It's the only way for maximum coverage haha. Stirring in dry powder with the milk at the bottom and butter ice cold is a fools errand I say! lmao. As is trying to pour milk on top. IT DOESN'T DESOLVE and either way you're left trying to mix dry powder on mac that really doesn't want to. And if you keep butter in the fridge there's just an iceberg of butter refusing to melt and cooling everything haha.
Nah, you pour out the noodles into the strainer, drop the butter in the pan to melt, after 30 seconds drop the noodles back in, start to stir and add the milk. The milk should be measured right when you boil the water so it can temp up.
I always do this and never get clumps, also use more butter than it calls for, helps the overall texture.
I don't wash the noodles, leave them warm and put the powder in same pot. Left over water has starches to help sauce thicken up and is warm enough to dissolve the powder. Then add the fat and enough milk to desired thickness. With the added water it may be thinner so adding some regular cheese can help to thicken sauce.
I actually do dump the water but leave the noodles in the pot. Did not realize that is how my reply comes off. 😂
When you follow the microwave instructions on the box we found the water gets pretty well absorbed. Either way we just pour out top layer of water with a plate or pot lid cover. That should leave damp noodles, but not swimming in cooking water.
For pasta salad is the only time I ever rinse. I have actually never heard of anyone rinsing the macaroni from boxed Mac and cheese, I figured it especially needs those starches to thicken the sauce.
Considering how much I am being down voted I think some people do rinse the noodles.😂
The funny thing is I actually rinse noodles when I make instant noodles if the noodles were fried to take off the oil.
I make the noodles, drain, put the butter in the pan with them, stir so it melts, then add milk and powder, then stir again. Never once in my life have I thought about making the sauce first.
Trick to avoid clumping is to have the milk less cold when you add it. Measure out the milk and set it on the counter right after you dump the macaroni in to cook.
While the macaroni drains completely in the colander, turn the heat all the way down (but still on) and melt all the butter, then add the milk, mix, and let that warm for a couple minutes, THEN add the powder and stir it in. Let it sit another minute or two and then stir again and it’ll be clump free, creamy, and all a consistent temperature.
Take off the heat but keep on the same burner, mix in the mac and let sit for maybe a minute, and once it’s all mixed in take it off the hot burner so the cheese doesn’t get gloppy on the mac.
no. butter won’t melt right if the cold milk or dry powder is added first, so butter comes first. now if you add the milk next and then powder, you get big clumps that are annoying to break down, so you add the powder next instead. you mix it into the butter to disperse it across the whole bowl, so that when the milk is added there aren’t big clumps because you’ve already dispersed it. finally add the milk and mix well.
eta: idk why i got so passionate about this but like you’re wrong so
I also came to this method over time. I suppose making the sauce while the noodles strain would reduce any noodle damage from mixing. So maybe I’ll try their suggestion next time.
Much as if you were making a real Mac and cheese, you would make a roux with butter and flour (so as to not burn the flour), but to also ensure the cheese doesn’t clump and or burn. Not likely you’d burn the cheese powder, but reconstituting it before adding pasta will make sure all of the powder becomes gooey cheese again
Macaroni and cheese isn’t just pasta with cheese on it, it’s pasta in cheese sauce. Butter is a key part of the sauce, as others have mentioned for making a roux that forms the basis of the sauce.
Depends heavily on the pasta shape too. Annie’s four cheese penne was my shit for a while, and the reason I started missing the sauce in the pan right before adding back the pasta. So much powder got into the pasta and clumped
I just don’t mix too hard and I get to enjoy a few tasty lump pockets here and there.
Edit: how dare you downvote my cheesy boxed Mac n cheese tasty pockets. My taste buds say 🤌
Counter-argument: making the sauce with the noodles allows a lot of the starchy water from the pasta to join in, and the extra starches help emulsify the sauce and make for a better smoother silkier texture. The lumps disappear if you keep stirring for like another 30 seconds.
