The other day David and I were getting ready to go grocery shopping. I ask both Charlie and Gerald if there was anything the wanted. Charlie of course said a Pizza and he thought we was out of Ranch which is par for the course in our home. Then Gerald mentioned a couple foods he liked from when we was kids which is where this post for Foods We Remember — Post 1 comes from.

For my family a food memory can come rushing back because we saw an old package which happens sometime when we smell something cooking. Or someone simply mentions a food they used to eat. That is exactly what happened with Kraft Chicken Noodle Dinner. I honestly hadn’t thought about this particular dinner in years.

Then the other day, my brother mentioned it and asked me if I thought I could still find it in the store. Well, if you know me, you know what happened next. I went on a scavenger hunt. I checked Kroger’s. I checked Walmart. I checked WinCo. I was looking for this little boxed dinner that I remembered from years ago. And I couldn’t find it.

SI came home and did what I probably should have done before driving all over town.

I Googled it. And that’s when I discovered that Kraft Chicken Noodle Dinner is no longer being made. Apparently, I’m not the only person who remembers this dinner. People online still talk about it and remember it as a favorite quick and inexpensive meal. So before you spend half a day driving from grocery store to grocery store looking for an old favorite, Google it first!

You might save yourself a lot of gas and a whole lot of frustration. But my little scavenger hunt did something else. It brought back memories I hadn’t thought about in years. When I was growing up, my parents would buy Kraft Chicken Noodle Dinner for us to have for lunch when they were working.

It was one of those meals that made sense for a busy family. It was easy. It was inexpensive. It could serve as a side dish or a main course depending on how you fixed it. And it didn’t require you to make a complicated meal from scratch. You had a box in the pantry, and you could turn it into lunch, dinner or even a after-school snack which is why the recipe I’m going to share with you would fit into our Back to School Gift Guide and our Summer Gift Guide.

Those are the kinds of foods we sometimes don’t appreciate until they’re gone. We didn’t sit around thinking, “One day we’re going to miss this.” We just ate it. But years later, that little box can bring back an entire period of our lives and memories we had forgotten about until someone brings them up.

Kraft Chicken Noodle Dinner wasn’t just something I remember from my childhood. Suzanne would eat it once in a while too. And my stepdaughter Leslie loved it. When Leslie was little and would come to visit, she would ask for it. We would make it with green beans sometimes. Other times, we would just have the chicken noodle dinner by itself.

It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t a special-occasion meal. It was simply something Leslie liked. My step-son Travis also liked this meal a lot and would as for it at times. When someone you love comes to your house and asks for a particular food, you make it. That’s how ordinary meals become family memories.

One of the things I liked about Kraft Chicken Noodle Dinner was that you didn’t necessarily have to eat it exactly the same way every time. You could add canned chicken or fresh chicken or you could add peas. You could serve green beans on the side. Or you could have a Salad the kids might or might not ear.

You could even turn it into more of a casserole if you wanted to stretch it and feed more people. That was part of the appeal. It was a budget-friendly starting point. You could make the basic dinner, or you could add what you had in the kitchen. And that is the kind of cooking I remember. You didn’t always follow a recipe. You looked in the pantry and refrigerator and figured out what you could make which was cooked with love and a lot of imganation.

I also remember the egg noodles. David liked them. And I think Charlie would have liked them too. That’s one of the funny things about remembering old foods. You start thinking about the people in your family and wondering what they would have thought about them. Would Charlie have liked the noodles? I think he would have.

And since Kraft still makes a spaghetti dinner that you can find in stores, including Kroger, I plan on getting this boxed dinner for Charlie to try the next time we go grocery shopping. It won’t be the chicken noodle dinner I remember, but it might give us another little food memory to add to the family collection.

So Why Did Kraft Stop Making It? This is the part where I wish I had a definite answer. There are plenty of websites that offer theories about why Kraft Chicken Noodle Dinner disappeared. Some suggest declining sales. Others mention changing food preferences, production costs, competition and companies focusing on other products. Those things may all be possible.

But I haven’t found a clear official explanation from Kraft telling us exactly why this particular dinner was discontinued. So I’m not going to pretend I know. What I do know is that people still remember it. And I’m one of them. The product has been gone long enough that people are still talking about it online and searching for ways to recreate that old flavor. And apparently, I’m now one of those people too.

That’s when I started thinking about something. Could We Make It at Home? Maybe we don’t need the box. Maybe we can make a homemade version. After all, when I think about what I remember, the basic idea wasn’t complicated. Chicken. Egg noodles. Chicken flavor. Seasonings. That’s it.

