Mac'd Out
Reviewing Packaged Vegan Mac and Cheese
by Reed Mangels, PhD, RD
Mac and cheese is a quintessential comfort food for many people. It's salty, creamy, and easy for anyone to make as a quick meal. Riding the wave of innovative new plant-based products, packages of vegan mac and cheese abound on supermarket shelves. VRG volunteer Mae Y. Seon and I evaluated 31 boxed vegan mac and cheese products from Annie's, Banza, Daiya, Goodles, Grown as Foods, Jovial, O Organics, Pastabilities, Upton's Naturals, and Wicked Kitchen.
We found lots of variations, with flavors ranging from the traditional cheddar cheese to jalapeño, barbecue, and truffle.
Preparation time for boxed vegan mac and cheese is generally short —boil water, cook pasta, make sauce, then mix pasta and sauce. Some varieties feature pre-made sauce; you just mix it in with the cooked pasta. From package to table, it may take 6-12 minutes, depending on the product. Some vegan boxed mac and cheese packages come with everything that you need, while others call for additional unsweetened non-dairy milk and vegan butter to mix with the sauce packet.
Most products report nutritional information both as purchased and as prepared. For products that did not include "as prepared" information, we calculated the nutrient content of a serving using unsweetened soymilk and Earth Balance vegan butter.
The labels on most products reported a serving size of 1 cup of prepared mac and cheese, although a couple of Banza products listed a 3/4-cup serving size. One serving of prepared vegan mac and cheese provides between 200 and 550 calories.
The products we looked at had 4-22 grams of protein per serving, making them a reasonable source of protein. Products highest in protein were Wicked Kitchen products that ranged from 18-19 grams of protein and Pastabilities Protein Pasta Ruffles & Vegan Cheese with 22 grams of protein in a 1-cup serving.
There was a lot of variability in fat in the products that we examined, with a range from 1.5-18 grams of fat per serving. Saturated fat ranged from 0-6 grams per serving.
Products found to be lowest in saturated fat were:
- Annie's Vegan Mac GF Red Lentil Spirals & Sweet Potato Pumpkin and Annie's Vegan Mac Shells & Sweet Potato Pumpkin—0 grams per serving
- Annie's Vegan Mac GF Rice Pasta & Cheddar—1 gram per serving
- Banza Plant-Based Chickpea Mac & Vegan Cheddar and Banza Plant-Based Shells & Vegan White Cheddar—1 gram per serving
- Jovial GF Vegan Mac—1 gram per serving
- Upton's Naturals Deluxe Ch'eesy Mac—1 gram per serving
- Annie's Vegan Mac Macaroni & Cheddar—1.5 grams per serving
The sodium content of products ranged from 260 milligrams per serving to a whopping 850 milligrams per serving. Label reading is especially important if you are sodium-sensitive.
Here are the lowest sodium products that we found:
- Annie's Vegan Mac GF Red Lentil Spirals & Sweet Potato Pumpkin and Annie's Vegan Mac Shells & Sweet Potato Pumpkin—260 milligrams per serving
- Upton's Naturals Deluxe Ch'eesy Mac—300 milligrams per serving
Many products supplied calcium; in some cases, the calcium content depends on whether a calcium-fortified non-dairy milk is used to prepare the sauce. Calcium content ranged from 0 to over 250 milligrams per serving.
Products supplying at least 100 milligrams of calcium included:
- Annie's Vegan Mac Shells & Sweet Potato Pumpkin, Goodles Vegan is Believing Plant-based White Cheddar with Spirals, and Jovial Gluten Free Vegan Mac—100 milligrams per serving
- Goodles Gluten Free Vegan Be Heroes, Wicked Kitchen BBQ King Mac & Cheeze, and Wicked Kitchen This Is Nacho Mac & Cheeze—approximately 120 milligrams per serving
- Wicked Kitchen Smoky Picnic Mac & Cheeze—130 milligrams per serving
- Daiya Deluxe Mac & Cheeze, Cheddar Style; Daiya Deluxe Mac & Cheeze, White Cheddar Style; and Daiya Deluxe Mac & Cheeze, Alfredo Style—approximately 200 milligrams per serving
- Daiya Deluxe Mac & Cheeze, Cheddar Jalapeño Style—240 milligrams per serving
- Daiya Deluxe Mac & Cheeze, Four Cheeze Style with Herbs—258 milligrams per serving
Products labeled as gluten-free included Annie's Vegan Mac Gluten Free Red Lentil Spirals & Sweet Potato Pumpkin and Annie's Vegan Mac Gluten Free Rice Pasta & Cheddar, Banza Mac and Cheese products, and all Daiya Mac & Cheese products. Additionally, there are Googles Gluten Free Vegan Be Heros, Jovial Gluten Fee Vegan Mac, and O Organics Gluten Free Vegan Mac Cheddar Style.
Special thanks to Mae Y. Seon for her work on this project.
To see reviews of other vegan products, visit:
www.vrg.org/blog/2023/07/07/vegan-shelf-stable-entrees-how-do-they-compare
www.vrg.org/journal/vj2023issue2/2023_issue2_frozen_grain_review.php
www.vrg.org/blog/2022/10/21/vegan-butter-which-should-i-choose
www.vrg.org/blog/2022/10/18/vegan-cheese-for-pizza