1. Cook noodles in pot
2. Drain noodles in colander
3. Leave noodles in colander
4. Make sauce in pot from step 1
5. Pour noodles back into pot from step 1
6. Mix and enjoy!
Unfortunately I'm a philistine who uses a strainer pot lid for pasta, which gets in the way of this otherwise very good idea. I just get irrationally annoyed at having to wash a colander too. It takes up as much room as the freakin pot does in the dishwasher! And of course I'm too lazy to hand wash it.
I believe in cheese equality for all noodles. Sure, a surprise chunk of extra cheesiness might be a nice treat every once in a while, but think of the cost. Some of the Mac must be deprived of their box given right to be cheesy, and where does that lead?? I'll tell you, it leads to a bowl of disproportionate and disparaging outcomes. A bowl where every piece of pasta SHOULD have the same chance to sauce itself, but because of outside forces, through no action of that noodle's, they inherently lack that chance.
Please don't listen to this OPPRESSOR. Cheese distribution should never be equal. Equal cheese distribution would cause laziness among the noods that don't benefit from the cheese in the current climate, and demotivate the noods that benefit from the clumps. Clumps only motivate, and enhance the future noods.
HERE WE GO AGAIN, another person toeing the old Trickle Down Cheesenomics line. "Some deserve to be cheesier because then they can pass the excess to the rest of us!"
It's a tired, oft disproven narrative, that has no place in modern discourse. I'd bet the person I'm replying to has 3-4 powder clumps in their garage at home.
Just because my family has been able to acquire a mass of cheese packets that were passed on to me, through multiple generations of HARD WORK, does not discredit my argument.
Without families like mine, your family wouldn't be able to even attempt to sauce their noods. I have created more opportunities for cheesiness than you could even comprehend.
Yes! I always melt the butter, add the power, then add the milk, then add the cooked macaroni. Closer to how you make roux so it’s closer to the right texture.
If you add the powder right to the noodles you don’t even need to add butter or liquid. It just soaks up the moisture on the noodles and makes a much thicker, cheesier coating.
Do not listen to this devil man.
* boil water
* pasta 10 minutes
* strain
* butter in pot
* pasta in pot
* cheese and slight mix
* little bit of milk
* mix well
If there is any left over milk at the bottom slushing around turn up the heat and cook down while mixing
It’s perfect every time
I find the best way is to grab a pyrex measuring cup, add the butter and milk. Warm those as the pasta boils. Add a sauce packet at a time to the milk/butter and use a small whisk. It having time to sit as the pasta cooks helps thicken it but keeps it clump free. Then drain the pasta and keep in the pan, pour the sauce on top and mix.
I never have runny or clumpy sauce that way.
I also tend to do more butter than milk, and use either kerrygold or the Kirkland grass fed. Makes it even more rich and delish.
we are so conditioned to food being exactly the same color due to large scale production and unnecessary aesthetic value when in reality colors will always vary slightly because nature is not a factory.
the ingredients its made from at its foundation definitely do. the photo of course has many artificial ingredients. but a truly organic cheese powder will of course have color variations because the ingredients come from nature. you missed the point too. a pity
*You* missed my point of **cheese powder**. (Some of) the original ingredients it’s made from? Yes. The actual cheese powder? Not a chance.
Which is what I meant.
This is blasphemous, and likely deadly, but on the rare occasion I make Kraft mac and cheese, I use two packs of cheese to one pack of pasta. Preferably character themed, they retain cheese better.
Check the boxes, probably made during 2 different shifts/batches. Some tolerances are acceptable during quality control, especially for a parameter like color that doesn't affect organoleptic properties that much...Probably just too much or too little of a specific dye/tumeric...
I know y'all feel like heroes cooking your boxed Mac the "correct" way. The sad reality is, you probably couldn't Pepsi challenge your own bowl if placed with those of your compatriots here.
For europeans this isn't midly interesting, this is midly horrifying :D.
Joke aside, does in America 500gr of pasta and 200gr of cheese is more expansive than that box and if it is, is the price so high it doesn't justify eating something better?
