Traeder Joe’s has these cans of SMOKED PAPRIKA, which is Spanish Pimenton. Smoky, mildly sweet and flavorful. This lovely paprika is really nice in so many things and matches well with chicken, fish, shrimp and especially well with pork. I frequently make Pork Tenderloin Filets, cut into thickish slices (tournedos) coated very liberally with a lot of smoked paprika, crushed garlic and salt and pepper, for a super easy dish which takes about 5 minutes. Just sauté the “tournedos” in a good amount of Olive Oil till golden brown but still pretty rare on the inside. Remove and add a little stock, wine or even water to deglaze the pan to make a pan sauce with a few knobs of butter. Easy, fast and delicious. TJ’s SMOKED PAPRIKA is $2.49 a tin.
I was glad to see Trader Joe’s came out with packs of vacuum packed “fresh” noodles that you can keep in the pantry, these so called THAI WHEAT NOODLES. Heat and serve. 3 packages noodles.
These are a typical Asian style wheat noodle, something similar to Japanese “Udon”
These can be used for anykind of Asian noodle dish. So why “Thai”? I would say these are just as much Chinese or Japanese as Thai however these noodles say Product of Thailand hence the name.
They’re about $2.50 for a 3 pack (21 oz) package. The noodles are pre-cooked, ready to use.
Each bag contains about 7 ounces of noodles. Frankly the amount seems just a tiny bit skimpy to me to make one portion. I wish these had even one more ounce, that is 8 ounces instead of 7, as that would make a more decent portion per person. I found one bag will just make a meal for one as a finished noodle dish, if you factor in other added ingredients. So I definitely suggest you “beef it up” and add things, like veggies, a protein, or what have you. Or add these to a soup.
My finished noodle dish with chicken, cucumber and scallions plus sauce
An example of one dish I made with these noodles is shown (see picture above). I had a some cooked chicken breast in the fridge which I used plus scallions and cucumbers. I basically used the recipe they have on the box for “Sesame Scallion Noodles” and added things to it. This dish turned out tasty.
Note that these noodles are already cooked so you don’t want to cook them too much more, or they might get mushy.
TIP: Opening the vacuum package you will find the noodles are clumped up together into an almost impenetrable brick that is not easy to break up! You will see I’m not kidding. To get them loosened up, I really had to work at them using chopsticks and tongs when I added the liquid sauce ingredients, as they state. But it was not easy.
TIP: HOW TO LOOSEN THESE – So the next time I made them I experimented using hot/near boiling water to loosen them up which really helps. Use very hot or near boiled water, and pour it over the noodles in a bowl. Let sit for a minute. I used my chopsticks/tongs and later fingers to get them as unstuck as possible, bit by bit. When the noodles were separated I rinsed them in cold water and drained them. Doing this worked better to prep them before adding them to the dish. One reader just says they use their fingers to pry them apart but some very hot water helps. Just be gentle so you don’t break them up into little pieces.
I placed the loosened drained noodles into a bowl and gave them just a drizzle of oil, and mixed it in as this will keep them from sticking together. Then do your other ingredients as they are ready to use (say in a stir fry). You can of course also use these noodles in any soup or perhaps a stir fried dish.
Some ideas for toppings would be some grilled chicken, beef or pork (Cha Siu?), grilled shrimp, or even just a fried egg on top with some Gojujang or other sauce. I would say these wheat noodles are basically a bit similar to “Udon” (though not as good quality as them) – so you could use them in Japanese cooking, to make a “YAKIUDON“. I did a kind of YAKI UDON with these and it worked OK. The box’s recipe for “SESAME SCALLION NOODLES” worked fairly well too when I made it.
TIP: The recipe for Sesame Scallion Noodles on the box is for one pack. So you will need to double the recipe (or more) if you are making two packs of noodles, or you will not have enough sauce. The recipe on the box is actually a good basic recipe that you can modify easily. I added a heaping tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter to it, to make it a bit more “Thai”. I also used a little Bomba hot pepper to make it spicy. Or use some Chili Crunch.
