Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants)

(UPDATE: It had sold out and was not available for some time but they got it back in stock and saw some on the shelves yesterday (2/9/23) If you want to try it grab it while you can. Not sure if this is a permanent item)

NEW ITEM “Italian-Style Wedding Soup. Meatballs, Vegetables and Acini de Pepe pasta in a Rich Chicken Broth“. That sounded interesting to me (though frankly I can’t recall the last time I went to an Italian wedding!) In reality this sounded better than it tasted. One hint may be that Trader Joe’s seems to be hedging its bets with “Italian–Style Wedding Soup” instead of just “Italian Wedding Soup”. It won’t fool an Italian. On the plus side this has a good amount of things in it: pasta, greens and tiny meatballs which are cute – however they didn’t have much flavor. The soup had quite a lot of greens – kale, instead of the traditional escarole, and its in large pieces which I liked. However my main issue with this soup is the broth. On the label, they claim “a rich chicken broth”. I’m afraid that is far from the truth. The broth in reality isn’t rich but weak and watery. IF this had a strong rich golden chicken (bone) broth this might actually be tasty. But alas, the broth here is poor. I tried fixing this soup up by adding things to help it, like a slug of good olive oil, a handful of grated Parmigiano, and fresh garlic. Now these additions did improve the flavor and made it taste OK and way less boring than it was out of the jar, so if you buy this soup definitely add those things to it. Still what it really needs yet lacks is that strong rich chicken broth they promise so perhaps if you added some strong chicken broth (preferably homemade) plus the other things I mentioned you will get something a bit like a Wedding Soup. Naturally if you go to the trouble and make an Italian Wedding Soup yourself, you will be sure to get something very good and tasty. A recipe is below if you want to give it a try. One the plus side, this soup’s Sodium level is fine; not crazy high like many jarred soups. You might add a pinch to improve it or some other seasonings.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/13024/italian-wedding-soup-i/

I give this a Meh. I would probably not buy this again.

Here’s what TJ’s has to say about it (hmm, this also says “not available”)

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/italian-style-wedding-soup-075001

BTW ; Acini di pepe pasta translates as Peppercorns as that is what the pasta resembles.