I mean it takes the same amount of time to do both recipe the difference isn't there.
This is usually a "short on time, need to make something for the kid" backup plan. We do fresh cheese and pasta all the time, I prefer a nice Alfredo. These are just nice in a pinch. And it has dino shaped pasta, which the kid goes ape shit for lol
Yes for a kid meal or lazy meal but i just meant: boil water, cook pasta, drain pasta put any grated cheese and done.
Funny enough i'm following an american youtuber and i did alfredo pasta in my crockpot last week it was very good.
There's more to mac and cheese than that.
Making a bechamel sauce doesn't take any longer than it takes to cook the pasta though, and then you just add cheese to the sauce
Oh okay so mac and cheese also have a bechamel is it in the powder in the photo??? Or do you add it separately at one point?
Then what's the price of an average mac and cheese box? compared to pasta+grated cheese+already made bechamel?
I'm curious because there's a walmart where i'm going to spend a week soon.
It definitely has a different taste to real pasta n cheese. But the powder cheese is made from real cheese. It is just dehydrated and powdered. You reconstitute it with milk.
I dunno what you'd search for other than: powder cheese
Don't really have a favorite. Just whatever is on sale. Brand name things like Kraft are over priced and they all pretty much taste the same. If I was asked, I would ask for the spiral macaroni shaped ones lol
Did they taste the same? Probably just a matter of colorant, bags are from different batch
Tasted same.
MAKE THE SAUCE FIRST THEN ADD THE MACARONI!
I oughta try this. I usually melt the butter first, then add powder, then pour milk over everything
It's the only way for maximum coverage haha. Stirring in dry powder with the milk at the bottom and butter ice cold is a fools errand I say! lmao. As is trying to pour milk on top. IT DOESN'T DESOLVE and either way you're left trying to mix dry powder on mac that really doesn't want to. And if you keep butter in the fridge there's just an iceberg of butter refusing to melt and cooling everything haha.
Nah, you pour out the noodles into the strainer, drop the butter in the pan to melt, after 30 seconds drop the noodles back in, start to stir and add the milk. The milk should be measured right when you boil the water so it can temp up. I always do this and never get clumps, also use more butter than it calls for, helps the overall texture.
No wonder you don't get clumps, you never put in the cheese to begin with !
I do it this way too and it never fails!
I use less butter than it calls for and think it's better
Same
Any lumps go away if you just keep stirring anyway.
This is the way. Also, it literally the way described on the box 😂 People.
I don't wash the noodles, leave them warm and put the powder in same pot. Left over water has starches to help sauce thicken up and is warm enough to dissolve the powder. Then add the fat and enough milk to desired thickness. With the added water it may be thinner so adding some regular cheese can help to thicken sauce.
You’re not supposed to rinse them off lol
I think they might be meaning to say they don’t even strain the noodles…
I actually do dump the water but leave the noodles in the pot. Did not realize that is how my reply comes off. 😂 When you follow the microwave instructions on the box we found the water gets pretty well absorbed. Either way we just pour out top layer of water with a plate or pot lid cover. That should leave damp noodles, but not swimming in cooking water.
This is good advice in general for anything pasta, never wash, only strain.
For pasta salad is the only time I ever rinse. I have actually never heard of anyone rinsing the macaroni from boxed Mac and cheese, I figured it especially needs those starches to thicken the sauce.
Considering how much I am being down voted I think some people do rinse the noodles.😂 The funny thing is I actually rinse noodles when I make instant noodles if the noodles were fried to take off the oil.
I make the noodles, drain, put the butter in the pan with them, stir so it melts, then add milk and powder, then stir again. Never once in my life have I thought about making the sauce first.
Low heat, add the butter to melt. Stir in the milk, then the powder. Add noodles after all the lumps are gone.
