INGREDIENTS: All Natural Chicken, Sea Salt, Oregano, Basil, Vinegar Powder, Garlic powder, Onion powder, Rosemary, Black Pepper, Parsley
These meatballs looked interesting enough to me to try out and review. They’re sold fresh in the refrigerated case in a vacuum pack.
They are fully cooked, ready to heat and eat. Made from “all natural, minimally processed chicken, no antibiotics”. These are Gluten Free, simply made from chicken with a few simple seasonings. Vacuum packed, they can easily keep at least a week or more in the fridge unopened. For longer storage just freeze them (to defrost I just leave them in the fridge overnight).
I’ve found with these meatballs to be very convenient for a super fast easy protein to use to come up with an quick easy meal. I find them pretty tasty if just the tiniest bit rubbery (if I compared to my own homemade chicken meatballs). I think they would be even better if they had a little bit of binder (bread crumbs eggs, veggies or the like). If you’ve ever made meatballs you know they will come out softer with a little bit of some kind of “binder” in them. Meatballs generally have bread crumbs, eggs, and milk.
I do suggest you be sure to brown them, as I think a little browning improves them. Therefore I suggest don’t just nuke these, cook and brown them up in a nonstick or seasoned pan with a little butter or oil.
I use the “Stove Top” method mentioned on the package, browning with some butter and/or olive oil. I sometime cut them in half, or quartered or sliced up as that increases the surface area for browning. If you want them whole that’s fine too just turn them to get all sides brown before serving. When they are golden brown, turn off the heat, toss a tablespoon of water or stock, or lemon juice in and cover the pan immediately to let them steam a bit which will soften them. A sprinkle of lemon juice perked them up nicely. Before cooking them I like to sprinkle them with either Smoked Paprika or AJIKA blend which helps browning even more, plus adds nice flavors.
These will be good with some sauce of your choosing… Sriracha Mayo or Garlic Dip mixed with lemon juice… Or even just some ketchup and/or mayo….Magnifique Sauce. Your favorite BBQ sauce. Sweet Chili sauce… Basically any sauce you like will work and improve these.
Here is a one way I’ve served them. Cut into halves, browned up and put on top of a bed of lentils that I had made a few days before. Another way was in a Wrap on a flour tortilla.
Grilled Chicken Meatballs on a bed of lentilsWRAP – Chicken meatballs sliced and grilled, and served on warm flour tortilla with avocado and Magnifique Sauce. Added lettuce then wrapped up.
These can easily become dinner along with some sides, say rice or potatoes, or pasta and a veggie. I think these might match well with any one of TJ’ssimmer sauces(Thai or Indian). You could brown them, add sauce, simmer a few minutes and serve. Maybe toss in some frozen green beans or peas in the sauce as well? Serve on top of rice or noodles or pasta. Or just with pita or Naan? What about making these Italian style? Brown and add your favorite jar of tomato sauce. Toss them with pasta and you have an easy dinner. Or maybe brown them, slice up, and put them into a pita with some lettuce and some sauce? Or just serve them sliced up on top of a salad? So you might find these a handy thing to have in your fridge. TJ’s Chicken Meatballs are $3.99 (12 oz, about 16 meatballs in the package). Figure maybe 4 per person/portion? 4 meatballs have 16 gr of protein with 150 calories!
Now on the other hand with just a little effort you can make your own chicken meatballs! No really, it’s pretty easy. While these are very convenient of course, your own homemade ones will be way better.
RECIPE – HOMEMADE CHICKEN MEATBALLS: Take a package of Trader Joe’s fresh ground chicken ($3.99 $4.49 a pound). Put in a bowl. Mix in one egg, 2 tablespoons milk, 1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs or Panko… 1/4 tsp Salt & Pepper (Optional seasonings, even better with some chopped scallions, parsley, garlic, cilantro? Add a tablespoon of AJIJKA spice or Smoked Paprika. Mix ingredients thoroughly. Put in fridge for 1/2 hr to firm up. Form (using wet hands) into small meatballs. Flatten them for patties (more surface area to brown). Put into a nonstick pan with butter and/or olive oil. Sprinkle on Smoked Paprika. Cook 4 minutes per side, turning till browned. Deglaze pan with 1 tbl water, lemon juice, add butter and pour pan sauce over chicken.
