Jul 30, 2019 - Explore Sharlene Frey's board 'Kraft Mac & cheese shapes' on Pinterest. See more ideas about kraft mac & cheese, kraft, kraft mac n cheese. 15 Minute Easy Vegan Mac and Cheese Dairy Free Carrot Cake Cupcakes (Vegan) Vegan Carrot Cake Seasoned Potato Wedges (Air Fryer or Baked) Vegan Garlic Soy Lime Tofu. Dye Free Dairy Free Red Velvet Cupcakes (Vegan) Dairy Free French Toast (Vegan) Dairy Free Bread (Vegan).
Have you noticed all the chatter about Mac & Cheese lately?
Vani Hari of Food Babe and Lisa Leake of 100 Days of Real Food started it all by asking Americans to vote on their Change.org petition to get Kraft to remove yellow dyes #5 and #6 from all its versions of Kraft Mac & Cheese.
They’re saying that artificial yellow #5 and #6 are tied to cancer and can make your kids hyper. You can read more on the blogger’s opinion and see a video they posted here at Take Part. The artificial food dyes are only used to add an “aesthetically pleasing color” to the product–so it’s a no brainer for Kraft to pull the ingredient.
Kraft says the dyes are safe according to the FDA and there’s nothing wrong with their Mac and Cheese.
Now I’m no food Nazi, but it seems to me that if you’re freaked out about food dye, you probably don’t even EAT something as fake as powdered cheese. I’m going to guess that these bloggers don’t eat boxed Mac & Cheese either–in their video they say how it “brings back memories.” I don’t think they were talking about last Thursday.
Anyway, the ladies have a good point and tell us the dyes are already out of British Mac & Cheese made by Kraft. You know what’s more interesting? You can get dye free Mac & Cheese at your local grocery store. Right now.
There’s no need to jump on Amazon and get your Mac & Cheese (or Cheesy Pasta) from England. I dropped by Dierbergs yesterday and picked up three boxes of dye-free mac & cheese, two from Kraft itself and one from Annie’s.
The dye-free macaroni use either paprika, annatto or beta carotene to color the food–all are from natural sources. Are these products more expensive than standard Mac & Cheese? Yes. But is it just because of the dye? Hard to say–they all have “deluxe” features, like organic ingredients and gourmet flavors.
Mac And Cheese Recipe
The two Kraft flavors without artificial dye are Organic (which is hard to find at most grocery stores, hence the trip to Dierbergs) and White Cheddar.
While I was in the pasta aisle I picked up a few other boxes and checked them out. Both the house brand and Betty Crocker’s macaroni had Yellow #5 and #6.
Velveeta Shells and Cheese (also a Kraft product) uses paprika and annatto for coloring. No artificial dye here.
If you want to mix up your own noodles and cheese without breaking a sweat, Velveeta, Cheez Whiz and Ragu Double Cheddar Cheese sauce use natural food coloring.
On the next post I’ll have photos of what naturally colored Mac & Cheese looks like (and tastes like) compared to the chemically dyed Kraft Mac & Cheese. The kids are looking forward to this little experiment!
Free Mac And Cheese Day
Okay, so it’s not really “Boxed” Mac and Cheese but “Bagged” Mac and Cheese just sounds weird! 😀
I have been making my own “Kraft-like” GF Mac and Cheese for a long time now, mostly because I do not care for the texture of the pasta in the GF store-bought Mac and Cheese. The other two reasons I make my own are because I can change up the pasta shapes AND I save a lot of money!
I have been buying my cheese powder in bulk on Amazon.com(Frontier Co-op Orange and White Cheddar Powders).You can see Frontier’sAllergen Statementhere. This is one of those moments when you have to use your judgment. There is no wheat in the cheese powder and nothing on the label indicates an ingredient derived from barley, rye or commercial oats. However, the cheese powder is not tested/certified gluten-free (at least it wasn’t a year ago).
Update: There is a now a Gluten-Free Cheese Powder on the market from Riega Foods and I definitely recommend going that route since they test for the presence of gluten in the final product (you can read my review here).
The good news though… I have heard on VERY GOOD authority that a cheddar cheese powder (that is sold in individual packets, no less!!), will soon be coming to market. The cheese powders will also be TESTED to ensure they contain less than 20ppm of gluten (but so far they have actually registered “undetectable” for gluten in preliminary testing!), WOO-HOO! That is all I can say for now, but I will update you as soon as I can. 🙂
For each package of Gluten-Free Mac and Cheese:
7 1/4-ounces of Gluten-Free Pasta (Tinkyada is our favorite)
1 1/4-ounces of GF Cheddar Cheese Powder (White or Orange)
- I put the cheddar cheese powder in its own separate “snack-size” Ziploc Bag and insert it into the larger “quart-size” Ziploc Bag that is holding the pasta.
- I bought some large mailing labels and I just print the directions on the mailing label and affix to the front of the bag!
What I put on the label (this is just how we like to make it):
I rarely use real butter in anything I cook, I usually use Smart Balance (Original in the tub) or Earth Balance, which is Smart Balance’s Dairy-Free cousin. The 16 minute cook time you see on the label is specific to the TinkyadaPasta I use. Make sure to follow the cooking directions on your specific brand… you know how temperamental GF pasta can be (well, except for Tinkyada, 🙂 I am very biased, I know)!
I make a bunch of these at a time and store in an airtight plastic container in my pantry. These are great for Mike to grab for a quick and easy meal for the boys (if I am gone during meal time) or I will send a package to Sam and Luke’s “Nana and Papa’s” when they go for a visit (Nana has her own separate Gluten-Free Pans to help prevent cross-contamination), love her! 😉
This is the “Classic” kid version of Mac and Cheese with Orange Cheddar Cheese Powder. The orange color is annatto extract.
White Cheddar Mac and Cheese.
Tinkyada’s Brown Rice Vegetable Spirals with White Cheddar Powder.
Tinkyada’s Brown Rice Little Dreams Pasta with White Cheddar Powder.
This is not necessary, I do it for my ADD! I am unbelievably “OCD organized” in my pantry, it keeps my brain clear. 😉
I’ve had this for years, I use it as a guide to come up with quick meal ideas, just be sure your add-in’s are gluten-free!! Use two packages of GF Mac and Cheese to equal one Family Size Box of the Gluten-filled Kraft Mac and Cheese, (as indicated on the recipe card). If you don’t have kiddos that are “no-touchers” (separate foods cannot touch…. period), then this is a great way to sneak in some added vegetables! 🙂
Incoming search terms:
- gluten free mac and cheese kraft (173)
- kraft gluten free mac and cheese (76)
- gluten free kraft mac and cheese (55)
- gluten free kraft macaroni and cheese (36)
- gluten free cheese powder (19)
- kraft mac and cheese gluten free (18)
- gluten free kraft cheese (16)
- kraft macaroni and cheese gluten free (12)
- is kraft cheese gluten free (11)
- gluten free box mac and cheese (9)
Comments are closed.