70% cacao. Ingredients: Unsweetened chocolate and sugar.
I got some when this was a new item. Here’s my review.
When I tried it, to be honest I found it on the side of just being a wee bit too bitter for my palate. This is for “serious” chocolate people. It’s not chocolate any kid would like, but tastes to me like a really SERIOUS gourmet chocolate bar with a high percentage of excellent cacao, but minimal sugar. Think “bitter” for most people, including myself in that category.
The bar involves two countries. The cacao was sourced from Peru. The chocolate bar itself is crafted in Italy.
“Each Bar is made with just two simple ingredients—unsweetened chocolate and sugar—so you get a chocolate-eating experience that’s pure, unadulterated, and deeply satisfying. The 70% Cacao content delivers a flavor that’s bold and intense, yet still delightfully smooth, with complex floral notes that reveal themselves as the Chocolate melts on your tongue.”
I took a few more bites, and little by little I got more used to it. The taste of this chocolate started to grow on me as my taste buds adapted to it and this chocolate melted all over my tongue. Yes I get it, that this is amazing quality cacao/chocolate. As this chocolate bar is barely sweet at all, this may not be quite for everyone but if you really are into chocolate (raises his hand) I think is worth tasting at least once to see what excellent high percentage cacao chocolate tastes like and especially Peruvian cacao which I know know is amazing.
I later ate some of the chocolate along with my coffee , which had milk and sugar. When I alternated bites of this chocolate with sips of my coffee, the added sweetness balanced the bitter chocolate and gave my taste buds intense, delicious chocolate flavor. If you find this too dark and bitter on its own, try eating it with something on the sweet side. I am thinking of matching this chocolate along with a bite of Dried Mango or dried cranberries, or maybe a bite of vanilla ice cream…. Get the picture?
$2.49 (100g) note: the price likely when up since this was published…
“Trader Joe’s ORGANIC CAESAR SALAD KIT with croutons, shredded Parmesan and a creamy Caesar dressing.”
I have read that this salad kit is pretty popular among the fans of Trader Joe’s. So I had to finally check it out. Before we begin with my review I should state a few times over the years I’ve made Caesar Salad myself. I mean the real deal. From scratch. Even making croutons (homemade ones are fantastic). Plus making the dressing (Ummm, with ANCHOVIES!)
If you’ve ever done that, or had a Caesar Salad in a decent restaurant then you know how good a real Caesar Salad can be. I mean the Real McCoy is fantastic. So good. You should try making one yourself at least once. Outside of the dressing its really basically three ingredients : lettuce, croutons, cheese…
Here are a few links to give you ideas (Natasha’s recipe looks good. But leaves out the anchovies. So another link with a dressing that has them…. )
Naturally you can make this salad into something substantial by adding a protein on top of your salad. I could easily see one putting slices of cooked chicken or a piece of cooked salmon on top. Do that and you have a complete dinner, especially with a bit of good bread.
So having said that, let me review Trader Joe’s ORGANIC CAESAR SALAD KIT.
A bag can serve 2 with other food or maybe one very hungry salad lover.
For a packaged kit, it’s pretty good. Does it compare to my homemade one, or one from a good restaurant? Of course not but for just something Grab and Go, again pretty decent. For convenience, I can easily understand why people go for it. Just toss this in a bowl and voila a passable Caesar at a fair price ($4) and all in all fairly tasty and satisfying.
The Romaine was nice and crisp, the crouton very crunchy and are bite size rather than too big for your mouth or fork. So pretty good. But I have a few qualms.
Romaine lettuce – Nice and crunchy! However I did find a few bad pieces which I threw out but only about 6-10. Anyway as with all packages of salad, be sure when you buy it to examine it carefully for quality. Check dates on the packages. Get the best date you can find. If possible, try to use it the day you buy it, or the next one.
Dressing – Again, pretty decent, creamy and tasty (however no anchovies!) Of course its not going to match up against a “real” fresh made Caesar dressing. I did think it tasted decent for a commercial dressing. Looking at the ingredients though no “anchovies” listed and the main flavors of a classic Caesar Salad are Anchovies and Parmesan. In most recipes. Anchovies can be controversial.