(my Homemade grilled Asian style chicken patties with grilled rice)
TJ’s has these little Grump trees for sale again right now for Xmas. They are cute and a pretty good deal for just $9.99. These can make a funny gift…. But wait, why”Grump” Tree? I’m guessing it’s for copyright reasons. TJ’s doesn’t want to say Grinch less they get sued by the Dr. Seuss estate. However they can get away with saying Grump and we all get the reference to The Grinch by it’s design (a clever idea just wrapping the tree to a point). If you don’t feel like laying out a ton of money for a Christmas tree ($50-150?) maybe you could get away with a little Grump tree and dress it up really nice with a lot of decorations… And it will last. If you take care of it, it will grow and grow and maybe you can use it for a few years. “Will eventually grow into a large tree. Keep well watered.”
Trader Joe’s SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI with Butter & Sage (Product of Italy)
Trader Joe’s frozen “SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI with butter and sage” looked interesting enough for me to review. It even says “Product of Italy”, which sounds promising. These gnocchi seem quite popular and get a fair amount of interest here.
To review it, three of us tasted it as one part of a dinner we had put together. We all thought this was tasty, however we also all found it a bit different than what we were expecting. The main thing being all of us said the same thing to start with. Are they sweet potato? Well, other than that these have an orange color, if it didn’t say sweet potato none of us could have told you these were Sweet Potato Gnocchi as opposed to a regular potato gnocchi.
Butter and sage is a classic sauce and the sauce here was tasty. We were a bit surprised at how much sauce comes in this. So just know the dish is pretty saucy, which may not be a bad thing. The flavor of the sauce was tasty, nice and buttery with the hint of sage. Since there is so much sauce, be sure to have something to mop it all up with like some good crusty bread, as we did.
Again our main comment was about being if you can tell these are “sweet potato”. The first 3 ingredients listed in this are: sweet potato, wheat flour and potatoes, so they do have regular potatoes in it.
It takes about 3-6 minutes, Microwave or Stove Top to cook. I cooked this on the stove top in a pan (adding 2 tbls water or broth and cover) stirring occasionally.
RECIPE IDEAS ABOUT ADDING TO THE DISH:
As good as this is already, you can easily turn this into a more substantial meal by adding something. For example you could add your favorite Chicken Sausages which match well with this dish. Just brown some of Trader Joe’s chicken sausages – or chicken meatballs – and mix those in when the gnocchi are ready. I think Shrimp would work well too. Vegetarians might add the vegetarian sausage of their choice.
Adding VEGGIES work well with this dish. Another idea I had was adding some frozen vegetables. I Frozen green beans might work well. Or peas. Or spinach. You could just toss in a generous handful of veg for some extra taste and a little veggie protein and cook those along with the sauce.
MAKE THIS A MEAL: Add some salad and bread along with this and you can have a nice substantial dinner with this gnocchi. And maybe the additions mentioned above if you want to beef it up even more.
While I liked these I like other gnocchi choices available at Trader Joe’s. Boiled soft gnocchi such as this dish are fine, however I am quite partial to pan fried gnocchi which you make by sautéeing the gnocchi with a little olive oil and butter until they get golden brown – then add sauce at the end.
These sweet potato one in sauce were about $3.69. I like them and give them a good if not great review mainly as as they don’t stand out as being “sweet potato” gnocchi but still we thought these were tasty.
I love gnocchi when they are fried up and get a little bit of a delicious texture on the outside which you can’t get with prepared, sauced frozen ones, like this dish.
Frequently I make Trader Joe’s (shelf stable) potato gnocchi–a productI just love and buy all the time(and its cheaper, just $1.99 $2.29). I cook those up so they get a golden brown on the outside, and add my own sauce. In this case, I might add my own butter, sage and grated cheese and a squeeze of lemon to come up with a dish a bit like this one, but with a bit of a crispier texture, and frankly I don’t need so much sauce.
My go to gnocchi, as mentioned, are the packages of Trader Joe’s shelf stable potato gnocchi on the shelves along with their pastas. Those gnocchi are not only cheaper but you can get those crispy by frying/baking/air frying them up to brown them.
