Kraft Southwest Chipotle Mac and Cheese

In 2013, Kraft has released 4 new boxed Mac and Cheese. These include Jalapeno, Chipotle, Buffalo, and Garlic/Herb Alfredo.

Since the fourth is not necessarily a mac and cheese per se, so I will not be reviewing that one. The first one of a 3-mac series will be the "Southwest Chipotle Mac and Cheese.

I saw "Chipotle" on the box and immediately had to pick it up. My own mac recipe uses organic ground chipotle powder, so I accepted Kraft's challenge. It's quite hard to demand much from a boxed mac and cheese, however if they are so bold, I'll see what they have to offer.

Review: I had high hopes for kraft, they have always been the cheap boring mac to me. Their classic blue box is edible, however only enjoyable, in my opinion, when you add cut up hot dogs and catsup. Yes catsup. There is a Facebook group called "Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with Catsup" which i am a part of along with thousands of others. This mac however failed greatly in the flavor department. 

The chipotle was barely noticeable, it was not sweet and spicy, and these seemed to be way too much "Southwest" flavor in it. It's very hard to decipher what exactly made these spices up, and the ingredient listing didn't offer much help either, however it seems like a bit too much cumin was put in. 

Cheese: I could not taste the powdered cheese flavor whatsoever. There was so much added salt and spices the cheese flavor vanished. The consistency was there, but it was more pasty than anything else. In the original blue box, you could at least taste the "cheese."

Pasta: Kraft did step it up in the quality department for their pasta. The macaroni noodles were larger, thicker, and had ridges. It was a definite upgrade from their original wimpy pasta that you had to perfect the cooking time with.

Much larger elbow macaroni than the original

7 minute test: The pasta eventually began to stick together. The flavor wasn't very good so I only ate a little bit more of it, however the part I did wasn't too terrible.

Aftertaste: This one actually did leave a pretty bad aftertaste. It tasted like I had eaten something old. It's hard to describe it, but it also caused some bad breath as well. I had to brush my teeth for a bit to get it all out.

Advice: The new pasta does take a few extra minutes to cook, and it won't look creamy like regular blue box which is normal for this kind of mac. It's a lot more absorbent so it soaks up a lot more of the cheese sauce. That tends to happen when it's a powdered cheese though as it's not in a truly solid state.

Rating: 4