We Made Kraft Mac & Cheese From Scratch Using Real Spices

“You know you love it.” Boxed Kraft macaroni and cheese alongside paprika, turmeric, and annatto. All photos: Alex Van Buren

In a move sure to dismay the two- to nine-year-old set, Kraft Foods announced this week its decision to phase out the neon-orange, artificial food colorings that have long been the hallmark of the most iconic mac ‘n’ cheese on the market.

The New York Times reports that the company’s decision to eliminate synthetic colors and preservatives came as “Kraft is battling sluggish demand as consumers shift to brands that are perceived as healthier.” They intend to unveil the new version in January of next year.

Still, in an era dominated by branding, it’s a somewhat surprising move for Kraft to risk losing the shocking orange color of its product. And when I read that Kraft intended to replicate that sunny, apocalyptic glow using turmeric, annatto, and paprika — all spices I’d cooked with before — I knew I had to give it a whirl myself.

Now, mine is not a commercial kitchen by any stretch. I don’t own “whey, milkfat, and milk protein concentrate” in powdered, shelf-stable form, as Kraft uses in its macaroni and cheese, nor do I employ a bevy of food scientists, as Kraft surely does. So I didn’t expect to nail the taste — that creamy, nostalgia-inducing flavor we’ve come to expect — or even the powder’s 90s neon orange hue right out of the gate. Certainly not.

But I wanted to try. Growing up in my house, my siblings and I were rarely allowed processed foods. Mom would make cookies once every few weeks, and cookies in bags were verboten. We’d visit friends’ houses, open their cupboards, and gaze longingly at Oreos and Chips Ahoy! nestled snugly in their bags on the shelf. On the rare occasions we had pizza, it was accompanied not by Coke, but by skim milk. (“Criminal,” my mother’s sister said to her once in passing, with a sniff.)

But Kraft mac ‘n cheese somehow shimmied right under the limbo pole that constituted “healthy eating” in our home. Not only that, but Mom — in what struck me as an utterly devil-may-care move — would toss in sliced hot dogs that she’d sautéed in butter. And it was good. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still have a soft spot for the stuff, even though now I make my own macaroni and cheese from scratch and know, rationally, it’s much better.

Kraft’s processed powder, at left, and turmeric mixed with annatto and paprika, at right. 

So what was I working with? Turmeric is the great jerk of the spice world, if you’re someone who likes your countertops any color other than orange. (Once you’ve worked with it, you know to immediately scrub anything it’s come into contact with; the stuff stains like mad.) Turmeric in powdered form doesn’t have much flavor, except for a slightly soapy overtone, and it’s often used in Indian cuisine for its gorgeous golden hue. Annatto is slightly bitter, and dark, clay-red. Paprika is the most common of the three, of course, with a slightly smoky flavor and a shade of red that varies by the brand and the type of paprika.

My goal was to get the color as close to the synthetic version as possible in one attempt. The Kraft box reads: Cheese Sauce Mix (whey, milkfat, milk protein concentrate, salt, sodium tripolyphosphate, less than 2% citric acid, lactic acid, sodium phosphate, calcium phosphate, yellow 5, yellow 6, cheese culture, enzymes). I was in for a challenge.

I focused on the most probably successful spice: Turmeric is the most orange of the three, and the other two spices seemed like they’d darken it.

I made three versions of my mac ‘n cheese: Turmeric with a pinch of annatto and paprika; the boxed mix; and turmeric with a pinch of annatto, paprika, and almost 1/3 cup of ground Parmesan. My thinking was that there’s powdered cheese in the stuff you mix with butter and milk, so why not try to approximate it? Parmesan is good in almost everything, so I shaved it very finely and gave it a whirl in the food processor with the other ingredients. As you can see, the cheese lightened the color and gave the powder the right texture:

Clockwise from top left: three spices mixed together; Kraft powder; three spices plus Parmesan.

I cooked up a couple boxes of pasta following the directions, added butter and milk, and voilà:

Clockwise from left: Pasta with spices, butter, and milk; pasta with spices, butter, milk, and Parmesan; Kraft version. 

And? Well, the turmeric and other spices proved to be a little gritty; I might melt them into the butter first to try to get them to emulsify if I did this again.

The color? Not bad. I’ll admit that I was sort of perversely pining for some yellow #4 or #5 to really drive this sucker into neon-ville, though, adverse health effects be damned. I don’t know how Kraft is going to pull that off without synthetic chemicals. In response to my email politely asking for the formula, a rep just as politely replied, “I can’t give you our KRAFT Mac & Cheese recipe, but I can confirm the information on changes coming to the recipe in January 2016.”

The taste? The spices on their own, minus the Parmesan, proved fairly inedible. Even the version amped up with Parm was a tad soapy, frankly, like the turmeric itself.

To do it again, I’d use more cheese, less turmeric, and more sliced hot dogs that had been sautéed in butter.

With my eyes closed, I reckon it’d take me back.

At left: author’s version. At right: Kraft version. 

Love pasta? 

The secret to the best Bolognese

A slightly lighter, leek-i-er carbonara

Super-simple noodles for a weeknight meal

Do you think you’ll like the new, preservative-free Kraft mac ‘n’ cheese?