They give you plenty of dressing. I would suggest add it stages. Don’t put the entire bag of dressing at once. Add about half or 3/4 of the bag of dressing, toss the salad, see what it looks like and if you think you need more then add the rest. You want salads well dressed but not drowning.
(TIP — Fresh LEMON really help this salad so if you have a lemon handy, squeeze on about 1/4 to 1/2 a lemon. Fresh lemon juice will definitely improve the overall taste of this salad quite a bit.)
Cheese – I thought this was one place they do the typical Trader Joe’s skimping. They don’t give you very much grated cheese and its just OK. Not actual Parmigiano I am pretty sure. So I added some of my own cheese, I shaved on Grana Padano with a vegetable peeler. Add cheese if you have some. It will help improve it.
Croutons – The croutons are OK but nothing special. They are well baked (dark) and fortunately bite sized. VERY crunchy. However these seem to be just baked bread. Actual croutons are seasoned. These croutons are nice and crunchy bordering on too hard however they will soften a bit of course when you add dressing.
The quality of these croutons here are not as good as Trader Joe’s packaged croutons – which are very good. Which makes me think. Couldn’t one come up with a pretty easy Caesar Salad yourself just by buying a few ingredients from Trader Joe’s?
I certainly think so. Get a package of Romaine lettuce hearts. A package of TJ’s good croutons. A bottle of Romano Caesar dressing. Some cheese (Parmesan, Grana Padano or Pecorino) With those ingredients you could could make your own Caesar salad which will be better than this one in about five minutes. You could have enough for a few days too and I am guessing it will work out to $2-3 a portion?
So this gets a thumbs up mainly for the convenience, as TJ’s Caesar Salad Kit is Grab and Go and if not great, its pretty decent and OK.
Would I buy it again? Well honestly I am not sure about that. Maybe only if I had to come up with something fast? Frankly I would probably DIY it and buy some Romaine lettuce, croutons, and a bottle of dressing at Trader Joe’s and make it myself with only a little more time and effort.
Now could you open up a can of anchovies and add some (mashed up with lemon juice) to this Kit? Why not!? You would have a way more authentic salad.
Trader Joe’s announced the winners of their 16th annual customer choice awards (2024).
Which, out of all the products TJ’s has, do you think customers awarded as the overall top dog pick? Interestingly enough it’s the same one which has been voted first by customers for the 4th Year In A Row as overall favorite ! Drum roll, please, and the winner is….
TJ’s really good snack their Chili & Lime Flavor Rolled Corn Tortilla Chips, were once again voted as as overall favorite. These have been picked 4 years running!
Some time ago I reviewed these and loved them. I gave these delicious, possibly addictive, snacks a big thumbs up. So I am not shocked that these remain to be so popular and got the top Customer’s Choice spot again as these are super.
Though they may not be to everyone’s taste as these pack a punch of pretty intense flavor plus a good leave of heat (like Takis) I find them Spicy Delicious. However my wife for example is someone who doesn’t go for these at all. Even though she likes fairly spicy in general, she doesn’t like these chips. She finds the flavors too strong and too intense, whereas I find them irresistible, and frankly addictive, to the point where once I start eating them at times I have to remeber to stop myself lest I eat the whole bag!
Having said that I do actually sometimes like to counter balance the intense flavor of these chips by pairing them with something which will counter balance them. Knock down the heat a bit. As I mentioned in my review sometimes I actually like to eat these with cottage cheese. I find that a great combination as cottage cheese, something a bit bland, will balance out the flavor. Or sometimes I will enjoy these with some dip which is not too intensely flavored.
OK so the Rolled Tortilla Chips were the #1 Customer Pick. What were the Runners Up in that catagory? Here are the second through fifth place choices, just to give you some ideas of what Trader Joe’s products seem to be most popular with customers:
“Butter Cookies! From France! Dipped in Dark Chocolate!”
“Just about everyone loves butter cookies. If they’re French butter cookies, there’s an expectation that those cookies are going to be truly great. And what if those French butter cookies are also dipped in dark chocolate? …Made for us in France”
I got these to review and my review is these are quite good. We really liked them.
