I Tested 9 Stovetop Mac and Cheese Brands. Here’s What I Found

For the sake of this list, I followed the instructions on every box word-for-word and ingredient-for-ingredient. But you don’t have to. In fact, there are a few things I’d change. 

Use less butter

Most of the boxed mac and cheese I made for this list called for a quarter-cup of milk and 4 tablespoons of butter. So first of all, yikes. That’s a lot of butter. These are (roughly) 6 to 7 ounce boxes. I promise you do not need that much butter. Personally, I use 1 to 2 tablespoons of butter when I make mac and cheese, and that’s plenty. To be honest, you don’t even really need to add butter if you don’t want to. It’s there to add a little extra flavor and help make the pasta a bit creamier.

Don’t use too much milk

What you really need to make sure you add is milk. Adding milk is necessary to help stir in the cheese powder and keep the pasta from drying out too quickly. Most of these brands called for a quarter-cup of milk — that’s way too much. If you add that much milk, you risk drowning the pasta in a puddle of cheese water at the bottom of the pot. Your mac and cheese won’t be creamy, it’ll just be runny. Instead, I’d recommend just adding two tablespoons of milk. And if you feel like your pasta is too dry, add another tablespoon. You can always start with less and add more as you mix and stir, getting it to your preferred consistency.