I recently did a write-up of Legendary Foods on my Substack, and since doing a deep dive for that article, I’ve been extremely skeptical about Legendary Foods.
The TL;DR for my article is that Legendary Foods currently uses only AI product photos on their Amazon listings, and many of the reviews are clearly fake, giving me a very sour feeling towards the company.
When I saw their protein mac & cheese at the store, I quickly hopped onto their website and saw nothing but glowing reviews for the product.
Everything I know about the company thus far makes me seriously question the integrity of the reviews, but I wanted to review this product with an open mind, because the macros are crazy impressive.
If a product is legitimately good, I want people to know that. I mean, that’s the entire point of this website!
With 220 calories and 35 grams of protein, I was rooting for this mac & cheese. Apparently they also have a version with 290 calories and 47 grams of protein, which is quite insane for mac & cheese.
To this point, I’ve found Legendary Foods’ products really hit-or-miss. Their Tasty Pastry is the product most people know them for, which I think is fine for what it is. All of their other baked sweets, like donuts and sweet rolls, are basically like they took the tasty pastry and just reshaped it. Not great.
But, on the other hand, I think their popped protein chips are legitimately delicious, so I was a little bit hopeful for this mac & cheese.
My prep did not start out as planned. I filled the cup exactly to the fill line, but my cup boiled over about halfway through the 3:30 that was recommended.
Once it was done, I mixed the cheese packet into it, and it still seemed extremely soupy (even though I lost a bunch of water).
I’m sure the liquidy nature is to be expected, because the directions say that you have to let it cool and thicken for 2 minutes. For what it’s worth, the cook time is 3.5-4 mins, you have the let it sit for 3 minutes before adding the cheese, then let it sit for another 2 minutes once mixed. So, it’s a little less “instant” than other mac & cheese options.
After letting it sit properly, I finally dug in. And I was… not impressed on any level.
The pasta itself was extremely soft and gummy. The directions do say to adjust by 30 seconds for firmer or softer pasta, but I used the recommended 3.5 minutes. I suppose I should have done only 3 minutes, but I had no way of knowing that.
The pasta being gummy was impossible for me to get over. I’ve eaten tons of high-protein/low-carb pasta options, and there’s usually some kind of texture trade-off, but I’ve never experienced something like this. The pasta is soft and mushy to start, then turns chewy. It’s off-putting, to say the least.
The overall flavor is fine- it definitely tastes like mac & cheese. It is way too salty though, which is evident by the 590mg of sodium in the cup.
If the salt were scaled back, the overall flavor would be decent. But when it’s combined with the gummy noodles, it’s just… unpleasant.
I hate wasting food, especially food that costs $4 per serving, but I couldn’t finish this. I was just not able to get past the texture, and the flavor just wasn’t enough to overcome that.
I have no idea if the 47g protein version is any better, but that would be tough to pull off.
But, according to their website, only 3 people out of 300 dislike the product, so maybe I’m an anomaly here. The vast majority of reviewers claim that you can’t taste the difference between this and Kraft mac & cheese.
Maybe my taste buds are broken. I have no idea. But this is not Kraft mac & cheese.
Stick with Goodles, Annie’s Super Mac, or any number of protein mac & cheese options out there. Less protein than this one, sure, but considerably more delicious, with a normal texture and noticeably cheaper.