Very tasty, buttery cookies that have been dipped in good chocolate so that they have a nice coating. The cookies are on the thin side.
Frankly these taste way better than you would expect something which costs $2.99! (Note: they are only you about 10 cookies in a box). So you don’t get a lot of them but the quality of these cookies is pretty darned good!
“These Cookies are, indeed, made for us in France. The usual cookie-dough suspects—flour, sugar, egg yolks, milk, leavening, and salt—are combined with cultured French butter (13% of the recipe) to create a dough that is shaped into thin rounds. The baked biscuits are coated in rich, Dark Chocolate (40% of the recipe), yielding an exquisite Cookie that is at the same time: smooth, crunchy, chocolate-y, and buttery!“
Yummy. A big thumbs up. Put these out for company. Or eat them all yourselves!
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Trader Joe’s has come out with another variety of their CHOCOLATE BARK. I liked the original one with pretzels and sea salt (sweet and salty)
The new one comes in a pink bag. DARK CHOCOLATE BARK plus Puffed Quinoa and Freeze Dried Raspberries.
From Trader Joe’s: “The Bark you’ll find within each bag starts as a thin(ish) slab of rich Dark Chocolate studded with pieces of pleasantly tart freeze-Dried Raspberries and Puffed Quinoa.”
So I got some to review. At first I thought it was a bit sweet, however as frequently happens when I am tasting something from Trader Joe’s, I could not stop eating more. I kept saying to myself, “just one more bite.” Then I realize I had already devoured 3 or 4 pieces. Be warned, this chocolate may be slightly addictive.
This new variation on the dark chocolate slab is good. Quite tasty. In the bag quite a few largish pieces of the bark which you can break up into smaller bites. The chocolate combo is pretty yummy,, just a little bit on the sweet side however the tart dried raspberries in this does counterbalance it all out. There is a nice crunchy texture you get from the puffed quinoa in these, kind of like chocolate with Rice Krispies. Here its tiny puffed quinoa bits. The dried raspberries give a nice backnote of fruit in each bite.
Birria Tacos are all the rage now made popular via social media and food trucks that specialize in them.
Naturally the frozen version available at Trader Joe’s may not equal the best ones from a great food truck, However you can get cook them in a way which will make them closer using the Beef Birria which I previously reviewed and liked.
I made the tacos as per the video above as Trader Joe’s suggests. These turned out quite good done this way! It’s worth a little extra effort.
The cheesy beefy tacos got a little cruchy on the outside with some delicious fried cheese leaking out of them.
As I like corn tortillas that’s what I used but four ones could work as well. I used shredded Mozzarellam, which worked well as the “queso” but so could other cheeses, like cheddar perhaps. Add the chopped onions, cilantro and some lime juice at the end as they say for an authentic birria taco taste.
Though thought thought may turn you off a bit, that orange fat on top that you are dipping the tortilla in, is important for flavor and to give the tacos a crispy texture.
I also later thought this dish could become a beef stew with other vegetables very easily. So I tried par-boiling carrots and potatoes for 5 minutes, then added them to the beef birria. Simmer all together until the carrots and potatoes are tender, which takes about 15-20 minutes with the par-boiling. Add a little water or stock if things get too dry. This turned out quite good and makes it into a Mexican style beef stew, with the veggies getting lots of flavor.
You are at Trader Joe’s and want hummus. Wow, you will find so many choices to pick from. So which one should you get to start off with?
I would say you can not go wrong with a classic kind, meaning at least for the moment, ignore those where they have added flavors or additions (I’m looking at you tomato/basil hummus, oh crikey… and that dreaded chocolate hummus, don’t even get me started….)
Stick to Basics. Start with a good simple classic hummus. Like this one. This should give you a base line for decent (store bought) hummus. Later perhaps branch out and start exploring the other varieties with things mixed into it. Or add your own additions, as I frequently do*.
With that in mind if you want a very good, classic hummus, I’d say you can’t go wrong with this one. Trader Joe’s ORGANIC HUMMUS.
