During the smoke wave and explosive diarrhea epidemic, the bagged salads at Trader Joe’s were plentifully stocked. No one touching. Then I overheard an employee tell another staffer, “Thanks so much for taking care of that skunk this morning.” I wonder what that was all about. Instead, I minded my own business, filling my cart with everything new this summer, which included a guava-heavy offering, lots of cookies and sweets, and not too many dinner options other than a great Detroit-style frozen pizza. Let’s open some plastic bags.
Frozen Finds
Yep, they’re fantastic. Not what I expected, however. I thought there would be a gem of cookie dough in the center, surrounded by ice cream and coated in chocolate. Instead, the coating is a flattened soft sheet of brown cookie dough and inside is vanilla ice cream. I love swinging by the freezer to pop one of these after lunch and think about where my life is headed.
There are two new tropical fruit ice pops for those who like highly acidic fruits. The pineapple is refreshing but boring (couldn’t detect the coconut). You’d be better off buying…
Bright and juicy. Reminds me of how my dad likes to put lime ice pops in his margaritas as a garnish. These would be great for that.
Oh my heavens. The sight of a dough puffing, cheese oozing out its side, becoming browned and crispy…who cannot be swayed? These Turkish stuffed flatbreads crisp up in 10 minutes on the stove. The three cheeses inside are milky and bland, so you need a little something to oomph them up. Pepper jelly does the trick. Joe also recommends tzatziki.
These croissants—nothing like a Hot Pocket—puff up nicely, but never quite get the bakery-level flaky you want. And the scant ham and cheese inside slump around like they’ve got better places to be. Don’t we all!
Is this my beloved Motor City Pizza Co. frozen pizza? I didn’t do a side-by-side test, but they both come in ingenious baking trays and have squishy bases. (For an even crispier crust, you could transfer it to a LloydPan, IYKYK.) I love frozen Detroit-style pizza because, unlike thin crust, it doesn’t turn to cardboard as easily. Great cheese-to-pepperoni ratio too. I served it with Buffalo ranch (homemade ranch plus the Buffalo Sauce, reviewed below) and it was, as the kids say, cinema.
Wonderfully crispy after six-ish minutes in a skillet. Love. For some reason, a serving size is three; it should be at least three times bigger. You have to DIY a dipping sauce, and I’d also recommend a scattering of sliced scallions if they aren’t harbingers of parasites at the moment. I dipped in soy sauce, but a 50-50 mix of soy and vinegar would be better for some acidity; add sesame oil too, if ya got it, or doenjang for some nutty umami.
Pantry Flourishes
If you like honey mustard, you’ll like this hot honey mustard, which delivers only a passing whiff of “hot.” Very demure but would be nice on TJ’s turkey corn dogs, a personal favorite.
If you want more heat, I am really into this Buffalo sauce, which has an uncanny resemblance to Primal Kitchen’s version, which I used to have to hunt down at the one supermarket in town that sold it. I douse it on egg sandwiches. It’s also fantastic mixed with ranch dressing. And never forget: Claire Saffitz’s Buffalo Wing Popcorn.
This coconut-flavored cold brew is what happens when artificial flavors cover up bad coffee—big blegh. You deserve better.
A concentrate, so you dilute it with water for a sweeeeet, peachy iced tea that reminds me of drinking tallboys of Arizona when I was young and carefree with $1.25 in my pocket and nothin’ to lose.
Flabby li’l bacon bits to add to your salad, egg tacos, etc. Not worth it.
Graza, that u? Or the millionth copycat in the squeeze bottle boom. Whatever, I’m buying it. You can’t beat the convenience, and it’s perfect for everyday cooking when budgets are budgets.
TJ’s doesn’t sell rotisserie chickens, and then this guy shows up. You’re paying a premium for a machine or stranger’s gloved hands to do the shredding for you, but sometimes that convenience is worth it. It’s all breast, some bits are drier and tougher than others, with that savory rotisserie je ne sais quois. Toss on salads, into wraps smothered with Buffalo sauce (above), but come on, you know what to do with rotisserie chicken.
Similar to how I feel about cheddar cheese for shredding, queso fresco just needs to be on the shelf to get the job done. It’s salty and crumbly, and I’m glad it’s here because it’s hard enough to find in our Euro-centric cheese aisles. Now I can crumble it generously over my enfrijoladas and chilaquiles.
Salty Snacks and Dips
Not vinegary enough, with a synthetic flavor and subtle sweetness. Something went wrong here.
Sleeper hit! Obsessed. These thin, wavy tempeh chips—made from fermented black-eyed peas—look like terrazzo flooring and have a sweet-spicy flavor coating that activates my Doritos Spicy Sweet Chili receptors. The only problem is the bag is too small.
