There are fewer things more satisfying than chomping down on childhood comfort foods. Pour a big bowl of delicious cereal and munch on that while you watch cartoons. Or get yourself a plate of dinosaur chicken nuggets with various dipping sauces. Yum.
Of course, there’s boxed macaroni and cheese, a cheap and delicious food that tons of us grew up eating. Heck, it was probably the first “meal” a lot of us learned how to make. But this TikTok hack swears we’ve been making it wrong this whole time.
What is the TikTok mac and cheese hack?
If you’ve spent a considerable amount of time on TikTok, then you’ve definitely come across your fair share of youngsters who won the genetic lottery and have a penchant for wearing trendy sweatsuits while pulling off hackneyed dance routines.
But there are also a ton of “food hacks” circulating the platform that folks are gravitating towards.
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Most boxed macaroni and cheese packages will instruct you to first boil the pasta inside the package and then drain it. Then, you separately boil milk and toss the powdered cheese into the pan, stir it up, add it to the pasta, and then mix it all together.
Well, this TikTok hack says there’s a better way to make the artificially-flavored pasta.
The hack only has one slight change to the entire pasta-making process. Instead of adding the cheese to the milk after the pasta is done cooking, the hack promises a better flavor if you boil the pasta in a mixture of water and milk and add the orange powder to the pasta as it cooks. This way, the bit of pasta actually absorbs the cheese powder.
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Additionally, you never have to strain the pasta water from the pasta, either. A user who popularized the hack stated in a follow-up video that she adds 1 1/2 cups of water and 1 1/2 cups of milk to the noodles. If they need a bit more liquid to cook, she says gradually water to the mixture is fine.
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When the pasta’s thoroughly cooked, then you add a little bit of shredded cheese to it and voila, you’ve got yourself TikTok hacked mac and cheese.
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So how does the TikTok mac and cheese hack taste?
Well, according to TheKitchnMom, it depends on how pronounced you like your artificial cheese flavor. If you’re a big fan of that plastic-ey powdered cheese tang, then this hack probably won’t be for you. What the hack does is soften that flavor and make it taste a bit more like real cheese.
Chances are, however, if you are eating boxed macaroni and cheese, then that taste is exactly what you’re going after. But some TikTokers aren’t exactly sold on the new method.
Some complained about now drowning in a deluge of orange cheese water.
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Source: TikTok
Source: TikTok
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And then other people added their own little zests to show how they elevate boxed macaroni and cheese.
Source: TikTok
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Source: TikTok
Are you going to be trying this hack out? Or do you just eat shredded cheese out of bag and chase them down with some pickles when you’re done?