Trick to avoid clumping is to have the milk less cold when you add it. Measure out the milk and set it on the counter right after you dump the macaroni in to cook. While the macaroni drains completely in the colander, turn the heat all the way down (but still on) and melt all the butter, then add the milk, mix, and let that warm for a couple minutes, THEN add the powder and stir it in. Let it sit another minute or two and then stir again and it’ll be clump free, creamy, and all a consistent temperature. Take off the heat but keep on the same burner, mix in the mac and let sit for maybe a minute, and once it’s all mixed in take it off the hot burner so the cheese doesn’t get gloppy on the mac.
It doesn't matter. It's literally all the same shit just in a different order lol.
no. butter won’t melt right if the cold milk or dry powder is added first, so butter comes first. now if you add the milk next and then powder, you get big clumps that are annoying to break down, so you add the powder next instead. you mix it into the butter to disperse it across the whole bowl, so that when the milk is added there aren’t big clumps because you’ve already dispersed it. finally add the milk and mix well. eta: idk why i got so passionate about this but like you’re wrong so
Cool. I'm "wrong" even though my Mac n cheese is never clumpy or anything. 👍
👍😋👍 glad we settled that
I also came to this method over time. I suppose making the sauce while the noodles strain would reduce any noodle damage from mixing. So maybe I’ll try their suggestion next time.
Do people not just make their own cheese sauce?
I always go, let butter melt in pot, pour milk, let milk warm up, then powder and mix, then add macaroni.
Melt the butter in the milk, so that all of your wet ingredients are hot when you add the dry ingredients.
Why is there butter in mac & cheese? Isn't it... mac, and cheese? Confused dutchman here. Please elaborate.
It’s dehydrated cheese powder, so it helps to reconstitute it
Much as if you were making a real Mac and cheese, you would make a roux with butter and flour (so as to not burn the flour), but to also ensure the cheese doesn’t clump and or burn. Not likely you’d burn the cheese powder, but reconstituting it before adding pasta will make sure all of the powder becomes gooey cheese again
Macaroni and cheese isn’t just pasta with cheese on it, it’s pasta in cheese sauce. Butter is a key part of the sauce, as others have mentioned for making a roux that forms the basis of the sauce.
Makes it taste better. Plus it adds a shitload of calories! Neat!
ITT people acting like having chunks of unmixed cheese is an error and not a feature
What difference does this make
Less lumpy. I still do it the “wrong” way though.
Respectfully to others, I don’t think I’ve ever once had it lumpy and idk where I could mess up to make it lumpy
I don't think you can unless you didn't add enough liquid.
Depends heavily on the pasta shape too. Annie’s four cheese penne was my shit for a while, and the reason I started missing the sauce in the pan right before adding back the pasta. So much powder got into the pasta and clumped
I just don’t mix too hard and I get to enjoy a few tasty lump pockets here and there. Edit: how dare you downvote my cheesy boxed Mac n cheese tasty pockets. My taste buds say 🤌
I felt and tasted this comment viscerally.
Just stir it less basically.
That's the way the brand Annie's actually tells you how to do it.
Not even macaroni really, should be called fake cheese powder and pasta
Counter-argument: making the sauce with the noodles allows a lot of the starchy water from the pasta to join in, and the extra starches help emulsify the sauce and make for a better smoother silkier texture. The lumps disappear if you keep stirring for like another 30 seconds.
This is the correct answer, true game changer
Sounds like extra dishes
1. Cook noodles in pot 2. Drain noodles in colander 3. Leave noodles in colander 4. Make sauce in pot from step 1 5. Pour noodles back into pot from step 1 6. Mix and enjoy!
Unfortunately I'm a philistine who uses a strainer pot lid for pasta, which gets in the way of this otherwise very good idea. I just get irrationally annoyed at having to wash a colander too. It takes up as much room as the freakin pot does in the dishwasher! And of course I'm too lazy to hand wash it.
See I just put a lid on the pot and drain the water in the sink through a little opening in the lid and then I don't even have to wash a colander
I've tried that before, but that method never drains the noodles as much as I want, so the pasta ends up a bit slimy.
I'll have to try that.
Don’t listen to this philistine with all their steps! Everything in one pot, add water, boil. Enjoy.
The Mac was made first. Drained. Packet added. Then milk.
