6 Restaurant Chains That Serve Real Mac and Cheese
Legendary steakhouse chain Texas Roadhouse recently caught flack for giving a customer what looked like—and turned out to be—boxed mac and cheese. And it’s not the only restaurant that serves the simple stuff. While the boxed stuff certainly has its place, a restaurant is not it—especially for over $4 a half cup!
Sure everyone loves a good boxed mac ‘n’ cheese for the ultimate convenience when the craving hits, but nothing beats the real thing. Building flavor, mixing ingredients, picking your favorite cheeses and spices, and deciding if you want breadcrumbs or not are all parts of a lovely mac and cheese-making experience. But it takes forever.
While making it from scratch is worth it in the end, if you don’t have the whole day and need some of that cheesy mac and cheese right now, here are six chains that make their macaroni and cheese the right way, with real cheese and noodles, no powders in sight. No, they’re not technically homemade, but it’s the next best thing.
Courtesy of Panera
Panera got in a bit of hot water last year via TikTok when a video of how their mac and cheese was prepared in the restaurant received over 1.2 million likes.
The Panera mac and cheese comes to the location frozen in vacuum-sealed plastic bags and is reheated via a process called re-thermalization, which is a fancy way of saying they put the bag in hot water.
However, despite reactions that ranged from disgust to “what did you think was happening back there,” Panera’s famously creamy mac and cheese contains real cheese, milk, eggs, and pasta, according to its website. So, while the preparation might not be as on-site as you’d like, somebody is making that mac and cheese from scratch, they’re just freezing it afterward.
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