These noodles are handy and not bad at about a buck a portion, even if they don’t match up to the fresh noodles like this (not vacuum packed) you can find at many Asian grocery stores. One more thing I just thought of, you could say add these to Trader Joe’s GINGER MISO soup and come up with a noodle version of that (but do add more ginger).
I hope TJ’s keeps these around so check them out so they see they are selling. (update; these seem quite popular)
I would buy these again.
VEGAN
Here’s TJ’s info on them.
“Trader Joe’s Thai Wheat Noodles, a three-pack of ready-to-use noodle packets that’s as simple to eat as heat, serve, and enjoy. They’re made for us from scratch, by a supplier in Thailand, who cooks them to soft, chewy perfection, then vacuum- seals them to keep them preserved at room temperature until the very moment you need them for a soup, curry, or stir-fry” – Trader Joe’s
Nice Chinese recipe from Xaoying’s Kitchen with cabbage and noodles which you might get some ideas from. Turn on CC Subtitles for English subtitles. Note she is using uncooked noodles. These are pre-cooked so heat for less time (60 seconds?) and then rinse and season as she does.
Trader Joe’s Fish Nuggets are tasty and these taste like a real battered piece of fish. They are perfect for making fish tacos for one thing. The first ingredient is Alaskan Pollack. Don’t confuse this item (“Fish Nuggets”) with TJ’s “Fish Sticks”which are terrible, way inferior to these at a dollar less. I used these nuggets to make Fish Tacos for dinner the other night. BTW I didn’t bake these as it says on the package. I sauteed them in a cast iron pan till they were crispy on both sides.
We really enjoyed these when we made them into fish tacos. The popular TJ’s Fish Tacos recipe is easy to make. You take a package of these, Corn Tortillas (which I think will taste better than flour ones) and top with crunchy slaw made with the Cole Slaw Mix, some Greek Yogurt, and lime juice. Optional but nice would be some ripe avocado and your favorite hot sauce. I would recommend TJ’s Green Dragon and/or Peri-Peri hot sauce as being a good match with fish tacos.
TJ’s BATTERED FISH NUGGETS are now $5.99 for a 1 lb package. The other thing these might be good for is an English style Fish & Chips with some french fries?
“These tantalizing tacos combine the tart, tangy, and savory flavors of fresh Lime juice and crispy Battered Fish Nuggets with a mix of soft, crunchy, and creamy textures, courtesy of our Corn Tortillas, Organic Broccoli Slaw, and Plain Greek Whole Milk Yogurt. Endlessly customizable with your favorite hot sauce, salsa, or crema, one batch of these can feed a family of four and even more, depending on your hunger level.”
FISH TACOS
TJ’s Battered Fish Nuggets
TJ’s Plain Greek Whole Milk Yogurt
1 Lime
TJ’s Organic Broccoli Slaw or Cole Slaw Mix
TJ’s Corn Tortillas
Add yogurt and lime juice to the slaw mix; let sit a 1/2 hour to marinate. Cook up the fish till golden brown and put two pieces into a warm corn tortilla and top with slaw and a few drops of salsa or hot sauce.
Ground turkey is something I tend to buy fairly often at Trader Joe’s. For one, I find it versatile, not to mention more affordable than ground beef, as well as a healthier option. Perhaps many of you think the same. So I decided to check out this option Trader Joe’s frozen Turkey Burgers.
Is there any advantage of buying this versus buying a package of fresh ground turkey? Normally I would just buy a package of the fresh ground turkey. If I want them shaped as burgers, I will just form them myself, which would take maybe a minute to make 4 with little effort.
However I can see a few reasons some people might like frozen turkey burgers instead of buying fresh ground turkey. For one thing I imagine some folks (especially singles?) might find this more convenient. Say you just wanted one burger for dinner. You have that ready to go and are not left with extra turkey which you would have to use in a few days, or freeze for later use. Maybe some people don’t like touching ground meat and forming burgers, or just find this an easier option? Certainly one benefit of these frozen turkey burgers is the frozen burgers are a bit cheaper than fresh ground turkey. These go for $3.49 3.99 for a pound (4 x 1/4 lb). One pound of TJ’s fresh ground turkey will cost you $3.99 4.49 presently. So the frozen ones are a wee bit cheaper.