I like this hummus. I think it may be one of the best ones they sell. Trader Joe’s organic hummus is a tasty, well balanced, hummus with a deep flavor, one reason being this one has a little more tahini than some others. Tahini or sesame paste is a vital component of hummus, to me, at least. Trader Joe’s does sell some hummus that has NO tahini it it.
You can serve hummus in so many ways. As a dip, along with either warm pita bread, or any bread you love, or crackers. Add some to wraps or sandwiches. Use as a dip for fresh or cooked veggies.
Try mixing a dollop of hummus into your salad dressing. That will give it a nice creamy flavor. Or mix in some Tahini for that matter.
While fine as is, I do like to add a little squeeze of fresh lemon to my tub and mix it in well. Serving it, a drizzle of very good EVOO over the top. Serve with with some warm pita or lavash and a salad. Yes.
FRENCH APPLE TART – “Baked apples in a short bread crust with a hint of apricot and vanilla”
This tart is a seasonal item at Trader Joe’s that comes out around the holidays. We got this first for Thanksgiving to try out. We were impressed. It was so good we got it again later at Xmas!.
This tart tastes way better than I expected a store bought pie to taste. This tastes as good as something you would get at a bakery – which would easily cost twice or more as much. You can just look at it and see its a rung up from your average commercial apple pie, just by seeing intact slices of apples arranged perfectly all along the top edge and baked just until browned. Checking the list of ingredient I see it actually lists varieties of apples: “Northern Spy, Granny Smith“. The crust was pretty good even though we didn’t even warm it up, which would probably make this taste even better.
“To create this masterpiece of a Tart, our supplier takes a buttery apricot and apple filling (made with sweet Northern Spy apples and tart Granny Smiths), nestles it in a shortbread crust, tops it with a fan of even more sliced apples, and finishes it with a light, apricot glaze. A thing of rustic beauty.
Now, you might raise an eyebrow when you notice that our French Apple Tart is made here in the U.S.A., but before you raise that other eyebrow, consider this: the Master Pastry Chef who developed this recipe once made this exact tart—which is constructed and baked according to French tradition—for the President of France himself. Spoiler alert: he loved it.”
While fine on it’s own, if you want to really make a super dessert, you could warm it up a bit and serve with a little French Vanilla ice cream on top. That was heavenly.
These would be great on your next cheese plate or charcuterie board. Or any time you want a good cracker!
My wife got these for us to try out. In short, we found these really tasty and quite good.
The box has 3 packs of crackers. Size wise perhaps a tiny bit bigger than your typical Ritz cracker? They have enough room for whatever you are putting on them. They are a bit delicate. I would spread things on these gently so you don’t break them. Or for example let things like butter or cream cheese or spreads come to room temp.
There are 3 kinds of crackers with different flavors. They are wrapped in plastic. I would love if they still used used wax paper for wrapping crackers like the old days (Ritz). Wax paper is really easy to re-wrap once you open a pack but no biggie really, a Twisty will suffice.
SCALLOPED CRACKER TRIO REVIEWED
Flavor one – Rosemary. These had a very nice smell of rosemary, delicate though, not overpowering, which added a nice back note to whatever you put on it. We LOVED these!
Another package holds crackers with a reddish tinge, which is of course the RED CHILI cracker. A tad spicy but not very spicy. We didn’t think these would classify as “hot” to most people (except for one cracker in the pack which seemed to have more spice on it than others). We thought these were just a wee bit spicy, again not overpowering, just adding a tiny and tasty heat which went well with everything we tried it with. Great for dips I think.
The last flavor was a Garlic cracker. While fine, we both thought these were the least special flavor of the 3 kinds. Again fine, but these just didn’t stand out like the other two.
Overall, I would say the trio of crackers was nice. Very tasty. Of course we tried all of them crackers with a variety of cheeses and anything we could fine in the fridge and we liked every combination of crackers plus cheeses we tried.
I would say you these are well worth adding to your your list of the choices at of so many delicious crackers Trader Joe’s carries. Lets face it TJ’s has so many temptations in the cracker department, so many of them excellent! Talking about you OLIVE FLATS!
