International food giant Kraft Heinz just launched a vegan version of its classic Kraft Mac & Cheese. The new Kraft Vegan Mac & Cheese was developed as a “contemporary” take on the classic boxed meal and is both gluten-free and vegan-certified with pasta made from rice flour and a dairy-free sauce. The new product is offered in the same classic blue box but with prominent vegan messaging throughout. Kraft even modified the cooking instructions to suggest using soy milk instead of traditional cow’s milk.

The new product has been spotted only in Australia at Woolworths grocery stores and online. VegNews has reached out to Kraft Heinz to inquire about whether its new Kraft Vegan Mac & Cheese will be available in other markets outside of Australia.

Kraft’s vegan ventures

While the Kraft vegan mac and cheese has yet to debut in markets outside of Australia, Kraft Heinz has made a number of investments stateside to support the growth of the plant-based industry.

Open the package of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Remove the package of powdered cheese from the box and put it to the side. Bring three cups of water to a boil in a saucepan, then add macaroni. Remove from heat when the macaroni is tender, but not overdone and noodles are swollen. Drain the macaroni completely in a strainer over the sink. In this regard, is Kraft Mac and Cheese dairy free? Every package of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese contains a package of mix to make cheese sauce. The cheese sauce mix contains several milk ingredients: whey (milk protein), milk protein concentrate, milk, milkfat and cheese culture. Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 are added to the sauce mix as colorings. Also, what are the ingredients in Kraft macaroni. This lactose-free mac and cheese recipe is fun and simple to make, and all it requires is eight ounces of uncooked small elbow macaroni, rigatoni or penne pasta, a single cup of reduced-fat, lactose-free milk, cornstarch and cheddar cheese.

In 2019, Kraft Heinz selected five vegan companies to support during its 16-week Springboard Brands program in Chicago: lupini-bean snack brand BRAMI; cold-pressed almond juice brand Origin Almond; vegan protein bar brand Blake’s Seed Based; coconut-based yogurt brand Tiny Giants; and Ka-Pop!—makers of ancient-grain based chips in flavors such as vegan Dairy-Free Cheddar. During the program, Kraft Heinz supported the startups in their endeavors with mentorship and networking opportunities, access to the Kraft kitchen and production plants, and $50,000 in starting capital.

Kraft Heinz also participated in a $35 million funding round raised in 2019 by Silicon Valley-based startup New Culture which is using precision fermentation to create dairy-identical mozzarella without exploiting cows. The company’s groundbreaking vegan cheese is set to debut in 2023.

Heinz goes beyond beanz

Last year, the condiment portion of the Kraft Heinz brand expanded its vegan offerings in the United Kingdom with the launch of [Seriously] Good Vegan Mayo and Vegan Salad Cream, which underwent extensive research to remove eggs from their formulation.

Heinz also leaned into Beanz as its hero vegan product. For it’s 150th anniversary in 2019, Heinz revived Heinz Beanz Pizza, a cult classic product it discontinued in 2003 and gave it a vegan makeover. In partnership with delivery service Deliveroo, Heinz offered the vegan pizza (along a non-vegan version) to customers in the United Kingdom for a limited time. During January last year, the company changed its long running “Beanz Meanz Heinz” slogan to a more vegan-centric message “Beanz Meanz Vegan” in honor of the Veganuary campaign in the United Kingdom.

The Heinz brand is also going beyond “beanz” and exploring other possibilities in the plant-based realm. The brand recently filed trademarks under a new “VBQ” label for 29 new plant-based meats and barbecue sauces. “Beans are already a vegan product, so we are looking to take beans as a base for a new plant-based range,” Kraft Heinz Ireland head David Adams told The Checkout after the launch of its vegan mayo and salad cream. “We are working through a few ideas at the moment and we are excited about the possibilities in the plant-based arena.”

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Love the plant-based lifestyle as much as we do? Find out why VegNews is the world’s #1 vegan magazine by subscribing today!

Okay, so it’s not really “Boxed” Mac and Cheese but “Bagged” Mac and Cheese just sounds weird! 😀

I have been making my own “Kraft-like” GF Mac and Cheese for a long time now, mostly because I do not care for the texture of the pasta in the GF store-bought Mac and Cheese. The other two reasons I make my own are because I can change up the pasta shapes AND I save a lot of money!

I have been buying my cheese powder in bulk on Amazon.com(Frontier Co-op Orange and White Cheddar Powders).You can see Frontier’sAllergen Statementhere. This is one of those moments when you have to use your judgment. There is no wheat in the cheese powder and nothing on the label indicates an ingredient derived from barley, rye or commercial oats. However, the cheese powder is not tested/certified gluten-free (at least it wasn’t a year ago).

Update: There is a now a Gluten-Free Cheese Powder on the market from Riega Foods and I definitely recommend going that route since they test for the presence of gluten in the final product (you can read my review here).

The good news though… I have heard on VERY GOOD authority that a cheddar cheese powder (that is sold in individual packets, no less!!), will soon be coming to market. The cheese powders will also be TESTED to ensure they contain less than 20ppm of gluten (but so far they have actually registered “undetectable” for gluten in preliminary testing!), WOO-HOO! That is all I can say for now, but I will update you as soon as I can. 🙂

For each package of Gluten-Free Mac and Cheese:

7 1/4-ounces of Gluten-Free Pasta (Tinkyada is our favorite)

1 1/4-ounces of GF Cheddar Cheese Powder (White or Orange)

• I put the cheddar cheese powder in its own separate “snack-size” Ziploc Bag and insert it into the larger “quart-size” Ziploc Bag that is holding the pasta.

• I bought some large mailing labels and I just print the directions on the mailing label and affix to the front of the bag!

What I put on the label (this is just how we like to make it):

I rarely use real butter in anything I cook, I usually use Smart Balance (Original in the tub) or Earth Balance, which is Smart Balance’s Dairy-Free cousin. The 16 minute cook time you see on the label is specific to the TinkyadaPasta I use. Make sure to follow the cooking directions on your specific brand… you know how temperamental GF pasta can be (well, except for Tinkyada, 🙂 I am very biased, I know)!

How To Make Kraft Mac And Cheese Dairy Free

I make a bunch of these at a time and store in an airtight plastic container in my pantry. These are great for Mike to grab for a quick and easy meal for the boys (if I am gone during meal time) or I will send a package to Sam and Luke’s “Nana and Papa’s” when they go for a visit (Nana has her own separate Gluten-Free Pans to help prevent cross-contamination), love her! 😉

This is the “Classic” kid version of Mac and Cheese with Orange Cheddar Cheese Powder. The orange color is annatto extract.

Can Lactose Intolerant Eat Kraft Mac And Cheese

White Cheddar Mac and Cheese.

Tinkyada’s Brown Rice Vegetable Spirals with White Cheddar Powder.

Tinkyada’s Brown Rice Little Dreams Pasta with White Cheddar Powder.

This is not necessary, I do it for my ADD! I am unbelievably “OCD organized” in my pantry, it keeps my brain clear. 😉

I’ve had this for years, I use it as a guide to come up with quick meal ideas, just be sure your add-in’s are gluten-free!! Use two packages of GF Mac and Cheese to equal one Family Size Box of the Gluten-filled Kraft Mac and Cheese, (as indicated on the recipe card). If you don’t have kiddos that are “no-touchers” (separate foods cannot touch…. period), then this is a great way to sneak in some added vegetables! 🙂

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