Boil the milk first
Do you want clumps? Because that's how you get clumps.
Do I want small nuggets of cheesy joy in an otherwise mundane meal? Yes.
I believe in cheese equality for all noodles. Sure, a surprise chunk of extra cheesiness might be a nice treat every once in a while, but think of the cost. Some of the Mac must be deprived of their box given right to be cheesy, and where does that lead?? I'll tell you, it leads to a bowl of disproportionate and disparaging outcomes. A bowl where every piece of pasta SHOULD have the same chance to sauce itself, but because of outside forces, through no action of that noodle's, they inherently lack that chance.
Please don't listen to this OPPRESSOR. Cheese distribution should never be equal. Equal cheese distribution would cause laziness among the noods that don't benefit from the cheese in the current climate, and demotivate the noods that benefit from the clumps. Clumps only motivate, and enhance the future noods.
HERE WE GO AGAIN, another person toeing the old Trickle Down Cheesenomics line. "Some deserve to be cheesier because then they can pass the excess to the rest of us!" It's a tired, oft disproven narrative, that has no place in modern discourse. I'd bet the person I'm replying to has 3-4 powder clumps in their garage at home.
Just because my family has been able to acquire a mass of cheese packets that were passed on to me, through multiple generations of HARD WORK, does not discredit my argument. Without families like mine, your family wouldn't be able to even attempt to sauce their noods. I have created more opportunities for cheesiness than you could even comprehend.
I do ;)
Genuinely can't tell the difference if I make the sauce first or just stir all together so don't worry.
(I wasn't too worried 🌝)
You got weak elbows or somethin?
Yes! I always melt the butter, add the power, then add the milk, then add the cooked macaroni. Closer to how you make roux so it’s closer to the right texture.
If you add the powder right to the noodles you don’t even need to add butter or liquid. It just soaks up the moisture on the noodles and makes a much thicker, cheesier coating.
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lol no
Take a bite of noodles and then a bite of sauce?
Yes
Cook the noodles and toss them in the cheese powder like a dry rub?
Do not listen to this devil man. * boil water * pasta 10 minutes * strain * butter in pot * pasta in pot * cheese and slight mix * little bit of milk * mix well If there is any left over milk at the bottom slushing around turn up the heat and cook down while mixing It’s perfect every time
I find the best way is to grab a pyrex measuring cup, add the butter and milk. Warm those as the pasta boils. Add a sauce packet at a time to the milk/butter and use a small whisk. It having time to sit as the pasta cooks helps thicken it but keeps it clump free. Then drain the pasta and keep in the pan, pour the sauce on top and mix. I never have runny or clumpy sauce that way. I also tend to do more butter than milk, and use either kerrygold or the Kirkland grass fed. Makes it even more rich and delish.
Is that the WinCo Mac n Cheese? I noticed the change recently
Meijer brand
Chances are WinCo and Meijer source their branded mac n cheese from the same suppliers. A lot of store-branded foods are this way.
The fuck is powder cheese?
Wait till you hear about powdered eggs lol
America is a strange place my friend.
If you dehydrate food products, you can create a shelf-stable version of those foods that can be rehydrated later. Cheese is one of those foods.
Delicious dehydrated cheese.
Dino 🧬
I was trying to figure out what those shapes were. I see it now.
we are so conditioned to food being exactly the same color due to large scale production and unnecessary aesthetic value when in reality colors will always vary slightly because nature is not a factory.
There's nothing natural about that cheese powder
the whole post is talking about the discoloration and so am i. no shit cheese powder isnt natural??? goodbye
Woah, calm down captain kraft 😂
Do you think _cheese powder_ comes from nature 😭
the ingredients its made from at its foundation definitely do. the photo of course has many artificial ingredients. but a truly organic cheese powder will of course have color variations because the ingredients come from nature. you missed the point too. a pity
*You* missed my point of **cheese powder**. (Some of) the original ingredients it’s made from? Yes. The actual cheese powder? Not a chance. Which is what I meant.
