Cheez-It Crackers Extra Toasty

Cheez-It Crackers Extra Toasty BoxIf you’re reading this, you’re probably in one of two camps right now: you’re either saying to yourself, “Fuck yeah, Extra Toasty Cheez-Its! Finally, my dreams have come true!”

Or you’re saying, “What the fuck are Extra Toasty Cheez-Its?”

I was in the latter camp until I read this article. Apparently, there’s a whole group of people out there who absolutely shit themselves whenever they find a slightly over-baked Cheez-It in their box of regular Cheez-Its.

And because we live in the age of the Internet, these people have been, I assume, emailing, signing online petitions, and generally hassling the crap out of Sunshine to turn these into their own flavor.

Well, congratulations weirdos, you win! Before now, I personally have given zero thought to these particular Cheez-Its. I knew they existed, but not consciously. I ate my Cheez-Its, one would occasionally have a brown edge, I would eat it also and move on with my life, completely unaware that I had just consumed someone’s wet dream.

Ew. Sorry about that.

Cheez-It Crackers Extra Toasty Box Back

Cheez-It loves to anthropomorphize all of their flavors, and it looks like Extra Toasty is doing a PSA about the dangers of both sunbathing and not wearing sunscreen. Your skin is your body’s largest organ, people. Take care of it!

Cheez-It Crackers Extra Toasty

The smell upon opening the box was…actually, there’s no flowery way to put it. They smelled like burned cheese crackers. I have no other way to describe them. And they looked appropriately toasty – every cracker had that brown tinge to it.

Cheez-It Crackers Extra Toasty Comparison

Here’s a comparison with a regular Cheez-It, because I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a box of Cheez-Its in my house. It’s just kind of how we operate. Here you can see the toastiness up-close.

As for the taste, the smell kind of says it all. They taste like Cheez-Its that were left in the oven, or on the conveyor belt, or however they make Cheez-Its, for too long. It’s a cheesy cracker with a burnt aftertaste.

It’s not so burnt that it’s straight-up gross, but the flavor is definitely there. Just a hint of overdone. Just a little too long in the sun.

Which is the whole selling point of Extra Toasty Cheez-Its, and also happens to be my main problem. I prefer my cheesy, salty squares with sunscreen, thank you. (Note to Sunshine: please don’t make coconut-flavored Cheez-Its.) I mean, these must be appealing to quite a few people, as it was, apparently, their #1 requested flavor. But to me, they just tasted like a box of mistakes. Not so much that I didn’t finish the box, but I’ll stick with my Originals. I guess I’m just a square.

Cheez-It Crackers Extra Toasty

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 peeling sunburns
  • Price: $2.79
  • Size: 12.4 oz. box
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirk: There’s a lack of quirks here. I was hoping for a “Gotcha!” journalism moment, but Extra Toasty’s nutritional information is completely identical to Original Cheez-Its.

7 thoughts on “Cheez-It Crackers Extra Toasty”

  1. My bad, I totally thought Sunshine was owned by Nabisco for some reason. Turns out Nabisco makes Cheese Nips, and we won’t even get into that.

    Post edited!

  2. @Kelley: “Consumed someone’s wet dream”. That is the best thing ever typed. I.am.dead (from extreme hilarity)! Thank you so much for that. I love your blog.

  3. “Extra Toasty” Cheez-it crackers are a complete fraud – a bogus marketing ploy. Approximately 1 out of 4 boxes (if you hit the right shipment) might contain some extra toasty ones as advertised. Most ALL boxes are simply regular Cheez-it crackers fraudulently labeled as extra toasty. I suspect they are simply seconds. A “good” box that has some visible extra toasty crackers might MIGHT have a handlfull – maybe 25 crackers out of HUNDREDS – if you are lucky – that are dark, blackened or “extra toasty”. 95-98% of the content of the boxes are neither extra toastyn or any more crisp than regular cheez-its. Typically when I was purchasing them I would dump out for the birds 4 out of 5 boxes because they are simply not what they purport to be. They’re regular Cheez-its. I don’t know how they get away with this marketing fraud.

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