Cooking: Trader Joe’s instructions on the package state “Cook From Frozen” (as usual for them on frozen stuff). I am an experienced home cook. Cooks as a general rule, tend to not like to cook food from frozen. I think cooking from a defrosted state is best for meats generally.
Sure you can cook these burgers from frozen, but you don’t HAVE to. You can defrost these in an hour or two on the counter, which is what I do sometimes.
Another advantage to not cooking from frozen for me is, I can add ingredients into my burgers. I find this very useful as ground turkey is a quite bland. It needs to be jazzed up.
If its not frozen, you can add ingredients in, mix it up and form your own burgers. If I add say a few spoons of chopped fresh parsley and spices, mix it all in, form a burger (which is usually a little smaller and thicker than the way they come frozen). This way they not only have way more taste to them, they also conform to the hamburger buns which can be smaller than the diameter of the frozen pucks. Here are turkey burgers with chopped parsley added plus a bit of chopped pickled sweet jalapenos. And yes you want to add oil and/or butter when you cook these turkey burgers which don’t have that much fat.
I took out two burgers. I put them on a plate, covered them with a a bowl over them (mostly to keep the cats from going after them!) to just let them defrost. That took about an hour or two.
Sure a pinch you can cook from frozen if you want to. The cook time will be longer than if they are defrosted of course.
TIP: Turkey is bland. So I really season it to jazz it up. Add a good dusting of some spices. I love to use the terrifically useful TJ’s 99 CENTS TACO SEASONING spice mix which really jazzes up turkey. If you used that Mix, then don’t add salt as there is salt in the taco spice mix, plus they have some salt already added in the burgers. Also I made them as cheese burgers by putting grated Unexpected Cheddar or some other cheese on top which works great as that cheese is amazing melted (cover the pan for a minute to help melt the cheese). I put them on toasted Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns and dressed them up with some spicy ketchup (mix some Peri-Peri or Bomba into some of the Organic Ketchup) .
Our turkey burgers were yummy with toasted buns, lettuce and tomato and we quite enjoyed them and kind of could not tell they were turkey burger and not ground beef. The trick again is really seasoning these as if you don’t it will be very bland tasting. And melted cheese never hurts! By the way, the buns I used here are the PRETZEL BUNS, perfect for burgers and many other things.
This “roasting sauce” is a new Fall item for as part of TJ’s annual “pumpkin spectacular”. Now I’m not one who goes crazy every Fall with all their Everything Pumpkin items. While some of the products they come up with are good (like this one!) some sound just bad to me (case point, TJ’s PUMPKIN SPICE HUMMUS, whose very name offends me as did TJ’s infamous “chocolate hummus”). But having said this, I hear Pumpkin Spice Hummus is popular and sells out often, so clearly I’m in the minority! Anyway as far as this new sauce is concerned, I liked it. It was betterthan what I imagined. This PUMPKIN CHIPOTLE ROASTING saucewas quite tasty used it to braise chicken and vegetables (a recipe follows below).
This Pumpkin Chipotle sauce uses an imaginative blend of ingredients. Though it has pumpkin puree as the first ingredient it has so many other ingredients, the pumpkin flavor blends in with so many other flavors it makes a complex and tasty combination. This doesn’t have anything like a “pumpkin pie” flavor at all. Rather this sauce’s flavor profile is complex, balanced and delicious. Ingredients are:pumpkin puree, cane sugar, water, apple cider vinegar, apple juice concentrate, onion puree, sea salt, molasses, garlic, tomato paste, vinegar, chipotle in adobo puree, chipotle chili powder and spices like nutmeg, ginger and allspice which are subtle here and blend well.
I used this sauce to make a braised chicken dish which turned out delicious. I used boneless chicken thighs and onion, garlic, celery, yellow peppers and mushrooms. This would work very well with bone-in thighs too, roasted as per TJ’s recipe (see link below)
In addition to chicken, I am sure this sauce will work very well with pork. Also just on roasted veggies. Probably it would work well even with tofu too. So it might be fun to experiment with this sauce and see what you can come up with. Here’s my saucy dish in the picture.
