enough to add more powder for a stronger flavor but considering the container only comes with about 3 1/3 cups of powder or 10 servings following the recommendations, for $15 it would not be practical to use more powder.

This is so much better than the box mix mac n cheese and lovely and more natural unlike the artificial ones my kids love it>:)

I was alive for the better days of macaroni and cheese. Now, having said that, I would say this cheese mix is simply the Best of what is available today! It earns that fifth star, over 4, because it is fantastic for making delicious con queso if you like tortilla chips as much as I do. Cheeeeeese....

This product is perfect for making make ahead dry seasoning mixes

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.

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!

Great Product. Very Happy with the flavour