As of mid-October there are no new pumpkin products in Trader Joe’s fall lineup. They’ve gone all-in on maple instead. Vaguely interesting! Maybe something pumpkin spicy is on its way, but I’m not mad about most of the new maple snacks, especially the brown-butter-coated almonds. They’re cozy, toasty, and in one case, cold-foamy. Also new this fall: lamb—and a lawsuit.
If you’re a Bon Appétit reader who’s been frustrated for the better part of a decade (a decade!) that you can never find ground lamb for Andy Baraghani’s no-notes perfect meatballs, the tides have shifted in the TJ’s meat case. The lawsuit? Has to do with TJ’s dupe of Uncrustables. More on that below, alongside nearly everything the cartoon grocery store introduced this fall, taste-tested and reviewed.
Maple-y
Maple Ice Cream Sandwiches
It’s a tongue-twisting challenge to lick the ice cream around the perimeter of these hard-edged, maple leaf-shaped cookies. That’s my preferred ice cream sandwich technique, but those who bite straight in (monsters) will suffer too: The ice cream will shoot out the sides because the cookies are too thick and sturdy. So while these are cute as a button, they’re structurally unsound. Taste like pancakes.
Maple Brown Butter Flavored Almonds
I love the soft, buttery coating of these almonds. The first notes are of a side stack of diner pancakes, while the aftertaste is warm, toasty coffee.
Salted Maple Cold Foam Creamer
This hits. The flavor is as cozy as salted caramel. I also appreciate the irony of telling ourselves that watered-down, flat whipped cream is the miracle of “cold foam.” It froths into your iced Earl Grey like a layer of Wuthering Heights–worthy fog, only to fizzle away in four minutes. But who’s counting?
Maple Spiced Nut Mix
Sticky and clumpy, with a matte gloss some spend thousands at Sephora trying to achieve. All you need is maple syrup! Slather it on, wait for salvation. The flecks of dried rosemary taste a bit past their prime, and the whole thing could use more salt. I finished the container, but won’t stockpile it.
Maple Butter Tarts
These baby tarts belong in the category of Trader Joe’s frozen foods I think of as “corporate passed apps.” The maple custard filling reminded me of a sadder version of my favorite Thanksgiving dessert, Sister Pie’s Salted Maple Pie, which you should 1000% make instead. But if you’re like, “No thanks, Beggs, I’ll do the frozen tarts,” at least give them a sprinkle of powdered sugar and salt before serving. Otherwise, they look like horse hooves.
Cheese Plate
Apizza Gouda Cheese
Inedible, with an almost rancid, stomach acid flavor. The tomato-oregano intensity wasn’t helped by an unsettling, rubbery texture. This felt as far away from cheese as those SpongeBob Krabby Patty gummies are to underwater hamburgers.
Buffalo Blue Unexpected Cheddar Cheese Spread
This cheese “spread” was suspiciously oozy. It has a marbled white-and-orange look, and while I expected the orange to bring the Buffalo heat, it wasn’t spicy as much as it was vaguely blue cheese funky. I put it out at a tailgate and everyone gave it a one-cracker try. No repeats.
Jack of All Flavors
Blegh. I never buy pre-sliced or shredded cheese because my mom used to make us shred pounds of block cheese while watching Oprah after school. It’s more flavorful, less dried out. These are four underwhelming flavors of Jack cheese—tomato olive, parsley chive, Monterey Jack, garlic basil—in gummy, rectangular hunks with dried-out edges.
Everything But the Pizza Spread
Frothy! This is whipped cream cheese tinged with a tomato paste mixture doing its best impression of pizza sauce. It’s more balanced than some of TJ’s more traumatic pizza-flavored products (Apizza Gouda, never again) and would be fun to eat with pretzel twists if, say, you’re in college.
Brie Cheese Flavored Spread
This is a tub of watered-down and blended cheese for everyone who hollows out a wedge of Brie because they don’t like to eat the rind—even though it’s totally edible. But I get it. That rind is rustic. Still, I’m not gonna swap it for this diet version that TJ’s says is perfect for spreading in a baguette. You know what else spreads well in a baguette? Brie!
Mimolette
Couldn’t resist this wide wedge of hard, orange cow’s milk cheese from France. It adds autumnal color to your cheese plate, but it’s not going to be the talk of the party (your divorce is!). It doesn’t pack as much of an aged punch as other cheeses in the cooler.
Summer Sausage
It comes from Wisconsin, so I immediately trust this with my whole heart. In the snug plastic sleeve, you can see tiny bubbles of something juicy trapped inside. The smoked tubed beef is practically dripping with what I hope is its own fat. It tastes retro and comforting. Serve with a frumpy cheese ball and learn how to play bridge to really hit it home.
Spicy & Sweet Creamy Pepper Dip
Too sweet. They were almost onto something amazing with this Neufchâtel cheese-based roasted pepper dip, but went overboard, adding too much of a good thing.