Braised Boneless Chicken Thighs (sliced up) in Pumpkin Chipotle sauce with vegetables
Trader Joe’s suggests roasting it with cauliflower or peppers which sounds good and they also mention using it with pasta too…. I have not tried that yet.
This is how I made my chicken dish if you are interested.
RECIPE — BONELESS CHICKEN THIGHS IN PUMPKIN CHIPOTLE SAUCE : Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dust with a little flour (optional). Brown chicken in 2 tsp olive oil for about 5 minutes per side. till golden. When browned, remove temporarily. Toss in your chopped vegetables to the pan (onions, garlic, celery, sliced bell peppers, sliced mushrooms). Sauté on low-medium heat for about five minutes till translucent. Then add a few tablespoons of liquid (wine, stock or water) to the pan to de-glaze it, scraping up any browned bits at the bottom. Add your chicken back in and cover with Pumpkin Roasting Sauce and braise on gentle simmer (either on top of the stove or in the oven, loosely covered). I used about 3/4 of the jar in my dish but you can adjust amount if you want less or more sauce in the finished dish. Simmer / braise on low heat for about 25 minutes or so. If you use chicken breasts instead of thighs, reduce cooking time to about 12 minutes and if using bone in chicken simmer or roast for about 40 minutes. When done, I took out the chicken, rested it a bit, then sliced it and added it back to my sauce. Leave whole if you prefer of course. Check seasoning for salt and pepper. Optional – add 2 tablespoons of butter to the sauce. Serve the chicken, veggies and sauce on top of Jasmine rice (or orzo or potatoes).
TJ’s says: “Use this Sauce to coat some Baby Cauliflower and Organic Mini Sweet Peppers before roasting them in a hot oven. Make it a marinade for chicken or pork to turn into an aromatic, shredded taco filling. Or give it a try on pasta night, combined with a touch of cream and tossed with Organic Cascatelli Pasta.”
PUMPKIN CHIPOTLE ROASTING SAUCE is $3.49 a jar (14.5 oz). I would buy this again. If you like it, I would say stock up on a few jars as it may vanish after Thanksgiving as I think its a seasonal item.
It may seem a little silly for me to review frozen spinach but here goes anyway because it’s actually something I buy all the time from Trader Joe’s (along with frozen peas!) TJ’s frozen spinach is easy, healthy, tasty and super convenient to have in the freezer. Plus it’s one of TJ’s best bargains for just $1.99 for a pound in the organic version and $1.49 for the regular version.
At the risk of heresy there are a few vegetables which I propose are actually better frozen than fresh. Really. One is frozen peas. The other is frozen spinach. While I love fresh raw spinach, the reality is it’s a pain. Spinach is very dirty and sandy. You must it like crazy 3 or 4 times to get rid of all the grit in every nook and cranny. Then you start with what looks like an enormous amount, raw. You can fill the biggest pot you own with it to the brim, and that shrinks up into almost what looks like just enough for one person. It really shrinks up in cooking. All of these are reasons I find frozen spinach easier than fresh spinach.
RECIPE HACK – a two ingredient Trader Joe’s recipe hack I came up with for spinach with TJ’s Garlic Spread – which are so good together and takes minutes! SPINACH IN GARLIC – Put the spinach in a pot with a teaspoon of olive oil or butter (or 50/50 mix). Cook on medium till it’s just cooked but still bright green (don’t overcook it) then add a heaping tablespoon or two of TJ’s Garlic Spread and mix it together. Give it a grind of fresh black pepper, taste it and if it needs it, add a pinch of salt (as the Garlic Spread has some salt). Optionally give it a squeeze of fresh lemon. This garlicy creamy spinach combo is absolutely delish. You can even mix in noodles to this for an instant dish.
Spinach omelet – make the above and toss the spinach in the middle. Yum!
