Trader Joe's Butter Spreads

Must be butter because we're on a roll.

Butter. What else can be said? Whether or not any of us really should, we all like butter in some way, shape or form. It's an essential ingredient, and makes almost anything taste better. I mean, dry toast? No thanks.

Flavored butter? Even better. So here we go with two new varieties, Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic & Herb Butter Spread, as well as Trader Joe's Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Butter Spread. One savory, one sweet. Life is good.

There's not much reinvention or novel interpretation here. It's butter...with stuff in it.

But man, both are good. Let's start with the roasted garlic and herb. There's a heavy hit of garlic right upfront, as one would expect, with both roasted and crushed garlic puree mixed right in. The overall creaminess mellows it out, though, and gives way to onion and basil and whatnot. That's really about it to the butter, but the applications, of course, are endless. It's garlicky enough to McGyver garlic bread if toasted with an appropriate loaf. Over noodles, rice, veggies, anything else...yup, that'd all work.

Much the same with the cinnamon sugar variety. "Cinnamon toast without the effort!" Sandy exclaimed. I'm...not really sure what effort she is referencing. Nonetheless, that's a great idea, although the idea of melting over some sweet potatoes is a pretty enticing idea. I'd say there seems to be more cinnamon than brown sugar, at least in the bites I've had, but the balance seems right. I mean, butter, sugar, cinnamon...there's no way this can be bad.

Both TJ's flavored butters are pretty decent, and for $2.49, not a bad price either. There's nothing too terribly extra special or "Trader Joe's-y" about them either, so I'm not going to rave too highly. Liking the ampersands in both product names, though - they seem to be making a comeback, and I fully support that effort. Fours all the way around for each.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic & Herbs Butter Spread, and Trader Joe's Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Butter Spread: 8 out of 10 each