Grocery store sushi is an art form in which we take one of the world’s freshest foods and test the limits of its shelf life. Mostly it’s terrible, but we want it so badly it doesn’t matter. The new and improved California rolls at Trader Joe’s (alongside a spicy salmon roll) have solved the problem of dried-out rice. The rice is mixed with canola oil so it stays plump and a little sticky. Highly decent.
Two words: pasta salad. This tapenade is mostly shredded Parmesan bound with oil and dotted with green olives with a subtle kick from jalapeño. It’s great. I ate it spread on toast topped with tomatoes, but it belongs on wiggly cavatappi or a Big Ass Beach Hoagie.
As someone of Tex-Mex descent, I have to be wary, but also: All queso is special in its own way. This one ain’t bad! It’s perfectly creamy-melty, but good lord, there are so many ingredients in this tub. Who invited tomato paste? Remember you can make great queso at home in the microwave with a fat square of Velveeta, a splash of milk, and a chopped jalapeño or scoop of chipotles in adobo sauce. Doesn’t have to be that hard. Pair with the Fritos scoops at TJ’s called “Corn Chip Dippers.”
Cookie Corner
These are individually wrapped, shortbread-type baby tarts with a layer of pink guava curd in the center, which tastes like Trader Joe’s guava “fruit spread.” The curd is tart and sweet, but didn’t tempt me to go back. Better than eating air, but by how much?
Right out of the box, these Creamisicle-adjacent cookies have a stale texture, which I think is due to the hardened yogurt chips. Trader Joe’s recommends crumbling them atop ice cream, as if the ice cream can help.
I like these! Are they white-labeled Tate’s? We’ll never know unless someone breaks their NDA and DMs me with the state secrets. Always an option. These cookies are made with real butter and so crispy that not a single container in the store had an intact cookie on top of the stack. There’s just enough white chocolate to make you think you might like white chocolate.
Baked Goods
The batter turns bright pink when you mix in the milk/egg/oil, like Barbie Dream House cooking. It has a pungent, Froot Loop-y aroma, and the topping is stale corn flakes with crystallized dehydrated strawberries. They taste like pretend food. I tossed them in the compost bin to return to the soil from whence they came.
A promising concept: Cookies filled with broken bits of Trader Joe’s faux-reos and white chocolate chips. But the first step is to…get out a stand mixer and whip butter? Um, hello, you are a boxed mix! It should be easier than that!
I assumed “brioche” meant these waffles and pancakes would be rich with butter. Instead, it’s oil. Pas très chic!
A strawberry-flavored version of the beloved regular brioche waffles that I lost my mind over last year. Put them in the toaster to revive the crisp exterior and fluffy interior, otherwise they have the texture of a cake doughnut that got sweaty in the backseat of your car. Add peanut butter and you have an energizing breakfast before a long swim or bike ride.
A Rice Krispies Treat by any other name does not sound as sweet when it’s made with tapioca syrup, which has an earthy undertone. I’ll let the kiddos have these. If you need me, I’ll be making Shilpa’s PB & brown butter treats instead.
Someone DM’ed me about these flatbreads because they were so excited they exist. I was excited too! I love potato products. Potato flakes make the flatbread bendy and soft, great for wraps—but like any packaged bread, I get a tangy whiff of plastic and preservatives.
Straight-Up Candy
Another reason Trader Joe’s has such a cult following is because it delivers some Willy Wonka–esque treats that feel like a nice distraction from the fact that our planet has turned into the smoking section of Bennigan’s circa 1994. Hey, look! It’s an almond enrobed in chocolate with vanilla flavor that kinda tastes like ice cream with a maraschino cherry. Let it take you for a ride.
This is a hefty milk chocolate bar with crunchy shards of almonds and honey “nuggets” (cornstarch-bound honey candy). It was too sweet for me to enjoy as is, but perhaps you can soldier through. I’m going to chop it up to put in chocolate chip cookies.
There is a bounty of passion fruit at Trader Joe’s this summer, which means someone with a cushy white-collar job read a report predicting passion fruit as a trending flavor and months of scheming went by and behold: “thin cups.” They’re like shrunken Reese’s, but with a tropical fruit filling—a combination, it turns out, I cannot stand. If you like chocolate oranges, you might be into these.
Yum. Each is a one-inch square of mango and passion fruit fruit leather. Sticky, tart, and not too sweet. Perfect emergency snack for a hike, bento box lunch, or voting line.
Soft gummies with a citric acid coating. Not as sour as the mushrooms in spring, sadly, and where did those go? Skip.
It starts off sweet and fluffy, then finishes with a potent puckering sourness that will make you squeal with happiness, if you like a little pain with your pleasures.