Spinach rice: Cook Basmati rice. Cook some spinach. Mix the two together when done with some Greek yogurt. Season to taste.
TJ’s organic spinach is $1.99. The regular spinach is even less only ($1.49). Either is a bargain and is a great thing to always have in your freezer. So eat your Spinach! It’s healthy – it’s what made Popeye so strong.
This has become one of my favorite items at Trader Joe’s! If you love garlic as much as I do, you too will love thier “GARLIC SPREADDIP” . It’s great and has become yet one more TJ’s must have item I have to always have in the fridge now. I think of it as much as an ingredient as a “spread”. You can add a spoon of this to a dish to give things an immediate flavor boost, almost like you would fresh garlic. I put this in mashed potatoes, spinach, pasta, hummus…. It’s so versatile. It makes a great spinach dish. I came up with a super quick recipe hack using just 2 things: frozen) spinach and this stuff. See my “recipe”below.
Quite a few countries have some type of garlic spread like this. In Lebanese cooking, they have the garlic spread called “Toum” (and basically TJ’s spread is Toum). In Greece, they have a spread called “Skordalia” made from garlic, olive oil and potato. In the South of France they have the yummy yellow garlicky mayonnaise called, “Aioli” famously served on toasted baguette slices alongside Bouillabaisse. Mashed garlic acts as an emulsifier with oil to make a spread. Trader Joe’s version like Lebanese toum is an emulsified paste of garlic, oil, lemon juice and salt, traditionally made in a mortar and pestle. They did not skimp on garlic. TJ’s GARLIC SPREAD is so garlicky it’s not funny. True garlic lovers will want to try this on everything. So what can you use this Garlic Spread on? To start with just try it on thin slices of toasted baguette, which will be match well with a salad or soup like croutons or garlic bread. This stuff is especially good for any pasta dish. Just toss in a spoonful into your finished pasta, especially tomato pasta (PESTO ROSSO? Add some of this to jazz it up! Use this instead of butter for cooking grilled cheese sandwiches. Put a little into your tuna or egg salad. Eggs, try some in an Omelet for some kick. Salmon or other fish, for sure. I’ve found it’s fantastic in mashed potatoes to jazz them up. Almost any vegetable dish will be enhanced with a spoon or two of this vegan garlic spread, so it’s ideal for vegans and vegetarians as well as us non-vegetarians. It was amazing on the CHICKEN SHAWARMA. Greek yogurt plus some of this spread makes and instant super easy tasty sauce. Here’s a recipe I came up with using spinach. This is a great tasting spinach dish in under 2 minutes.
SPINACH WITH GARLIC SPREAD RECIPE – Two ingredients: frozen spinach and garlic spread. Toss the spinach in a pan with a little olive oil (or butter) and cook for a few minutes till done (keep it bright green!) then add in a nice heaping tablespoon of this Garlic Spread and mix. Fresh black pepper and a pinch of salt if needed. DONE. It will look a little bit creamy and taste absolutely delish. If you want squeeze on a few more sprinkles of fresh lemon.
In fact most vegetable dishes will be enhanced with a spoon or two of this VEGAN spread, so it’s ideal for vegans / vegetarians to give a enormous flavor boost to most things. One thing to remember, it does have calories. It’s mostly oil, like mayonnaise. 2 Tbls have about 150 calories. Its $2.99. GREAT ITEM! I would buy this again
Trader Joe’s acknowledges what we customers know all too well now: how much more expensive it is to feed your family these days due to price increases and inflation. We consumers need to get the biggest bang for the buck from every dollar we can. Hence I think Trader Joe’s is smart to admit this and “help” us with some ideas and recipes in their
Visit that link for Trader Joe’s recipes. One recipe is for an EASYSPICY CHILI with ground chicken, a can each of tomatoes and beans and their super useful TACO SEASONING mix (which I swear by and only costs .79 cents!) They say this Chicken Chili costs about $9.04 to feed four. I would budget in another $1.60 to buy some Corn Tortillas which will be good with chili. They assume you have rice in your pantry. I have a chili recipe with ground turkey which is similar to theirs. Check that out too. You can just switch the turkey for chicken if you prefer. Currently a pound of ground chicken at the moment is 3.99. Ground meats have no waste and I think makes a decent bang as the main / protein. GROUND TURKEY is about $4.29 for a pound. Want to make a VEGETARIAN CHILI? You can use these recipes, just swap in some organic tofu (drained well and crumbled). The Organic Tofu is still only $1.99! Some people swear if you freeze tofu, it gives a better “meatier” texture
This is a very good “curated” blend of two single origin coffees from Central America, specifically from El Salvador and Nicaragua. It’s a 50/50 mix of both, each roasted differently, one to a Medium roast and one as a Light roast, to bring out the ideal flavors of each. I found this coffee to be very tasty, smooth and delicious. Its $9.99 for a 12 oz bag of whole beans. I think if Starbucks or your local coffee high end shop was selling this kind of “curated blend” they would charge almost double that.
