So I bet you’re probably thinking that having parents who write a food blog would mean that our six-year-old daughter is a little ‘foodie’ herself? And she’s willing to try many of the delicious foods that we make for our blog?
Nope.
Our six-year-old is a very picky eater, and we can count on two hands the foods she willingly eats. (And it’s not for our lack of trying to get her to try new foods!)
Like most kids, one of Emma’s favorite foods of all-time is macaroni & cheese – and this recipe for our Copycat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese comes very close to recreating both the flavor, as well as the distinctive yellow-orange color of the cheese sauce from the package. (As anyone with a young child knows, sometimes, it’s as much about how the food looks – never mind how it tastes!)
We’ve used a blend of cheeses and seasonings to create this copycat recipe. Also included in the recipe are ideas for adding in some pureed vegetables like sweet potato or cauliflower to the cheese sauce, just to get some vegetables in somehow!
And our toughest critic? What does she think about how this mac & cheese sauce tastes? Her words: “This is VERY GOOD!”
PrintCopycat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: Enough cheese sauce for 3-4 servings
- Category: entree
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- Pasta of your choice
For the cheese sauce
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1/2 cup WisPride
- 1/2 cup Velveeta
- 8 slices yellow American cheese
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 teaspoon Colman’s dry mustard
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Pinch of nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 2–3 drops Tabasco sauce
- Orange food coloring (optional)
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to package directions.
- To prepare the cheese sauce, place all ingredients into a medium sauce pan and heat until the cheese is melted and the mixture blended. Remove from heat and store in refrigerator for later use or mix one cup of heated cheese sauce to three cups of cooked pasta and serve immediately.
- Note: If you want this to look and taste just like the boxed mix, use all of the salt, butter and use orange food coloring. Otherwise, you can cut back on the salt and butter and omit the food coloring for a healthier version. This will all depend on how finicky your child is.
- Another tip to make this extra healthy is to add cooked pureed sweet potatoes and/or cooked pureed cauliflower with a little milk to thin them down. The taste only changes a bit and you are getting a healthier version of the copycat recipe into your child. We slowly added these vegetables over time to get our daughter used to the taste and now her cheese sauce is 1/3 cheese sauce, 1/3 pureed sweet potato and 1/3 pureed cauliflower. (She knows we add in the vegetables and is fine with it!)
- In our house we keep prepared sauce and cooked pasta in the refrigerator. When someone is hungry for macaroni and cheese, we just heat 3 parts pasta to one part sauce and microwave. In about two minutes, hungry children are eating lunch or dinner.
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The best recipe I have ever used for Mac & Cheese
Thanks Kristina!
We loved it! I didn’t intend to change things but I used what I had on hand with your measurements. I had skim milk, Parkay (both are what my family uses when making Kraft), Aldi brand jar Cheese Dip, Aldi brand brick cheese, and 2 % Kraft slices. I did all the same measurements and my family loved it. We happened to have the same style box noodles as the hotel that my child works at had pounds of 1 month expired pasta. We’re a big family-so we’re using it. It was incredible-it looked and tasted spot on! Thank You!
You’re very welcome Missy!
the mustard, worcestershire sauce and nutmeg really make the taste very close to the original! nice work with the ingredients
Thanks Han!
How much dry pasta for this recipe so it isn’t too dry?
Hi Tim – Apologies for the vagueness in the recipe measurements…we haven’t made this recipe in a while (our picky eater is now a teenager). We probably used the cheese sauce on most of a 12 ounce box of pasta, but I’m going by memory from a long time ago – you might want to start with less cooked pasta and add more to suit your liking. If we make this recipe again, we will do a better job with the pasta quantities.
I used to love Kraft Macaroni & cheese, it was so good, until they started messing with the recipe, I made some for myself and my Husband and, I could tell they messed with the noodles, and they were not the same! a couple of years ago, a friend said Linda come on over and have some Macaroni and cheese. I had since lost the recipe, but it was so so GOOD! It tasted exactly like it did when I was a kid!. When you mess with PERFECTION, DON’T
Agree Linda – the boxed mix definitely doesn’t taste the same as it used to!
WisPride is/was made by BelBrand. However, it appears that they do not make it any longer. The following link shows the “brands” they make: https://belbrandsusa.com/our-brands/
One thing I noticed is that they make Kaukaukana, which is a Wisconsin spreadable cheese. This may be a good substitute. And when I put WisPride in google, I got a lot of Kaukaukana links.
Lawrence
Thank you for the suggestion Lawrence – we shared this recipe many years ago (time for an update!)