I absolutely love Mac N Cheese and one of the hardest parts about being newly gluten free is that I can’t eat mac & cheese when I go out to dinner. Whenever I go out to my local Barbeque spot or a friend visits from out of town and we go to Terry Blacks the mac & cheese taunts me.
I imagine a lot of newly gluten free people feel the same way. Luckily for you, I have compiled a list of my favorite boxed and frozen gluten free mac n cheese brands. This is a living list and will be evolving as I try new gluten free alternatives to mac & cheese.
If you’re interested in home made gluten free mac & cheese recipes check out my gluten free buffalo chicken mac & cheese recipe and gluten free chili mac n cheese recipe.
Frozen Gluten Free Mac n Cheese
3. Udis Gluten Free Mac N Cheese
This is by far the worst gluten free frozen or boxed mac n cheese I have tried to date. For starters the mac is aesthetically unappealing. Look how gnarly it looks (photo below).
The gluten free pasta was soggy, the the cheese was flavorless, and the mac was overall very oily and not good. If you don’t have the time to make your own gluten free mac & cheese I advise going with one of the below brands.
2. Amy’s Gluten Free Frozen Rice Pasta Mac & Cheese
This frozen gluten free mac & cheese was very good. It tasted like real mac n cheese and was super quick and easy to cook in the microwave. While I enjoyed it, I think it’s an overrated gluten free mac n cheese. A lot of people love it and I can see why but I have eaten better mac.
1. Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Mac & Cheese
I’m not typically a fan of frozen or microwaved food but oh my god I love Trader Joe’s Frozen Gluten Free Mac & Cheese. This mac is so good I would feed it to my non-gluten free friends and I honestly don’t think they could tell the difference.
Besides tasting so much better than the other gluten free mac n cheese options on this list, I love Trader Joe’s brand because it only takes 3 minutes to cook. When I had my wisdom teeth removed I subsisted off of Trader Joes Gluten Free Mac n Cheese and ice-cream and I’m still not sick of it. 10/10 would recommend.
Boxed Gluten Free Mac & Cheese
2. Annie’s Gluten Free Deluxe Rich and Creamy Shells & Classic Cheddar
Of the 4 gluten free mac n cheese brands I have tried so far this was my least favorite. While the rice noodle shells held up well and tasted fairly similar to real Annie’s shells I was not a fan of the premade rich and cream sauce. The sauce tasted very fake and was not as good as powdered cheese sauce. I ended up grating some sharp cheddar, pepper jack cheese, and parmesan to make it taste good. Overall this was not a bad boxed mac n cheese I just really disliked the gooey cheese sauce. The sauce reminded me of the kid cuisine nacho cheese that was an unnatural shade of yellow.
2. Annie’s Gluten Free Rice Pasta & Cheddar
I really enjoyed Annie’s standard gluten free mac & cheese for a lot of the reasons I stated above. The noodles had a very similar texture to real mac n cheese and they provided dehydrated cheese powder which tastes better then the goop that comes with shells. As much as I enjoyed this mac, I still had to add real cheese into the mix to make it taste good.
This is my personal recommendation for a gluten free boxed mac n cheese.
Make sure to check back on this list in the future to see any updates and find out if any other brand can dethrone Trader Joe’s