I would buy this again.
TIP: The best way to buy coffee is like this, as WHOLE BEANS. Why? Coffee has a ton of volatile oils which are best ground right before you want to use it. You get the maximum flavor if you grind up some beans just before you brew it. Now, if you don’t have a grinder at home, use the grinder at Trader Joe’s. When you get home, put the bag of ground coffee into a freezer bag, seal it and keep it in the freezer. You can put a few days worth of ground coffee in an empty air tight jar to keep it fresh.
“A Southern Mexican inspired salsa made with guajillo chiles and peanuts”
“A peanut based salsa with a unique mix of creaminess, nuttiness and peppery heat. Versatile. Enhances food from burritos to shrimp.”
(summer 2022) New Product – SALSA DE CACAHUATE. I found this to be just terrific, pretty much a “wow” new Trader Joe’s product.
This is bit of an unusual and atypical (regional) salsa (for us at least in the US) which originates from Southern Mexico. It’s a peanut-based salsa. Cacahuate is “peanut” in Spanish, based on the Nahuatl word (you pronounce it : kaka-wa-te). I found this new salsa to be really, really good. It’s unusual compared to more typical tomato based salsa’s at Trader Joe’s due to fact it’s peanut based and creamy. The salsa has a huge depth of flavor. It’s definitely got a kick (med. hot spicy!) and its thick and creamy. Be sure to stir it. This salsa was really tasty on some tortilla chips. It was also delicious with some spinach and cheese quesadillas I made. But it is not “just for Mexican food”. This can be great with lots of things. This can be a great sauce or ingredient for many kinds of foods as Trader Joe’s suggests. For one thing, great with chicken. It is fabulous on chicken, say grilled chicken breasts or thighs. Pork too, it was delicious on some TJ’s CARNITAS cooked into “slices of pork loin”. I also like the idea of trying it with shrimp as TJ’s suggests. It would even be great with TOFU. I will experiment with this, and you should too. It’s excellent! Definitely worth trying. Trader Joe’s indicates this is a summer / seasonal item so if this sounds interesting I would not wait too long to grab a jar to try out (or two). $2.99 for a 12 oz jar.
“If you’ve ever sampled the cuisine of southern Mexico, you’ve likely come across a version of salsa de cacahuate, a savory, often spicy, peanut-based sauce that’s used on a remarkably wide range of dishes, from street tacos to roast chicken to grilled shrimp, and more. Etymologically derived from a Nahuatl word for peanut, salsa de cacahuate has a unique mix of creaminess, nuttiness, and peppery heat that makes it an uncommonly versatile condiment—just the kind of sauce that cries out to be put on everything.
In tribute to this southern Mexican staple, we’re proudly offering Trader Joe’s Salsa de Cacahuate for the summer. And just like the namesake sauce that inspired it, this rich and flavorful jarred Salsa is almost endlessly versatile. Aside from enjoying as a dip with your favorite tortilla chip, you can use it to enhance everything from burritos to burgers to breakfast fare. It adds an extraordinary depth of flavor when served over salmon, steak, or stuffed peppers, and brings out the best of a sizzling plate of fajitas. For a true treat, try spooning it generously over a plate of sliced pork loin.”
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