I love Cheez-Its. My roommates and I buy a few boxes at the store each week. With all the new flavors being released, I decided that there needs to be an unofficial ranking for my fellow Cheez-Its lovers out there. The Cheez-It flavors being ranked will be Four Cheese, Reduced Fat White Cheddar, Hot and Spicy, Extra Toasty, and a combination box of Sharp Cheddar and Parmesan. I ranked these flavors on a few criteria: initial thoughts (on smell and how I thought it would taste), taste, and aftertaste.
6. Extra Toasty
I had really high hopes for this one since I love the slightly burned crackers in the box. THEY WERE SO BLAND. They had little to no salt on them and tasted like toasty cardboard (sorry, Cheez-It). If you like the crispy ones in the box, stick to those.
5. Hot & Spicy
These really let me down. I was hoping for the best with this flavor. I wanted so badly for them to be good. The bad started with the smell. As soon as I opened the bag, all I could smell was hot sauce (not even good hot sauce). They tasted alright and delivered on the spicy front, but I was very underwhelmed.
4. Reduced Fat White Cheddar
I am not a health fanatic, but the store was out of the regular White Cheddar crackers so I went with these. White Cheddar Cheez-Its are a classic. The reduced fat version haa a very reliable flavor, but that's about it. There's so much to be desired with these. I wish they had a little something more to them. I love these and I'm sad they came in fourth, but rankings are rankings.
3. Parmesan
These were great. The amount of powder on them was perfect. It was just enough to get a little bit on your fingers but not enough to get on anything else. I thought these were good, just a little too generic, for lack of a better word. I would not be able to eat these for more than a day or two.
2. Four Cheese
These had a strong flavor profile without overpowering anything else. They also had a good amount of the cheese powder on them, which made them a little bit messier than some of the other Cheez-It flavors. This flavor had the best aftertaste, by far. I would have no problem munching on these throughout the day. The only downside I found was that they could get boring if you eat them all the time.
1. Sharp Cheddar
If I had to describe them in one word, it'd be munch-alicious. The flavors here were present without being too strong, this was no average Cheez-It. The aftertaste was also pretty great, and the urge to drink a glass of water to eliminate the taste in my mouth was almost eliminated. After talking with my roommates about it, we decided that we could snack on these for days without getting bored of them. They might even become a regular grocery staple for us.
There you have it: the unofficial ranking of these popular Cheez-It flavors. Even with this new found information, it's still okay to walk shamelessly out of the grocery store with seven boxes (especially if they're on sale).