I don’t remember it as a soup, and I don’t want to turn it into one. I also don’t think I need a can of cream of chicken soup to recreate it. I want something much simpler. Something that tastes like a homemade version of that easy boxed dinner I remember. So my family can try Egg Noodles we never eat.

My Homemade Chicken Noodle Dinner

This isn’t being presented as an exact copycat recipe. It’s my homemade version inspired by the Kraft Chicken Noodle Dinner I remember.

What You’ll Need

8 ounces egg noodles or more depending on how many people your feeding or how much they eat. In my home I double the recipe because I have men I’m feeding and it makes a nice left over lunch meal.

2 cups cooked chicken, chopped or shredded or double again depending on how many people your feeding.

1 to 1½ cups chicken broth

2 tablespoons butter

½ teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon poultry seasoning

Black pepper, to taste

Salt, if needed

½ to 1 cup peas, optional which you know I can’t use because of David

Cheese if you want a Cheesy dish which I wouldn’t want but the guys might

How to Make It

Cook the egg noodles according to the package directions. Drain them and set them aside.

Melt the butter in a large skillet or saucepan.

Add the cooked chicken and about 1 cup of chicken broth.

Add the onion powder, garlic powder, poultry seasoning and black pepper.

Stir everything together and let it warm over medium heat.

Add the cooked egg noodles and gently toss everything together.

If the noodles seem too dry, add a little more chicken broth, a few tablespoons at a time.

You want the noodles to be moist and flavorful, but this is not chicken noodle soup.

It’s a chicken and egg noodle dinner.

If your family likes peas, add them toward the end and let them warm through.

Taste and adjust the seasonings.

That’s it. Simple. Inexpensive. And easy enough for a weeknight lunch or dinner.

Now, if you love cheese, you could take this homemade chicken noodle dinner in another direction. Add some shredded cheese at the end and let it melt into the noodles. You could make yourself a cheesy chicken noodle dinner. There are no rules when you’re making dinner at home. But me?

I prefer mine without cheese. I want the chicken, the egg noodles and those simple savory flavors. That’s the version that takes me back. If I were making this for my family, I’d probably put some green beans on the side. That’s how I remember eating it. Although a Side Salad would be good to if they would just eat it.

Sometimes we’d have chicken with it. Sometimes we wouldn’t. Sometimes it was simply the noodles. That’s another thing I love about old family meals. They weren’t always exactly the same. You made them work with what you had. If Kraft came back with this dish you can bet your bottom dollar I would stock up on it.

Not because I can’t make something similar at home. I can. But because sometimes I want the original. I want to open the box. I want that box with the green label sitting in the pantry. I want to make it the way I remember making it years ago. And maybe you want to sit down and eat it with someone who remembers it too.

That’s something a homemade version can’t completely replace. But I’m glad I can make something similar. Because now that my brother reminded me about Kraft Chicken Noodle Dinner, I don’t want that memory to disappear just because the product did. But my little adventure did teach me one thing. Before you go hunting through five grocery stores for something you haven’t seen in years, Google it first!

I went to Kroger. I went to Walmart. I went to WinCo. Then I came home and searched online. And there was my answer. The product was gone. But the memories weren’t. And maybe that’s the real reason I wanted to write about this one. Because Foods We Remember isn’t really about boxes and packages.

It’s about the people connected to those foods. For me, Kraft Chicken Noodle Dinner brings back memories of my parents working and making sure we had lunch. It reminds me of Suzanne. It reminds me of Leslie and Travis coming to visit and asking for their favorite dinner. It reminds me of David liking those egg noodles.

And now it makes me think about Charlie and whether he’ll like the Kraft spaghetti dinner when I bring it home for him to try. A little box of noodles ended up holding quite a few family memories. Now I want to hear from you. What’s a food you remember from childhood that you can’t find anymore?

Maybe it was a boxed dinner. Maybe it was a cereal. Maybe it was a candy bar, frozen meal, cookie or snack. Or maybe it was something your parents bought because it was inexpensive, easy and everyone in the family liked it. Tell me about it. Because that’s what we’re going to do with Foods We Remember.

We’re going to remember the foods that fed our families, the foods we asked our parents to buy, the foods our children loved, and even the foods we didn’t realize were special until they disappeared. Sometimes the simplest meals become the biggest memories. And sometimes all it takes is one conversation with your brother to bring one of them back.

Grateful, Thankful, and Blessed.

Thank you,

Glenda, Charlie and David Cates