January 25, 2017
With only minor differences in color and taste, both are great comfort foods – warm and mushy. The major difference is the price, with the Kraft product costing $1.00 on sale and the ALDI product 29 cents on sale. To my tastes the Kraft product was very slightly tastier and cheesier. But there wasn’t much difference at all. Perhaps as an adult my taste buds have dulled some, but neither product tasted as cheesy as I remember from way back when.
ALDI
ALDI’s Cheese Club has a mild, sweetish flavor that’s not especially cheesy. But it’s a nice flavor in its own right. The cheese packet mix had a strange pink cast to it, but still produced a medium yellow/orange color when combined with the other ingredients.
Kraft
The Kraft cheese packet mix had a cheesier aroma. The color of the mix was a glowing yellow/orange. When cooked the product has a lighter yellow color. The flavor was also mild with a slight cheesy taste predominating.
Cooking Method
Both were cooked according to the package directions. Eight minutes cook time was sufficient for both macaronies. After the macaroni was drained; unsalted butter, 2% milk and the cheese packet mix were stirred into the hot macaroni. The cooking directions for both products are essentially the same.
Which one is better? For me, either one would be fine. They’re both good, with a slight edge towards Kraft. But, I’ll be buying neither one simply because they’re both too good. The temptation to eat the whole pot in one sitting is too great for my sedentary adult body to resist.
That raises the question, is this type of food healthy? With relatively high carbohydrate, fat and calorie values, some might say this is not a healthy food choice. My personal philosophy for healthy food choices is, eat what your body needs, but not more than needed – of anything. Keep in mind that what’s needed will vary between; different individuals, with different activity levels and at different ages. Given that kind of food moderation, this type of food is likely neither inherently a healthy or unhealthy choice. There may be better choices for providing your bodily needs, but that’s a different question for a different day.
Calorie Note
Since both products require other ingredients to fully prepare, the calorie and nutrition values will vary depending on the type of milk and type of butter or margarine used in preparation. That probably explains the listed prepared calorie differences below. Both products list 250 calories per serving as packaged in the box. But it’s pretty unappealing to eat an uncooked, unflavored macaroni.
ALDI – Calories 390 per serving prepared – Price 29 cents on sale (33 cents regular price)
Kraft – Calories 350 per serving prepared – Price $1.00 on sale (unknown regular price)
ALDI
Kraft
Tags: aldi, calories, Cheese Club, compare, food, Kraft, Mac & Cheese, price, review
Ain't Found A Good Title Blog 
08/02/2017 at 07:52 |
I’ve always been a sucker for Mac and cheese myself. As a kid, I always loved the boxes of Kraft, I didn’t mind the powdered cheese mix, it was still always good. As an adult, my favorites for a while was velveta due to the creamy sauce mix rather than the powder that Kraft provided, until Kraft came out with their new versions of creamy cheese sauce packets plus their multiple variations including cheese and broccoli, bacon bits and white cheddar, four cheese, etc., and they are all very good. Now it’s an extremely close tie between Velveta and Kraft. As for comparing Kraft with Aldi’s Cheese club, I would agree that they are similar. It’s sort of like, when shopping at Hyvee grocery, you get the Kraft boxes, then right next to them you get the Hyvee brand in very similar appearing boxes. It’s the same at Price chopper, you get Kraft then next to it is the Always Save brand in similar boxes. In both of those cases plus comparing Cheese Club with Kraft, the Kraft is slightly better and the alternative brands are a similar yet slightly pale, slightly less flavorful imitation of Kraft, but the differences are only small. Each of those alternative brands are just little step down from Kraft, but not much.
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08/02/2017 at 20:44 |
Thanks for adding your comments. Now I’m hungry! 😋
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01/26/2017 at 00:14 |
Ha! This takes me back to hiking the Appalachian Trail. Cheese club was one of my favorite meals to pack because it still tasted good with boiled water. Thanks for the review (and triggering the memories)!
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01/26/2017 at 04:15 |
Glad you enjoyed it. I’ll give that method a try. But I’m sure it tastes 10x better on the trail. 😋
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