Trader Joe's Organic Chia Seed

Trader Joe’s Organic Chia Seeds are a reliable, high-quality pantry staple that offers exceptional value for health conscious shoppers. Priced at $4.99 for a 12 oz bag, these seeds are significantly more affordable than many comparable organic options found at other grocery stores. The product features a neutral flavor profile and a consistent texture, making it an easy addition to a wide variety of dishes without altering the intended taste of your recipes.

The chia seeds are packaged in a resealable bag that helps maintain freshness and prevent accidental spills in the kitchen. In terms of culinary applications, these seeds are incredibly versatile. They're a primary ingredient for creating thick, creamy chia pudding and serve as a simple nutritional boost when stirred into morning oatmeal or blended into fruit smoothies. For those who enjoy more elaborate breakfast options, they provide a satisfying crunch as a topping for acai bowls.

In case you're interested, here's Sonia's recipe for surprisingly scrumptious mango chia pudding—even better than Trader Joe's now defunct Mango Chia Pudding.

4 tbsp chia seeds
1/4 cup canned full fat coconut milk
1 tbsp of honey
1 cup of frozen mango
1/2 cup 0% greek yogurt
2 oz of 2% milk
1 tbsp coconut flakes

Blend the milk, yogurt, honey, and mango in blender. Pour in glass container then add the chia and slowly mix in with other ingredients. Chill overnight 8-10 hrs. Top with mango chunks and organic coconut flakes.

Beyond breakfast and snacks, these seeds are an excellent resource for home bakers. They can be used as a direct substitute for poppy seeds in muffins, breads, or lemon themed desserts, adding a similar aesthetic and texture with the added benefits of omega 3s and fiber. They are indeed currently available at Trader Joe's as of the time of the writing of this review, and they tend to be in stock all year round. They've become a go-to item for many shoppers looking for an inexpensive source of the tasty, healthy seeds.

These are a repeat purchase in our house. They deliver on every front, from the ease of storage to their multipurpose nature in the kitchen. Whether you're focused on meal prepping or just looking for a simple way to elevate your favorite snacks, this product is a cost effective choice that holds up against more expensive brands. I'll let the beautiful wifey score this one solo.

Bottom line: 9 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Onion Flowers

Finally, you can get a Bloomin' Onion from somewhere other than Outback. Trader Joe’s has decided to take a stab at this classic appetizer with their new Onion Flowers. Imported all the way from Thailand, these frozen apps aim for those same crispy petals, but the results are kind of a mixed bag. At $5.49 for a box of two, the price point is definitely more affordable than any sit-down restaurant bill. Sonia and I gave these a spin using both the air fryer and the oven to see if they could live up to the hype.

The actual flavor of these onions is fantastic, featuring pristine, sweet white onions wrapped in a light, tempura-esque batter that happens to be entirely vegan. However, the execution leaves a little to be desired. No matter how we baked it or fried it, the middle just would not cooperate. We tried the air fryer for one and the oven for the other, and both times the center remained stubbornly underdone and raw-ish. The batter also felt a bit stingy, especially near the core, and the final presentation fell quite short of the bar set by the restaurant version. If you're looking to impress guests, these might look more like wilted weeds than blooming flowers.

Trader Joe’s also committed the ultimate appetizer sin by failing to include a dipping sauce, despite showing one on the cover art. To save the day, I whipped up a custom recipe modified from something I got on ChatGPT, that honestly carried the whole experience:

Of course, I had to shrink the measurements down a good bit since I was only making enough for two people. Also note that if you don't have those exact ingredients, Google Gemini or ChatGPT will gladly help you alter the recipe based on what you do have on hand at the moment. AI may be coming for all of our jobs, and maybe eventually our souls, but I'll be darned if they aren't helpful in the kitchen. This sauce was delicious, creamy, and spicy and it worked perfectly with the sweet onion petals.

In the end, these aren't going to replace the theatricality of a freshly fried restaurant appetizer, and they definitely lack the structural integrity of their famous ancestor, but they're a solid choice for onion fiends like us who don't mind a little rustic presentation and a slightly mushy center, making them a fun, flavorful snack for a casual night in. Sonia and I are both in agreement on the final score, giving the Trader Joe’s Onion Flowers seven and a half stars. They're worth a try for the flavor alone, provided you have the right sauce to back them up.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes

Beware! The age of the machines is upon us! But seriously, though, it's a little startling how far AI has come in the past couple years. Like any new technology, I think the best approach is a balanced one. While it's never a great idea to depend upon something like artificial intelligence completely, it's also silly to avoid it entirely in my opinion. People were scared of everything from credit cards to computers to the world wide web when they first came on the scene. AI is no different. It will be used for evil. It will be used for good. Let's just hope more people will use this new tech for the benefit of humanity than the detriment of it.

Know what it's really good at? Recipes. Sonia has been feeding Gemini a list of the random foodstuffs we have around the kitchen and it gives her a complete recipe using only the things we have on hand. If you ask it nicely, it'll even give you the exact measurements for any specific number of people—in our case, just two.

So when Google's AI found out we had chicken and Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes lying around, it gave us the idea to serve the two together along with spicy honey and paprika. Man, that's a tasty combo. And pretty healthy, too. We made some for our latest video review.

This product? Not bad. It's like a typical sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, except there are no marshmallows. The vanilla bean flavor kind of takes the place of the marshmallow flavor, but of course the texture is just a homogenous airy, whipped mash. I'd say it's a tad bit fluffier than your typical sweet potato casserole.

You could eat it on its own, but I recommend eating it with Thanksgiving or Christmas Day fare. But if you're fresh out of turkey and stuffing, the chicken dish mentioned above is spicy, sweet, savory, and scrumptious.

Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes will run you six bucks. Keep refrigerated. We'd buy it again. Eight out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey. I'll go one star lower with an even seven.

(But I give the Spicy Sweet Potato Chicken Bowl recipe an eight and a half).

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Aperol Aperitivo and Martellozzo Prosecco

Ever since Sonia saw Lily Collins downing multiple Aperol Spritz beverages on Emily In Paris, she's wanted to try the trendy Italian drink. So needless to say, she was excited when she spied Aperol Aperitivo on the shelves of our nearest Trader Joe's store. She also snagged an Italian Prosecco on the same shopping trip, though neither is TJ's store brand, obviously.

The only other things you need to make an authentic Aperol Spritz are ice cubes, some seltzer water or club soda, and an orange slice. We already had those on hand, although I'm pretty sure you could find any or all of the ingredients at just about any Trader Joe's—except the booze, of course. Did you know alcohol is only sold at TJ's in 14 states?

At this point I should also note that an Italian Spritz doesn't have to be made with Aperol. There are other brands like Campari and Pronto which are popular here in the States as well as Europe. I know Joe carries Pronto, and it's a bit cheaper than the Aperol.

I can't say what a Spritz tastes like when made with those other brands, but I can tell you that an Aperol Spritz is refreshing, citrusy, and unique. The finished product is a beautiful shade of light orange, and you can smell the fruity flavors wafting from the glass. Of course, you can make it sweeter by adding more Prosecco or more citrusy by adding a bigger orange wedge or less potent by simply adding more sparkling water. I used just a tad more wine than Aperol and a fairly large splash of Polar water because I like my drinks on the fizzy side. Of course, Prosecco has some carbonation of its own but not enough to offset the stillness of the aperitivo.

By itself, the Aperol is mildly bitter and strong. It's got an orange flavor, but there are also notes of grapefruit as well as something herbal or floral. It is considered a "bitter," but I'm told that it's actually sweeter than most other popular aperitivo brands.

$26.99 for 750 mL of Aperol Aperitivo, 11% alcohol by volume, imported from Italy. $8.99 for the Martellozzo Prosecco, 10.5% ABV, also dall'Italia. Would buy both again. Eight out of ten stars from both Sonia and me for the Aperol Spritz and its constituent ingredients.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Cookie Butter Puppy-Chow

Editor's note: Here's another guest post from my talented, witty, extremely attractive, and all around awesome wife. Yes, I outkicked my coverage. Anyways, here's a simple recipe using all TJ's ingredients for one heckuva great snack! Addictive. 

One of our favorite stories here is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff. M likes to read it fairly often. If you aren't familiar, it's about giving a mouse a cookie and all the things that will happen if you do (he'll want some milk, a napkin, a hair cut...it goes on and on, until he asks for another cookie.) We'll, if you give a preschooler a snack, she'll ask for some milk to go with it. And if she asks for milk to go with it, she'll probably have to go to the bathroom while you're trying to get two kids through a grocery store at nap time. When she gets done with the bathroom, she will notice the papers lining the hallway and ask what they are. When she learns that they're recipes, she'll ask if she can make something. When you find something that she would actually have a chance of eating, you will have to go back through the grocery store to gather all the ingredients. Once you have all the ingredients, you will go home for lunch. After eating lunch, the preschooler will ask for a glass of milk, and chances are, she will want a snack to go with it...

...And that is how we ended up making Cookie Butter Buddies (or puppy-chow.) I don't know if your Trader Joe's has recipes hanging up by the restrooms, but ours has a ton, and there are a lot of good looking things to make! We picked this recipe because it was something fairly simple and kid friendly and approved.

 

• 1 cup TJ's Speculoos Cookie Butter
• 1/4 cup TJ's Unsalted Butter
• 1 package TJ's Mini Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
• 1 box Puffins Cereal (Original, Cinnamon or Peanut Butter)
• 1-2 cups TJ's Organic Powdered Sugar (seasonal)
• 1/2 cup TJ's Chocolate Sunflower Seed Drops

Mmm, doesn't that look good?

First, melt about 8 tablespoons of butter (I chose Kerrygold because I love it, and would pretty much eat it if it were socially acceptable to walk around eating sticks of butter), the cup of cookie butter, I didn't actually measure this though, I just scooped out about half a jar, and the box of Milk Chocolate Mini Peanut Butter Cups, together in the microwave, in about 30 second intervals, until melted all together. In a large bowl, dump out the box of Puffins (M chose peanut butter, but I bet the cinnamon would taste great!) and pour on the chocolate mixture. Stir to coat. This was probably M's favorite part..."Stir! Stir! Stir!" she happily chanted while mixing it all up, leaving me for the "expert touch."

Add in about 2 cups of powdered sugar. I started with one cup, and added from there, until your cereal is coated.

Wimbly's dinner...our our dessert?

Spread it onto baking sheets so that it can cool and harden a bit. It looked so much like dog food when I did this, that it was easy to see where it gets the name puppy-chow.

Once it's set you can put it back into a bowl or into a large ziplock bag, add more powdered sugar, and stir or shake to cover it all. Add in a handful of the chocolate covered sunflower seeds and you've got a cookiebuttery, crunchy, tasty, and very, very, sweet treat.

The consensus at our how was that it was pretty good, except from M, who wanted some random left over Christmas candy instead. We ended up sending a little over half into Russ's work and kept a bowl here, which we ended up taking it to church to share because it was still too much. All and all? It was a super simple, quick snack, very kid friendly, and could probably be adapted to be nut free (you could probably leave out the pb cups and use a different kind of Puffin and just use chocolate and cookie butter to make it nut free)

So, our first cooking with a TJ's recipe gets 8 Golden Spoons.

Oh yeah, if you eat this, you'll probably want a glass of milk to go with it...