Cheese Powder

One thing that makes a lot of my favorite recipes not so food storage friendly is that they call for cheese. I had heard of canned cheese powder before but didn't really know what it could do, so I decided to buy this can from Macey's and find out.


When I first opened it, I was not really impressed. It looked like someone had opened about a hundred boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese and emptied the contents of the sauce packets into the can. That's because that is basically what cheese powder is (at least this variety is). On the back of the can there are three different sets of directions for mixing the stuff: sauce, spread, and macaroni and cheese. So first I decided to try the sauce. Here is what it looked like:


It wasn't really bad, but it was nothing really special, either. Prepared according to package directions, I can't think of any dish I might make that it would really improve by its addition. And it was pretty thick, too. I can't imagine that I would ever mix it using the spread proportions which would make it even thicker. From there I thinned it out with a little milk and mixed in some salsa and a little bit of tabasco sauce and came out with something that was pretty close to bowling alley nachos.


Finally, I made some macaroni and cheese by the directions on the can. I ended up having to add a lot more milk than it called for to get it to a reasonably smooth consistency. I think it tasted okay, nothing to get really excited about, but Samantha gobbled it up. So I guess if I had a lot of macaroni stored and didn't really know what I was going to do with it, cheese powder would probably be the answer. I guess I will keep a little bit of it on hand to make nachos or macaroni and cheese and it would probably do okay in something like cheese soup. But I think I will keep looking for other ways to get cheese into our year's supply...