2008 Menu: Chili Macaroni

Review By Todd Farino

Whether it was a family dinner or a night at the chow hall while I served in the USAF, Chili & Macaroni was always a favorite meal of mine. Such a great idea combining chili and macaroni for a tasty inexpensive meal and then adding it to the MRE menus was brilliant. Chili & Macaroni is not new to MREs and they go back as far as 2003 as a Menu item.

The version I had to review was the 2008 Chili & Macaroni. First off, Chili & Macaroni is great to mix with just about anything. Corn is the best item if you have a can of it on hand, but really you only need to add one thing to Chili & Macaroni, salt. Tabasco Sauce is always a good thing to add to any MRE meal, but its really not needed in the chili macaroni. Chili flavored macaroni is one of the best meals for storing and keeping its original flavor.

You definitely taste the chili flavoring and neither the meat or macaroni was too chewy. Chili Macaroni is one of the few meals that is good hot or cold, so its a perfect MRE in my eyes. The MRE as a whole is one of the better ones as it came with a wet fruit package that was tasty pineapple slices. It also came with a cookie and skittles, but the big kicker was wheat snack bread and jalapeno cheese spread.

This would be the absolute perfect MRE if it came with crackers over wheat snack bread. Frankly, I'd prefer wheat snack bread and grape jelly instead of jalapeno cheese spread. Overall a fantastic MRE.

OVERALL RATING: