Some of you are going to look at the 7/10 score at the bottom of this review and be like "I can't believe Nathan and Sonia actually liked these cookies" and others of you are going to be like "Seven out of ten?? These are at least an eleven on a scale of one to ten!" To be fair, we've reviewed over a hundred different kinds of Trader Joe's brand cookies over the past 15 years, the vast majority of which have been crispy, crunchy cookies. So it takes something extra special to get an extra special score on this blog.
So you're saying Trader Joe's Sleigh Ride Cookies aren't extra special, Nathan? Huh? Is that what you're saying?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Unless you absolutely love rock hard, rigid cookies and were pining for ones with bits of smashed up Peppermint Joe-Joe's and candy cane pieces baked into them...in which case, I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that you'll think these cookies are extra special. I wouldn't have asked for such a cookie in a million years. But if Trader Joe's sells it, you bet we're gonna try it.
On the plus side, these cookies are pretty good when dunked in coffee or hot chocolate. They're sweet and minty, crunchy, chocolatey, and you get a lot of cookies for four bucks. Fun packaging design, too.
Negatives? They're too hard, there's too much peppermint, and the overall flavor just isn't that memorable in my opinion. Sonia agrees.
Me? If you want a recommendation for extra special crunchy cookies, there's always the Italian Amaretti Cookies. Oh wait. Trader Joe's didn't bring those back this year. Bah humbug. If you want a rec for peppermint cookies, Sonia and I were both pleasantly surprised with this year's Peppermint Brookie. Hopefully some of those are still around.
So yeah. Four bucks for about 16 cookies. Kosher. Shelf stable for a good six or seven months. I wouldn't buy again. Sonia thinks they'd be nice to take to a party. I guess. Seven out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey and me for Trader Joe's Sleigh Ride Cookies.
Ten bucks gets you ten miniature puff pastries here. Obviously there's some French culinary influence but they are not imported, in case you were wondering. That's a steep price tag in my humble opinion, so let's take a look and find out if they're worth it.
They come frozen, of course. 400°F for 25 minutes will have them piping hot and golden brown on the outside. They smell pretty decent but not particularly pungent.
What's working: the delicious buttery, flaky pastry puff breading outer shell. It's similar to the crust on countless other hors d'oeuvres we've tasted from Trader Joe's throughout the years—the Mini Brie en Croute comes to mind in particular. The overall flavor including beef, mushrooms, garlic, green onions, and salt is complex and savory. Tastes like something a legit Parisian chef might come up with.
What's not working: there's not enough filet mignon, and what little is there is unpleasantly chewy. When I see the words "filet mignon," I'm expecting something tender and soft that will melt in my mouth like butter. Even if they'd have simply called this "beef en croute," I'd have been somewhat disappointed. To call it filet mignon seems downright deceptive.
Sonia isn't as critical of the texture as I am. She's also a bit more fond of the overall flavor. She does agree that Trader Joe's Mini Filet Mignon en Croute contains a very small amount of food for ten dollars, however, and wouldn't be particularly keen to purchase it again simply for the two of us. She would, on the other hand, consider buying it to take to a large holiday party for the benefit (or detriment) of many others.
There are many other appetizers at Trader Joe's that are just as tasty as this one with a better texture and cost less money. I wouldn't buy it again. I give Trader Joe's Mini Filet Mignon en Croute six out of ten stars. Seven and a half out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey.
It has been absolutely frigid here lately. I guess it's another "arctic blast." Fun. Have already done some snow shoveling with the beautiful wifey this year. It's always nice to duck in out of the cold, sit down by the fire, and warm up with a nice big bowl of ice cream, don't you think?
And not just any ice cream—it's Trader Joe's English Toffee Ice Cream. Finally, an English toffee product I can get behind. It's got a brown butter ice cream base, small toffee pieces covered in chocolate, almond bits, and a caramel-esque swirl. It's extremely buttery, sweet, rich, and indulgent.
Sonia and I are both happy it has a yummy toffee flavor without massive jawbreaking slabs of hard candy. It's mostly smooth, but the nuts and toffee pieces keep it interesting. It's got whispers of chocolate, but not much more than that.
We polished off the whole thing in a single day. It's one of the better holiday ice creams we've seen from Trader Joe's. English toffee is far from my go-to flavor, but it's seasonally-appropriate and this offering didn't disappoint.
$3.79 for the pint. Kosher. Would buy again next year. Eight out of ten stars from both Sonia and me for Trader Joe's English Toffee Ice Cream.
Numerous readers have noted that these Trader Joe's refrigerated pastas and raviolis are "too much for one person" yet not enough for two or more. I concur. Although, if you're serving them with sides, they're just about adequate for a couple.
The "servings per container" is officially 2.5 or 3 on most of these products. It's three in this case, although I really don't think it's realistic at all that three adults could share this one package for dinner without copious quantities of sides, toppings, and/or fillers. If we're talking light lunch, then pairing this entire package with a decent salad would probably suffice for two normal folks.
But odd serving sizes aside, this is a decent product. We like the festive red and green colors, courtesy of all-natural tomato and spinach powders. We like the generous amount of ricotta cheese, and we both like the seasonings and pesto flavors involved. We've got basil, parmesan, and even nutmeg in the mix.
We boiled the pasta for six minutes or so. Traderjoes.com recommends serving it with their Rosatella Sauce, but we were unable to obtain that on our last TJ's run. Alternatively, you can serve it with olive oil and grated cheese. We went with avocado oil and parmesan. Honestly, these would probably even do just fine with a traditional marinara pasta sauce.
We polished off the package in a single sitting, devouring the majority of it during the recording of our eight and a half minute video review. We decided that it must be a pasta optimized for Festivus, the fictional winter holiday made famous on Seinfeld. It's probably just the Italian way to say "festive," but I can't think of anything more appropriate for dinner on December 23rd than Trader Joe's Pasta Festiva.
$3.99 for the 9 oz package, found in the refrigerated section. Sonia would buy again and I wouldn't stop her. Eight out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey. I'll go with seven out of ten stars for Trader Joe's Pasta Festiva.
I think the classic Brookie from Trader Joe's was just an instance of getting my hopes up too high before trying a product. I thought the Peanut Butter Brookie was a step in the right direction, and I like this one even more still. But this might just be a case of not having my hopes up particularly high.
Sonia and I are both wary of peppermint desserts. The peppermint can easily overpower the other flavors and ruin a perfectly good treat. Also, the presence of candy canes or candy cane pieces can dampen my enjoyment of a product. Biting right into hard candy isn't an undertaking I'm actively seeking out these days.
Fortunately, the peppermint in this product adds to it rather than detracting from it. It's a sort of sparkly peppermint dust scattered across the top of the brookie—no big rock-hard candy canes. It's peppermint forward, but there's plenty of chocolate brownie and sweet bready cookie in the mix along with it.
The cookie and brownie are nice and soft. We found nuking the dessert for 8-10 seconds made it even softer. Heating it woke up the flavors even more and made it seem creamier, gooier, and even more indulgent.
We like the serving size. We like the texture and flavor. We like the value. This product would stack up pretty well against any traditional grocery store holiday dessert fare. Sonia and I are both pleasantly surprised with Trader Joe's Peppermint Brookie.
$4.99 for eight brookie squares. Kosher. Found with the baked goods. We would buy it again. You'll most likely have a few days from when you purchase it until the "best by" date. Eight and a half out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey. I'll throw out seven and a half stars for Trader Joe's Peppermint Brookie.
The obvious product to compare these happy frozen dessert treats with is Trader Joe's Maple Leaf Ice Cream Sandwiches. We enjoyed those quite a bit. Judging by appearances, they're coming from the same third party supplier up in the Great White North straight to your friendly neighborhood TJ's grocery store.
Like the maple leafs, Trader Joe's Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches come in a fun shape, although the beautiful wifey points out that the leaves were slightly more intricate and aesthetically pleasing. As you might have guessed, the cookie part of these sandwiches is indeed gingerbread flavored. The ice cream, on the other hand, is vanilla bean. I guess they were going for a balance of gingerbread spices with creaminess. It's not like Trader Joe's can't do gingerbread ice cream.
The overall effect is nice. The vanilla sweetness is offset by mildly-spiced ginger cookies. There is a hint of grittiness in the cookies. They're not 100% smooth. However, like their predecessors, they are nice and soft. I think crispy, crunchy cookies might have killed the mood with this product.
$3.99 for four ice cream sandwiches. Product of Canada. Kosher. Would buy again. In the end, we liked these for sure but maybe just a tad less than we liked the maple leaf sandwiches. Eight out of ten stars from me for Trader Joe's Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches. Sonia will throw out eight and a half—just a half star less than what we gave to the leaf sandwiches from each of us.
Apparently there's another viral sensation going around involving lasagna soup. There are myriad variations on the particular ingredients used—some are high-protein, some are optimized for the crock pot, and others have lots of greens and veggies. This offering from Trader Joe's is pretty much ready to go if you're not into the whole DIY thing. It can be heated in the microwave or on the stove top.
It's got a fair amount of lasagna pasta. They're not big sheets. They're more like "bits" with an occasional "chunk" of wavy Mafalda macaroni. There's ground turkey, as well. Most of the turkey appears as little meat crumbles with a few larger wads floating around in the soup. It's all suspended in a thick, tomato-based broth with Asiago cheese and traditional Italian spices including onions, garlic, basil, oregano, fennel, salt, and black pepper.
It's a nice hearty overall flavor. Sonia and I are both fans. We finished the whole 2.5 serving tub in one sitting. We love that TJ's chose turkey meat. Perhaps it's fate that we're putting this review up right after Turkey Day.
Complaints? Sonia wants more pasta. I want veggies like diced tomato, spinach, kale, and bigger onion chunks. We think it would be better with turkey meatballs instead of ground turkey. But we're nitpicking. We always nitpick.
Five bucks for the 20 oz tub found in the refrigerated section. Would buy again. Eight and a half stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's Lasagna Soup with Turkey. I'll throw out eight out of ten stars.
Of all the many things you might find at a Thanksgiving Dinner spread, I think I like stuffing most of all. I mean, ideally, you're never really eating stuffing all by itself. You're gonna have turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce to go with it. But I mean, if I had to pick just one item from Turkey Day that's my favorite, it's stuffing. I am a carbivore, after all.
There's a cornbread stuffing mix that you make yourself. We like that one. Also, there used to be a cornbread stuffing that came pre-mixed with chicken sausage in it. That one was so-so, but I don't think it's available this year anyway. Trader Joe's even sells stuffing-flavored potato chips. Those things are awesome. And we did a short video review of their stuffing-flavored popcorn. Sonia and I enjoy that product a lot, too.
Right now, we're focusing in on Trader Joe's Cornbread Stuffing with Roasted Apples, Dried Cranberries, and Savory Herbs. This might be my favorite Trader Joe's actual stuffing product. The popcorn and potato chips got the highest scores on our blog, but if we're talking actual breading/dressing/filling/stuffing then I think this is the best one we've seen from TJ's.
It's very moist and slightly sweet. It's salty and savory, but the apples and cranberries add a nice fruity taste to the breads, herbs, and spices. It's soft and fluffy. We heated ours in the oven right in the tray that it comes in, and it came out great. I'm told it winds up a bit soggy when prepared in the microwave.
$5.99 for the 17 oz container, found in the refrigerated section. Would buy again. Sonia didn't grow up eating pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce, but she did grow up with turkey and stuffing, and she likes this product as well. We'll probably have this again for Christmas Dinner. We'll both go with eight out of ten stars for Trader Joe's Cornbread Stuffing with Roasted Apples, Dried Cranberries, and Savory Herbs.
Can you believe it's Thanksgiving week already? Man, 2025 has absolutely flown by. It's a great time to remind yourself that no matter what you're going through, no matter how hard things have been, even if things in the world don't look the way you want them to, there is ALWAYS something for which to be thankful.
I could wax poetic about the holiday ad infinitum and name all the things I'm grateful for, but this here is a food review, so let's get to it. We're looking at Trader Joe's Cranberry Sauce. I'll give you the TL;DR up front: I LOVE the taste, and I'm not a huge fan of the texture.
$3.29 gets you a 12 oz glass jar of sauce made with nothing but cranberries, sugar, water, and pectin. That's it. That's the entire ingredients list. Love it. It's very sweet, very tart, and is absolutely bursting with real cranberry flavor.
Unfortunately, the cranberry skins are left intact to the point that certain bites are somewhat chewy. There's a grittiness to the texture, too. Although I grew up with the ultra-smooth Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce at most of my Thanksgivings, I don't mind a bit of fruit pieces floating around in the condiment, but this is too far in the opposite direction.
I really love the taste as well as the texture of Trader Joe's Cranberry Orange Relish. It's got like a...well, like it's a similar texture as pickle relish but obviously not the same taste. That's still my favorite "cranberry sauce" from Trader Joe's and gets my full endorsement as a Thanksgiving Day fare recommendation. This offering is just a tad too chunky for my preference. If it were pureed a bit more, I think it would be great. Some folks will love the "au naturel" style sauce complete with cranberry skins, seeds, etc. Others won't.
I like this better than Trader Joe's Cranberry Ginger Chutney which has too much vinegar flavor for both Sonia and me. We both love Indian food and enjoy the vast majority of chutneys, but that sauce was a thumbs down for us. And of course, if you're looking for something similar to this shelf-stable product but refrigerated and more recently produced, there's always Trader Joe's Fresh Cranberry Sauce which comes in a tub rather than a glass jar.
We'll be having the cranberry orange relish again this year for Turkey Day. This one will be great for some folks and just okay for others. Watch our video review for more thoughts and commentary. Seven and a half out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey for Trader Joe's Cranberry Sauce. I'll go with an even seven.
"Salsa macha" is another delightful condiment from our neighbors to the south. It's spicy, nutty, garlicky, and in this case at least, it's quite oily. My mother-in-law (mi suegra) is quite familiar with the sauce, and she's a big fan of this offering from Trader Joe's. We actually decided to pick it up thanks to her recommendation.
From what I've gathered, there are many iterations and varieties of salsa macha—some with peanuts, some with seeds, some with chili peppers, some with vinegar. Most are at least a tad spicy and most have some amount of garlic. Although "macha" is pronounced just like "matcha," as in green tea leaves, to the best of my knowledge nobody puts matcha in their macha.
The nuttiness from three different types of seeds is what makes this product special. If you like the taste of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds, it's a safe bet you'll enjoy this salsa. It is a bit spicy, but it's not off the charts. There's a nice warm ambient heat that creeps up on you after several bites thanks to "dried pequin chile pepper." Sonia says it's about a 5 out of 10 on her spice-o-meter. The garlic flavor is nice. If anything, I'd ask for more garlic, but I'm kinda weird like that.
The whole thing is floating in a generous pool of oil. TJ's used olive oil this time, which we're very happy about. It's on par with Trader Joe's Chili Onion Crunch and the Chili Cranberry Orange & Onion in terms of overall texture and oil content. It's packaged very similarly, as well.
$4.49 for the 6 oz jar. Product of Mexico. The container says to "store in a cool, dry place" and does not mention refrigerating after opening. Is it as good as Trader Joe's Pepita Salsa? No. No, it's not. But we'd both buy it again just for variety. Seven and a half stars from both Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Crunchy Sesame, Sunflower Seeds & Pepitas Salsa Macha.
Let me start off by saying Sonia and I have both been to Paris independently of one another, and while there, we both sampled some crepes from street vendors. We both remember them being shockingly inexpensive, warm, and delicious. They were one of the few things I perceived to be both uniquely French and also within my price range.
They weren't long and thin like these crepes. They were made with a similar-looking dough and folded into roughly triangular shapes and shuffled into a paper sleeve to be carried off and eaten on the go. I don't remember for sure since it was many years ago, but the crepes were filled with generous amounts of a chocolate spread of some kind—it very well may have been Nutella. It was creamy and full of cocoa flavor. The dough they used was amazing. It was buttery, slightly crispy in places, and it just melted in your mouth.
These are a far cry from those Parisian street crepes. The dough is the most intrusive element. Sonia and I both find it to be chewy—totally lacking that melt-in-the-mouth quality. To be fair, these crepes are pre-packaged and stored at room temperature for a number of weeks and then heated (or not) in the microwave. I guess you can also serve them unheated. I'm tempted to see how they turn out in the air fryer but I fear that they might dry out.
The hazelnut filling is chocolatey enough and tastes decent, but there just isn't enough of it. I remember creamy chocolate oozing out the sides of that delectable street food. That's not the case here. There's way more breading than the hazelnut cocoa filling.
There were some frozen crepes from Trader Joe's quite a few years back. We liked those significantly more than these room temperature dealies. Not sure why they disappeared, but that's pretty much par for the course with TJ's, unfortunately.
At $3.99 for six individually-wrapped servings, the cost isn't much steeper than those very inexpensive crepes from France all those years ago, but the quality isn't even in the same ballpark. Kosher. Would not buy again. Six out of ten stars from both Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Hazelnut & Cocoa Filled Crepes.
How in the world do we keep coming up with things to say about pumpkin spice breads, pies, cookies, and cakes year after year, fall after fall, product after product? I have no idea. How many different combinations of breading, pumpkin, and pumpkin spice can Trader Joe's offer? It seems like the possibilities are limitless.
And here we are with another baking mix that can make cakes, loaves, or muffins. We opted for muffins. Why? Well, first of all, I found a fun music track of that "Do You Know the Muffin Man" song in YouTube's audio library which I used in the background for our video review. It's a children's song, I know. But Sonia and I are still kids at heart after all.
Second, we opted for muffins to complete our 2025 pumpkin spice trilogy, consisting of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Bread & Muffin Mix, Pumpkin Loaf, and Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodle Cookies. We've already eaten plenty of pumpkin spice cakes and loaves recently, but it's been years since we've had Pumpkin Spice Muffins.
Anyway, they're good. I like them a little better than the above-mentioned pumpkin loaf and a little less than the pumpkin snickerdoodles. They're less sweet than either of those other two, but still contain some sugar and pumpkin spices to keep things interesting. They've got real dried pumpkin flakes and plenty of carb-o-riffic goodness.
We made one dozen plain and another dozen with walnuts. I think Sonia and I both prefer the walnut version. Pecans would definitely work, too. The flavor isn't overwhelmingly spicy or sugary or indulgent. It's just a nice lightly sweet pumpkin bread vibe. You can add cream cheese or icing on the top along with Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pie Spice if you want to make them extra sexy.
$3.49 for the mix which made 24 muffins. Kosher. Just add eggs, oil, and water. They used to have a gluten free version for a buck more, but I'm not sure if that one is still available. We'd buy this one again. Eight out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey. I'll give Trader Joe's Pumpkin Bread & Muffin Mix seven and a half out of ten stars.
Can you believe that at two totally separate times in my life, I found myself at a table of friends only to discover that I was the ONLY person at the table who'd ever even TRIED pumpkin pie? I'm not kidding. Both times were in the United States, although, to be fair, not every person at the table in both instances were Americans by birth. But at least two other people at the table in both instances were Americans by birth...and they'd never even tried pumpkin pie!
I got blank stares and comments like "I don't like vegetables in my dessert" or "It just sounds gross to me." I mean what the WHAT? I get it if you had a few bites when you were a kid and noped out because it was too spicy or it didn't have enough whipped cream but I just don't get how'd you'd get to be an adult and never even tasted pumpkin pie. One of these instances was in college and the other was as a young adult in a major US city. I don't know if that makes a difference. I think chances of this type of travesty ever occurring in smaller towns out in the countryside would be far lower than either of the instances I named, but still...this happened to me TWICE. Not once, but twice was I made to feel like a freak because I had regularly consumed pumpkin pie around Thanksgiving time. Weird, right?
Anyway, I love me some pumpkin pie. And even I could count on one hand the number of times I've had a homemade pumpkin pie. Neither of my parents were skilled at baking and neither ever tried their hand at making pumpkin pie. We had some decent bakeries in my hometown that sold products that were pretty darn close to homemade. So we'd just buy those...or the stuff they made at the big grocery stores.
So I'm primarily comparing this product to other store-bought specimens—nothing gourmet, nothing baked up fresh by grandma—just your average, run-of-the-mill grocery market fare. And to me, Trader Joe's offering stacks up pretty well. I'm surprised by the amount of negative comments I've seen online about this product.
Some folks simply say they prefer other big grocery store chain pumpkin pies. Others say it has a cheesecake vibe that's off-putting somehow. More still say it tastes fake. I, personally, don't know what pumpkin pies these folks are eating and comparing TJ's offering to, but I think this is one of the best store-bought pumpkin pies I've ever had. If you've got a store-bought pumpkin pie in mind that you think is hand-down better than Trader Joe's, please let me know in the comments, and I will go out of my way to try it for Thanksgiving or Christmas—if not this year, then some year soon.
Sonia likes this pumpkin pie, too. She didn't grow up eating the dessert quite as regularly as I did, but she's had her share, especially in recent years, and she's a fan of this one. She thinks the density that others find unpleasant is the very reason she likes this one so much. We both agree it's quite yummy, especially with a lot of whipped cream.
$6.99 for a nine inch pumpkin pie, found in the baked goods section. Kosher. Would buy again. The beautiful wifey and I will both go with eight out of ten stars for Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pie.
More freeze dried fruit! More exciting astronaut snacks! More SUMMER IN NOVEMBER action! Do any of you guys remember Trader Joe's Astronaut Thanksgiving? It was never gonna take off even if they had really called it that. But astronaut fruit candy is significantly more promising. Those Freeze Dried Watermelon Spheres blew our minds.
These? They're darn good, too. I think we might have been even more impressed had we tried them before we tried the watermelon candy. It's two great fruit snack concepts being combined: freeze dried fruit, which we've seen many times from TJ's—and candy covered fruit, another slick move straight out of Joe's pseudo-healthy snackin' handbook.
We've got a nice thick layer of "yogurt flavored coating" on the outside of these treats with real freeze dried strawberries on the inside. It makes the outer portions soft and creamy while the insides are crispy and crunchy. Sonia and I both feel that the freeze dried strawberries themselves are what makes this candy unique, so we think it might have been stronger if there were less of the coating and more of the strawberry.
But still, this is a tasty fruit-based snack with a unique texture. The pieces are the perfect size for snacking and they're more satisfying than you might expect. The sweetness level is just about right. I wish they'd stay away from the palm kernel oil and other seed oils, but other than that, the ingredients aren't too threatening.
$4.99 for the 7 oz resealable bag. Kosher. Found with the bagged nuts, fruits, and trail mixes. We'd probably buy again. Eight out of ten stars from both Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Strawberry Pieces Covered in Strawberry Yogurt Candy Coating.
Let me start off by pointing out that this product is $1.99 for seven servings of pancake mix. Two bucks for a bunch of very tasty breakfast treats. That's a great value. I mean, I guess you can get some of the plain old cheap stuff at Walmart for a comparable price. But these are in a different class than plain generic pancakes, offering sweetened dried strawberries and white chocolate chips right in the batter.
Sure, you have to provide eggs, milk, and oil, but that's pretty much par for the course as far as pancake and waffle mixes go. You can always substitute ingredients and customize as you like, but you're generally going to have to add a few things to make traditional flapjacks. Still a great deal, IMO.
And these taste great, too. Not every bite has strawberry pieces and white chocolate chips, but the ones that do are extra special. Even the ones without have a faint strawberry essence and some sweetness. They go great with butter and syrup as you might expect, but these are also great with whipped cream, ice cream, or whatever you can think of. I went for a makeshift PB&J and tried them with peanut butter. So good! We tried them with Trader Joe's Chocolate Whipped Cream and found it made a nice chocolate-strawberry flavor combo.
Strawberries and creme is such a perfect flavor for SUMMER IN NOVEMBER. These are still available at TJ's as of the time of composing this review, although they're listed as "limited time." Either way, I would think and hope that they'd be back next year.
Found with the other baking mixes. Kosher. Would buy again. Sonia will go with eight and a half out of ten stars for Trader Joe's Strawberries & Crème Pancake & Waffle Mix. I'll go with eight out of ten stars myself.
Next up in our prestigious SUMMER IN NOVEMBER series: watermelon candy. What's more summery than sugary candy? Sugary watermelon candy, that's what. Even Hailey Bieber thinks so. Kinda rando, sure. But hey, when have we not been random here?
This candy is amazing. I guess "amaze-balls" is pretty appropriate here. I mean, the candy is mostly spherical. Texture-wise, it's like astronaut ice cream sorta. I mean, all freeze-dried stuff is like that to some degree. This stuff is crispity, crunchity, and sweet as all get-out. It's also tart. Like, VERY tart. It's some of the best sour watermelon candy I've ever had.
It might be some of the best candy I've had, period. The flavor is so intense, it's difficult to eat more than two or three at a time. There's not a lot of sustenance there. It's mostly just sugar with natural flavors and natural colors.
In fact the first two ingredients are "sugar" and "corn syrup," but NOT high fructose corn syrup, thank goodness. If you're looking for a legit source of protein or a tide-me-over till dinner type snack, look elsewhere. If you want one of the best and most unique sweet and sour candies you've ever had, then this product is a MUST TRY.
There are a bunch of different colors in the bag, but there's only one flavor. That's our biggest complaint. We want more flavors of this stuff. Apple, grape, cherry, lemon...we'd try 'em all.
It's a pretty good buy at four bucks for the resealable bag. The candy is so light and airy, the net weight is only 1.5 oz. But trust me, that's 1.5 oz that's absolutely bursting with flavor. Sonia and I both love this stuff and would absolutely buy it again. Nine and a half stars from the beautiful wifey for Trader Joe's Watermelon Freeze Dried Candies. I'll throw out nine out of ten.
I've always been a fan of smoothies. They're a great way to get tons of fruit in your diet without even consciously feeling like you're "trying to eat healthy." If you add yogurt or fro-yo, you're getting probiotics up in the mix, too. Vitamins, minerals, fiber, hydration, antioxidants...and they taste sweet and creamy. If you make 'em right, they're almost like milkshakes.
Trader Joe's Tropical Smoothie blend is around currently in November for some strange reason, along with a good handful of other decidedly summery products. That's why starting today, WG@TJ's will be doing SUMMER IN NOVEMBER for the next seven days! Yay. You've heard of Christmas in July? Well this is kinda like that except not.
Anyhoo, this tropical smoothie comes pre-mixed, flaunting the flavors of pineapple, mango, coconut cream, banana, and passionfruit. It's sweetened with agave syrup and there's nothing in the ingredients that shouldn't be there—no HFCS, no artificial colors, no seed oils. Just tropical fruity goodness.
Simply mix one cup of the smoothie blend with some water, milk, or yogurt, and you're in business. We used some plain yogurt and a bit of water with ours. Of course, you can use non-dairy milks or yogurts if you're lactose intolerant or vegan.
The mix is fairly mango and pineapple forward with that creamy coconut milk type flavor underneath. It's sweet but not cloyingly sugary. It actually tastes like it's made of real fruit...because it is. Of course the passionfruit is there, but it's well understated compared to the other tropical fruit flavors. Banana adds some thickness to the texture, and maybe a bit of sweetness and starchiness.
I downed my whole glass in a matter of a couple minutes while recording our video review. I'm eager to finish the bag. This gets a thumbs up from both me and the beautiful wifey.
$3.99 for three servings of a very palatable and healthy smoothie mix. Kosher. Would buy again. Our specimen had a stamp noting that it was a product of both Costa Rica and Peru. Sonia and I will both give Trader Joe's Tropical Smoothie Blend the same score: eight and a half out of ten stars.
