Trader Joe's Apizza Gouda Cheese

If you do an internet search for "apizza gouda" this product is the only thing that comes up. Not sure why we're adding an "a" to the beginning of the word "pizza" because this is essentially just pizza-flavored cheese. Maybe it's there for searchability purposes? Trader Joe's offering pops up if you search for "pizza gouda," but so do many other products and recipes.

At any rate, we paid $5.85 for our wedge of cheese. It's about 13 bucks a pound. Not a bad value, considering it's imported from the Netherlands. You'd think it's Italian, right? Nope. It's Dutch. The striking color and unique name has raised more than a few eyebrows over the past month or two. I know we're not the first ones to review it, but if you read on, I'm sure you'll feel enlightened.

Tasting the cheese straight out of the plastic wrapper, I must admit I wasn't impressed. It was very tomatoey. The spices were quite potent, too. I tasted oregano, garlic, and a faint bit of vinegar. The gouda flavor didn't shine through the veggies and seasonings as much as I would have liked it to.

So we decided to experiment. The beautiful wifey made a grilled cheese sandwich first. Wow. What a difference. When placed on bread, the apizza cheese emulated the flavor of pizza. Imagine that. Nothing but a bit of butter for grilling, some nice thick slices of sourdough, and this apizza gouda, melted, made an outstanding snack. I didn't even whine about not having soup. If I eat grilled cheese, I almost always want soup. In this case, I just inhaled the sandwich with reckless abandon. What kind of soup would go with it? Your guess is as good as mine. Tomato, I suppose.

Then we tried some quesadillas. Not bad. I preferred the grilled cheese since the bread is much thicker than our tiny corn tortillas. Sonia, on the other hand, liked the quesadillas better. She is Mexican, after all.

Finally, we made some flatbread pizzas. We used Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Lavash Flatbread as the base and topped it with this cheese, canned white meat chicken, olives, spinach, and onions. Sonia added a little pesto to hers. We both agreed that one was the best of all. The apizza gouda served as both the tomato sauce and the cheese and all the flavors blended together beautifully. For pictures of the pizzas, simply click on that review of the lavash flatbread or watch the video embedded below.

It's not a great standalone cheese in my humble opinion, but there's a lot you can do with it. Sonia gives Trader Joe's Apizza Gouda eight out of ten stars. I'm torn. It's interesting enough, but it's just so weird and funky unless you heat it up and add it to something else...I'll be nice and give it seven and a half stars.

Bottom line: 7.75 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Lavash Flatbread

Nate's Notes: Penned by former contributor Russ, this review was originally posted March 29, 2011. This product disappeared for some time circa 2016 and then reappeared recently. The packaging is slightly different, they've added "Whole Wheat" to the title, and unsurprisingly the price has increased. It's still a great product and Sonia and I don't have much to add or subtract from the original article, so we've simply updated the pictures and bumped the post for our 2025 audience. Take note the original publishing was 329 and it's being re-posted on 923. Spooky.

Am I wrong, but there's something to be said for good, cheap carbs, right?

Probably the most famous cheap carb is the beloved Ramen noodle package. Well, "beloved" might be a stretch, but it's a pretty universal experience for college kids to subsist on them for long stretches of time. I certainly was one of them. My sophomore year, I sincerely doubt I went a day without a meal that involved either Ramen or leftover pizza from the dinner shift at Papa John's. It certainly helped that they were 10 for a buck at the local grocery shop. Some nights I'd eat two packages, other nights I'd mix in some frozen veggies and maybe make a piece of chicken. But man, all the Ramen ... I don't know how I didn't die from malnutrition. Once I was really, truly, ineffably sick of them, my grandmother came to the rescue and sent me a Ramen noodle cookbook. I had no idea about all the different possible uses for Ramen ... all the different stir-fries and noodle-based dishes, and even things like salads and pizza (using the noodles as a crust). That kept me going on them throughout the rest of my college years until I could finally routinely afford better starchy goods, like shells and cheese.

flatbread pizza with chicken, spinach, onions, and apizza gouda

Anyways, I love me some carbs. I could never be a legit vegetarian because I like meat waaay too much, and Dr. Atkins and I would never be dietary BFFs because he'd be slapping bagels out of my hands way too often. And the more ways I can use a single form of carb (like the Ramen noodles) the better.

That's why I like Trader Joe's Lavash so much. It's a pretty simple product, it's just a legal-document sized ( 9.5 x 13) rectangle of rather plain baked dough. But, like the package says, this is some fairly versatile stuff, and there's a lot of it. The first time Sandy and I broke it out, we used it as a crust for a thin crust basil pesto pizza. It was good enough that we've used it a couple more times as a crust since then. When baked, it gets really crispy and crackery when the sides and corners get browned and curled up. I'd definitely recommend if using it for a pizza, let it bake for a little while longer than you'd figure otherwise as the middle can get a little sogged down with sauce, etc, but rebounds nicely if given the proper oven lovin' time. 

But that's not the only good use of the lavash. I've made a breakfast wrap or two with it, and it held up with the eggs and cheese well. Sandy's taken it to work a couple times and used it like a tortilla with some rice and beans, and reported satisfactory results. The great thing is, there's six of them in a package ($2.19 for 6 in 2011—$2.99 for 4 in 2025) so there's plenty of it with which to experiment. I'd imagine they'd be pretty good cut and baked to munch on like a pita chip, or maybe even buttered, sugared, and cinnamoned, then cut into strips and baked for a dessert. Or maybe make some garlic breadsticks out of them in a similar fashion ... the possibilities may be endless.

The form of the lavash is pretty pliable, too. We tend to keep bread in the fridge to extend the shelf life some. I just wolfed down the last two-week old half-sheet remnant a few minutes ago, and it was as soft, floury, and flexible as the first time we used it. I could literally bend it any which way, and it wasn't stiffened enough to crack or break. Yet, it easily rips in a straight-enough line if you ask it to. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed overall.

Sandy gives it a 4.5 overall. "Mmm ... carbs ... it's good and it works. Not much else to be said," she says. Considering that I find myself craving a lavash-crust pizza once or twice a week, I'm inclined to be in the same ballpark. Part of me wishes it had a bit more flavor, like some sesame or poppy seeds mixed in (that's pretty common in Middle Eastern countries, from where this was inspired), but its plainness lends itself better to the overall versatility to use it to make it part of something of your own creation. Sounds like a 4.5 to me as well.

Bottom line: 9 out of 10 Golden Spoons.