Scalloped Crackers Trio – $3.99 (16.4 oz)
Six crackers have 120 calories (and boy are six easy for me to eat, and thats before they get the cheese on them!)
Review of Trader Joe’s steamed PORK AND GINGER SOUP DUMPLINGS (aka Xiao Long Bao)
Now I am what you might call a devotee of Xiao Long Bao or “soup dumplings”. I am crazy for them. I mean really good ones and thankfully New York City has a number of places where one can get excellent soup dumplings. One of my favorite places is in Flushing, Queens at a well known restaurant that specializes in them called, “NAN XIANG XIAO LONG BAO “(If you can, go there!) This place is famous for soup dumplings and the restaurant even has huge glass windows so you can see into the kitchen and watch a swarm of kitchen workers making them continuously in front of you. First rolling out the delicate dough wrappers. Stuffing those wrappers with the famous stuffing that has lots of gelatin which dissolves into liquid when they get steamed to make a bit of soup inside each one.
I think I had these Trader Joe’s version before and was not overly impressed. Especially as I had microwaved them – which I’ve now learned is not the best method (steam them)!
What prompted me to give them another try was we recently went to a new smaller sister place called Nan Xiang Express which recently opened up in New York City. We went to one on the Upper West Side and got the classic pork Xiao Long Bao.
Trader Joe’s version can’t equal those of course. Never the less when I made the Trader Joe’s dumplings the next day to compare them, we actually enjoyed them. This time I steamed them which gives a better result. Both of us said the same thing “Of course these are not as good as the restaurants but these are actually tasty. These are not at all bad.” For what these are, for the convenience and the price I have to say these are well worth your trying.
We enjoyed them with the sauce I made*. Sure the wrappers in these are a bit thick, not anywhere near as delicate or beautifully plated like Nan Xiang’s but again overall these are quite tasty and they did have a little spoonful of hot soup which you could suck out. Pour a little dumpling sauce* on and these make a pretty yummy snack or appetizer. Sure you can build a dinner around these (figure six per person for dinner plus some veggies, rice and other goodies)
Some people I hear are saying making these in soup and eating them like that.
Certainly the price here is great, six dumplings for $3.49 (at the restaurant: these are $10 for 6 pork dumplings and about $12 for the even yummier pork and crab version).
RECIPE: CLASSIC SOUP DUMPLING SAUCE (mix 3 parts Chinese black vinegar, 1 part soy sauce and a small knob of peeled fresh ginger, julienned or grated)
HOW TO COOK TRADER JOE’S SOUP DUMPLINGS – TIP: The traditional steaming method will give you a better result than microwaving these!
STOVE-TOP/STEAMED: “Fill a pot fitted with a steamer basket with water and bring to a boil. Place dumplings into steamer with space between them. Do not crowd. Cover with lid and steam for 8-10 minutes until fully heated. Remove carefully. Caution: these dumplings will be really really hot! Carefully pick up dumpling (chopsticks) and place on a spoon. Carefully bite dumpling to release the soup into the spoon. Slurp carefully. Eat dumpling”
Enjoy these with a little dumpling sauce. The way I eat these is I pick up a dumpling very carefully with chopsticks by the top, and finagle it gently into a deep size spoon (you don’t want to pierce accidentally and loose any soup inside). Carefully nibble a hole and suck out the soup and pour a drizzle of sauce onto my spoon.
A little bit of chili crisp too can be nice if you like spice (my jam is the real Lao Gan Ma).
“From the same supplier that helped us bring Steamed Chicken Soup Dumplings to Trader Joe’s, we are thrilled to introduce Trader Joe’s Steamed Pork & Ginger Soup Dumplings. Inspired by the same original soup dumplings, xiao long bao, that originated in the Jiangsu province of China, this type of dumpling is traditionally prepared in a xiaolong, the small bamboo steaming basket from which it gets its name. In English-speaking countries they’re most often called Soup Dumplings because they are filled with hot soup (and therefore must be eaten carefully!) Xiao long bao are traditionally filled with pork, so this second entry in our freezers adheres closer to culinary tradition.”
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