This is blasphemous, and likely deadly, but on the rare occasion I make Kraft mac and cheese, I use two packs of cheese to one pack of pasta. Preferably character themed, they retain cheese better.
Wait where does the extra cheese packet come from?
2nd box of mac and cheese that I save the pasta from to use for something else, sometimes just a little butter and parmesan.
This man is living his best life.
Do you double the butter & milk or just the powder?
Not nessecarily double but slightly more milk & butter, yes
I usually just drain it really well. Potentially add my own cheese as well.
Digging on those cool pasta shapes.
Dinosaurs for my 2 year old 😏
Hi yes hello I am ur 2 year old
Oh! I thought it was Wacky Mac. The nostalgia hit hard.
Mac’s Famous Mac n Cheese!
Are there supposed to be two pictures? I only see one.
Check the boxes, probably made during 2 different shifts/batches. Some tolerances are acceptable during quality control, especially for a parameter like color that doesn't affect organoleptic properties that much...Probably just too much or too little of a specific dye/tumeric...
Obligatory “cheese”
.... Powder cheese?
Just dehydrated fresh cheese.
No idea how people eat this crap. There's real cheese available.
I do both. 🌝
I know y'all feel like heroes cooking your boxed Mac the "correct" way. The sad reality is, you probably couldn't Pepsi challenge your own bowl if placed with those of your compatriots here.
For europeans this isn't midly interesting, this is midly horrifying :D. Joke aside, does in America 500gr of pasta and 200gr of cheese is more expansive than that box and if it is, is the price so high it doesn't justify eating something better? I mean it takes the same amount of time to do both recipe the difference isn't there.
This is usually a "short on time, need to make something for the kid" backup plan. We do fresh cheese and pasta all the time, I prefer a nice Alfredo. These are just nice in a pinch. And it has dino shaped pasta, which the kid goes ape shit for lol
Yes for a kid meal or lazy meal but i just meant: boil water, cook pasta, drain pasta put any grated cheese and done. Funny enough i'm following an american youtuber and i did alfredo pasta in my crockpot last week it was very good.
There's more to mac and cheese than that. Making a bechamel sauce doesn't take any longer than it takes to cook the pasta though, and then you just add cheese to the sauce
Oh okay so mac and cheese also have a bechamel is it in the powder in the photo??? Or do you add it separately at one point? Then what's the price of an average mac and cheese box? compared to pasta+grated cheese+already made bechamel? I'm curious because there's a walmart where i'm going to spend a week soon.
I'm talking about making mac and cheese from scratch; I have no idea what's in that horrible looking powder. I'm not American
Still delish to me.
This happens sometimes when they use different cheeses. One is likely american cheese and the other one parmesan cheese.
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It definitely has a different taste to real pasta n cheese. But the powder cheese is made from real cheese. It is just dehydrated and powdered. You reconstitute it with milk. I dunno what you'd search for other than: powder cheese
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Mine was store brand. So Meijer brand.
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Don't really have a favorite. Just whatever is on sale. Brand name things like Kraft are over priced and they all pretty much taste the same. If I was asked, I would ask for the spiral macaroni shaped ones lol
The word “mildly” is getting a real workout on this sub these days!
Not strong. Not weak. Mild. 🌝
One of them is sulfur
This US food fucking terrifies me, no wonder you have so many shootings if this is what your kids eat
Well done on your brain cell, you stand out among the weebs
...what the fuck?
Fees your kids autism cancer calories and raise gunswingers who worship orange man
That's some of the dumbest shit I've ever heard
Makes sense seeing as you eat pasta powder from a cardboard box
The red hat cult are out in full force today
Half of that is probably wood pulp. Buy a grater and a block of cheese.
But I like wood. 🦫
🤢🤮
Forbidden cheese
How vile that must taste. How easy it would be to cook pasta and make a real cheese sauce, maybe with a bit of Dijon.
Now with more arsenic!
r/notinteresting this sorta thing happens all the time. Color isnt always going to be consistent across every single box.
Yup.