We Fixed Shake Shack Mac & Cheese With One Easy Trick

Scenario: It’s 10 PM. You’ve just left an advance screening of Spider-Man: Brand New Day in the middle of nowhere, Indiana. You haven’t eaten anything since a Burger King pit stop 8 hours ago, and a $10 movie theater hot dog is never the answer. As you open Google Maps, restaurants are closing for the night with every passing second… except one. Shake Shack, with their glorious East Coast “city that never sleeps” mindset, closes at 11 PM. The day is saved, true believers. It’s time to thwip yourself a sandwich.

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There I am, scrolling through the menu toward my beloved Chicken Shack, when I’m surprised by a side I hadn’t ordered before. When did Shake Shack start selling mac & cheese? As someone with a vegetarian girlfriend, I consider myself pretty well-versed in the restaurant chain macaroni-and-cheese game. Per our own article on the subject, Shake Shack debuted this new side for an undetermined limited time only back in late April. (I was actively flying to Burger King headquarters in Miami on the day this launched; I hope I can be forgiven for missing it.)

While it’s still here, let’s see if Shake Shack tackles mac & cheese as well as they tackle cheese fries.

Shake Shack Mac & Cheese Review

New Shake Shack Side!

Pros: This is cheesy and quite filling, which can’t be said for all restaurant mac options. And this might be a negative masquerading as a positive, but my mac bowl did not come with the promised breadcrumb topping. As a devout non-believer in breadcrumbs as a macaroni and cheese topping, I certainly wasn’t complaining.

Cons: I had high hopes for this one, but the end result was a little too much in all regards. I love heavy food as much as the next dungeon master, but this is a thick cavatappi paired with a cheddar-American sauce texturally closer to glue than liquid. This genuinely feels like it’d be better as a sandwich topping than a standalone side. And I do have a Chicken Shack sitting right here…

Credit: Griffin Parker / Shake Shack

Rating:

6.5/10

Sporks

Shake Shack Mac & Cheese Topped Chicken Shack Review

New Shake Shack Hack!

As you can tell by the very professional mockup, this is not a real menu item. As such, I can’t give this an official spork rating. That said, there’s nothing stopping you from ordering a side of mac & cheese and using it as a topping for any Shake Shack sandwich.

This isn’t offered on the menu, but it really should be. Everywhere this mac & cheese fails as a centerpiece, it excels as a topping. The well-cooked pasta is different enough from the tender chicken to provide a new texture, while not so ooey-gooey that it falls off the sandwich the second you bite into it. This use case is where Shake Shack’s Mac & Cheese not only works but excels.

Credit: Griffin Parker / Mockup based on existing Shake Shack assets

Rating:

9/10

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