Stouffer’s Releases Its First Non-Freezer-Aisle Product: Supreme Shells & Cheese

Precisely a century in the past, in 1924, Abraham Stouffer opened up Stouffer Lunch in Cleveland, a streamlined restaurant serving up a restricted variety of menu objects (buttermilk, pie, and 4 sandwich choices). Quickly, that restaurant idea expanded and finally transformed into the frozen meals empire we all know at this time. But whereas Stouffer’s is thought solely for its frozen ready meals nowadays, the model is about to make the leap to a different grocery aisle fully. Starting this month, buyers can choose up a brand new shelf-stable model of Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese — a boxed model with dry pasta and a liquid cheese sauce packet. 

Stouffer’s Supreme Shells & Cheese is the model’s first-ever shelf-stable macaroni and cheese providing and, certainly, the model’s first-ever non-freezer-aisle product. It’s described in a press launch as “elevated consolation meals” and is available in two varieties, Cheddar and Three Cheese, the latter of which accommodates a mix of white cheddar, Gouda, and Parmesan. The corporate additionally notes that “further improvements” will roll out in 2025 and past, although it’s unclear whether or not that is referring to further mac and cheese flavors or further styles of shelf-stable meals. 

Cooking up a batch of Stouffer’s Supreme Shells & Cheese sounds just about the identical as cooking its most related counterpart, Velveeta Shells & Cheese: boil the noodles on the range, drain the water, and add the liquid cheese sauce. Nonetheless, the Stouffer’s field boasts that it accommodates “10% extra cheese sauce than Velveeta,” which delivers “a extra cheese ahead taste profile,” in line with the model.

Stouffer’s Supreme Shells & Cheese has one potential profit over the model’s authentic mac and cheese. Cooking the pasta on the range till the shells are al dente might assist alleviate what some prospects level to as a flaw in Stouffer’s frozen product: the mushiness of the pasta within the ultimate dish. That mushiness comes from heating up the frozen pasta and cheese sauce beneath a plastic movie, which, despite the fact that partially vented all through the cooking time, can lure steam and moisture and waterlog the noodles. This, in fact, isn’t solely a Stouffer’s drawback. It may be a problem with nearly each frozen pasta product in the marketplace, plus ready-to-eat canned pasta merchandise similar to Chef Boyardee. However by cooking the noodles individually and preserving the cheese and noodles aside till the top, the brand new boxed stuff would possibly simply have a textural benefit. 

Stouffer’s new shelf-stable mac and cheese might be out there beginning this month, each on Amazon and at choose main retailers nationwide. Its instructed retail value is $3.99 per 12-oz. field. If these items is as singularly tacky because the model claims, then it deserves inclusion in your purchasing checklist.