Gluten Free Cranberry Raisin Toasts
These are a cheese plate filler for the gluten-free folks, but the rest of us should pass. They’re crispy but bland, with sticky potholes of dried fruit you have to work your teeth out of.
Pasta Party
3 Cheese Spinach & Artichoke Pasta
I don’t think this microwaved spinach-artichoke pasta would pass the inspection for Delta’s onboard dining menu. There are hardened cubes of what are supposedly artichoke hearts, but I assumed were toddler teeth the Tooth Fairy sold on discount to TJ’s.
3 Cheese Pasta With Eggplant
As a seasoned hater of all Trader Joe’s frozen pastas, I broke my streak here. It’s pretty good! There’s an intriguing smokiness to the eggplant, a surprising depth. I won’t buy it again, but it’s one of the best frozen pastas in the case.
Goat Cheese & Caramelized Onion Ravioli
These almost remind me more of pierogies than ravioli, and what a blessing that is. While they boil, make brown butter to toss them in and call it lunch. A great new addition.
Organic Black Pepper Barilotti Pasta
Black pepper gives this pasta a goth look, but the flavor it adds isn’t nearly as punchy. Instead, you’re here for the scroll-shaped noodles that catch meaty sauces in their folds and make for chewy mouthfuls.
Organic Square Rigatoni Pasta
I saw so many shoppers add this to their carts, and I couldn’t figure out why. Is the novelty of a square noodle that exciting? Like you’re eating Jenga pieces? Other than that, it’s normal pasta.
Salty Snacks
Hot Honey Popcorn
Slow heat! This is yellow, dry, glazy kettle corn with a kick. It needed more salt. You get the heat only after you’ve shoved half the bag in your face. I demolished it, which made my stomach violently gurgle, so I can’t buy it again. Maybe you’re built differently.
Buffalo Ranch Popcorn
This flavor concept is a beautiful fantasy and repulsive reality. The dehydrated dairy and hot sauce combination yields a flavor I can only describe as sports bar heartburn. Sorry! This popcorn is gross.
Ketchup Lattice Chips
Loved these, and I’m not even Canadian. The chips have a webbed lattice structure that’s sturdy and airy, with a sweet flavor dust that reminds me of barbecue chips without the smoke.
Rosemary & Sea Salt Potato Chips
Classy concept, but the rosemary tasted stale or rancid; there’s a bitter note that deters you from another handful. Not that I stopped eating them, I just wanted to and couldn’t.
Sweet Snacks
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches
The snack and the lawsuit we’ve been waiting for. Finally, Trader Joe’s duped Smucker’s Uncrustables, which duped the American public. The TJ’s version is a dollar cheaper and just as satisfying, with gummy white bread, sticky peanut butter, and excess jelly trying to escape the clamped, crustless round edges. Smuckers recently claimed the product is too similar, though, like every other generic rip-off, I wonder if they have much of a chance in court. But I’m glad they’re keeping the petty spirit of capitalism alive!
Carnival Fun Cake Fries
!!! Carnival food! My favorite cuisine. These are basically sweet french fries. As they air fry or bake, your home will fill with the rapturous perfume of fry oil and carny sweat. But get this: You have to BYO powdered sugar. Arguably, a main ingredient in funnel cake. What a crock! Be careful not to overcook the fries or they’ll be tough and chewy, like funnel cake jerky. I poured them into a shallow bowl, dusted with powdered sugar, and placed them in the center of the table for people to reach in and grab like the cigs at Mary-Kate Olsen’s 2015 wedding. Huge hit.
Japanese Mini Taiyaki
Lotta hype for these. They didn’t disappoint. The fried fish-shaped exterior of this classic Japanese street snack gets nicely crisp and donutty in the air fryer, while the mellow custard filling oozes in slow motion. The texture contrast is divine.
Cookies ’N Cream Ice Cream Sandwiches
If you’re willing to eat Joe-Joe’s instead of Oreos, you’ll love these ice cream sandwiches with softened chocolate cookies hugging cookies ’n cream ice cream. I can always taste that something’s-a-lil-off flavor that I believe is invert sugar (a sort of liquid sugar) instead of corn syrup. It has this cooling note. My partner loved ’em despite this minor flaw. His only review was “It’s kind of bullshit there are only four to a box.” We can’t all be professional reviewers.
Vanilla Non-Dairy Ice Cream
They used to have a soy-based non-dairy ice cream, but she’s been 86’d. Now we’ve got a coconut-milk-based vanilla ice cream that’s lusciously creamy. Nice vanilla bean flecks and round, fatty flavor with only the subtlest hint of coconut.
Freeze Dried Strawberry Pieces Covered in Strawberry Yogurt Candy Coating
Love. These are so much better than a yogurt-covered raisin because you get an astronaut ice-cream-like strawberry speck inside—what a prize! These would be perfect for the movies (as a Raisinette alt) or road trip, because your fingers stay clean. See? I’m lookin’ out.
Furikake Snack Mix
The ratio of this snack mix was off to me, but it showed promise. There were too many of the bulky, sweet styrofoam mochi waffle crisps and not enough seaweed/salty furikake, and the errant corn chips (faux-Fritos) and wasabi peas were in tragic shortage. How about just some furikake popcorn instead?
Mini Cinnamon Sugar Cookies
Hardened snickerdoodles.
Chocolate Vanilla Creme Joe-Joe’s
A four-cookie bag of the classic not-Oreos for lunch boxes and hangry shoppers. That’ll do in a pinch.
Hot Honey Fudge
Ick. The earthy flavor of honey and shadowy lurk of spice is not what I’m craving in a fudge, so I’m not the target audience here. Are you? The texture is nice—a smooth, teeth-scraping paste. But I couldn’t even finish a teeny square.
Novelty Drinks
Tropical Smoothie Blend
If you’ve ever wished your smoothie were a piña colada, this is your moment. Normally, I say it’s a scam to buy frozen smoothie mixes when you can freeze fresh fruit for cheaper, but I don’t have the energy to chop and combine the tropical variety here: mango, pineapple, banana, coconut cream pieces, and some passion fruit purée business. It’s so good, my only complaint is that the bag is too small. It makes like 2.5 smoothies.
Jeju Matcha Latte
Pretty damn sweet. I couldn’t finish my mug of this instant latte made with matcha from Jeju Island, South Korea, though it’s buried under the larger ratio of milk and sugar. The powder mixes well without a matcha whisk—I’d take it on the road if I ever left the house.
Chocolate Whipped Light Cream
This is chocolate-flavored skim milk whipped cream that has the wrinkly, crinkled look of post-bath raisined fingers. It tasted pasty and deprived of something important I couldn’t quite put my raisined finger on. Ah yes. Fat.
Tangerine Vanilla Sparkling Water
Creamsicle…flavored…water? Guzzled the stuff.
Almost Meals
Protein Pancakes
I shudder to think of the person who asked for these to exist. Biceps quivering. Traps tingling. Judgment clouded by the mania of macros. Hope you’re happy with these four flabby, thin patties of cottage cheese bound by tapioca starch, oat flour, and some other gums. Is that a pancake to you? Coated in maple syrup, they slither down your throat. No chew, no fluff, no pleasure.
Chicken Caesar Wrap
The Chicken Caesar Wrap might be trendy, but the filling is skimpy. The thick, grainy-with-Parm Caesar dressing almost makes up for it. But you’ll get more bang for your buck at the restaurant owned by James Jonathan, known to his friends as Jimmy John.
Uncured Pepperoni Pizza
Do NOT follow the instructions to put the pizza directly on your oven rack. The fluffy-crusted, better-than-usual frozen pizza crust is loaded with cheese that weighs down in the center, breaking and melting all over the floor of my oven. Can’t wait to never clean that! (Bake it on a pre-heated sheet tray.) I prefer Motor City Pizza Co.’s frozen Detroit-style pies by a mozzarella-laden landslide. They’re amazing and no one is talking about this.
Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes
This is a premade version of the old-school Thanksgiving mashed sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows (these aren’t). Not for me. The speckled orange mush—at least it’s light and fluffy—needs an extra pat of butter and tons of flaky salt to counter the nutmeg-tinged sweetness.
Norwegian Smoked Salmon
This smoked salmon is thicker-cut than I’d prefer, but it’s mild and flavorful (barely smoky), and comes in thin strips you can drape over bagels or slip right into your mouth.
Ground Lamb & Shaved Lamb Shoulder
Trader Joe’s carries lamb now! I can’t even get it at my giant supermarket. I used the ground lamb to make Claire Saffitz’s sleeper hit stuffed eggplant, and fried up the shaved lamb shoulder to top nachos.
Cherry Pistachio Pecan Granola
Someone smart at TJ’s ripped off the famous Eleven Madison Park granola, but skimped on the pricey pecans and pistachios. Make it at home to get the nut ratio you deserve.
Condiments, Pantry, and Baking Supplies
Fried Shallots & Crispy Garlic
The shallots are fried a beat too far and have a note of burnt oil, but the garlic is spot-on. Crunchy and punchy. I sprinkle ’em on salads, rice, whatever. They’re best fresh out of the container, but I wouldn’t keep them around for too long after that—they begin to soften and take on a musty taste.
Salsa Macha
Tragic. There’s almost no heat in this jar of a mostly sesame-seed-based salsa macha (with sunflower seeds and pepitas). The muted pequin peppers are drowned by musty garlic powder. What a bummer. Make your own salsa macha for happier results.
All Occasion Sprinkle
There are cute little flowers in there, hearts, Easter-egg-looking ovals, but mostly dots in the subdued color palette of safe food dyes. Can’t wait to see these on your low-sugar, high-fiber kids’ birthday cakes.
Vanilla Sugar
This sugar is intense. The vanilla is so strong it almost tastes artificial. You could roll snickerdoodles in it, but I’d still want to add cinnamon. You could sprinkle it on top of cappuccinos or mix it into a smoothie to mask the aftertaste of protein powder from a giant bag you regret buying. Or…use it in other ways.