Trust me, try making crispy gnocchi at least once. So good that way. So honestly I would say try out both kinds, this dish, and later make your own dish, with TJ’s regular potato gnocchi pan fried up crispy (and add butter and some sage and cheese for a sauce).
Here’s a link on “How to fry gnocchi, and why you should want to!)
Its HOT all over the U.S. at the moment. Here’s just a couple of suggestions for some Trader Joe’s staples that are good to have on hand for hot weather, that can make easy pantry meals you don’t have to cook, or barely have to, and you can just throw together quickly.
“Pappardelle is a hearty noodle with many uses. Traditionally this hearty noodle is served with high-flavor chunky sauces made from game or pork… We like it with a robust Bolognese. It’s perfect for soaking up the flavorful juices of a pot roast and an ideal noodle for soups…”
Trader Joe’s Pappardelle noodles are good, hearty Italian egg noodles. These are especially perfect with robust chunky sauces, like a ragu Bolognese. A bag is $1.99 (8 oz). Here’s what I learned from making these a few times. To bring out the best of these noodles I suggest you don’t just cook them and put them on a plate and top with sauce. If you are just serving these with butter and cheese that’s OK to do. But if you are serving with a sauce (Bolognese maybe?) these will taste best if you finish cooking them in the sauce for a minute or two at the very end. Meaning pull them out of the water at about 4 or 5 minutes, drain (but not too thoroughly) and finish cooking them with 1/2 your sauce till they are al dente (save a little of the cooking water, which you can add to get the sauce consistency you want). Again grab them after about 4 minutes of boiling, throw them into a pan with about 1/2 cup of sauce per portion, cook and toss gently for a minute or two, until the noodles are cooked to your liking. The noodles will absorb the sauce and all the flavors, and make for a very hearty dish (see my dish, served with some asparagus as a side). Top with a bit more of your (reserved) sauce and a little grating of Parmesan.
Pappardelle with Bolognese sauce is made for each other so that’s definitely a combo you should think of for these noodles. If not a homemade ragu Bolognese you can easily use Trader Joe’s TURKEY BOLOGNESE “just sauce”. I can’t say it’s great, but it’s decent if you don’t want to make your own (see my easy turkey ragu bolognese recipe below)
RECIPE – FAST & EASY TURKEY BOLOGNESE: Brown up a pound of ground turkey (optionally you can use ground beef, or mix of 1/2 pound each ground beef and pork, or Impossible meat for that matter). Sauté on high heat in a tablespoon of EVOO. Once the meat is browned nicely add 4 cloves of crushed fresh garlic, 1/2 a chopped onion (optional: a grated carrot) and turn down to medium heat. Add a spoon of wine, balsamico or just water to deglaze the bottom of the pan scraping up any bits. Saute on low covered for about 3 minutes then add a can of ROASTED TOMATOES (with or without chiles). Rinse out the the can 1/4 to 1/2 way full with milk. Add that in. Season to taste with salt, pepper and Italian herbs. Simmer on low for 20 minutes. Serve the sauce with a hearty noodle like Pappardelle.
“These are really seedy, really crunch savory flats, made for us in Norway using the bakeriets proprietary process. The crispbreads make a wonderful snack on their own or are perfect with cheese and soup.”
Salmon and cucumber on crispbread – open faced sandwich
In Norwegian, they are known as “Knekkebrod”(Crispbreads). I’m crazy about these super crunchy Scandinavian crispbreads / crackers, and I buy these all the time. I always want to have these in our house. These are good for breakfast, lunch or dinner, As far as crackers go, these are not Junk Food but Health Food. They’re absolutely loaded with seeds and whole grains. They’re super healthy crispy platforms for almost anything.When we say these are “crunchy” we’re not kidding, they’re stupendously crunchy, as in can’t hear yourself talk crunchy. These make a great match with your favorite hummus or any dip or spread. They are great for those Scandinavian open faced sandwiches of course. Load these up with some Lightly Smoked Salmon with cream cheese or mayo (see pic below) and you will be in Heaven (or more appropriately, Valhalla). Smoked Salmon is great too of course. Cheese of any kind. Ham… you name it, it tastes great on these. You can break them in half carefully to make a smaller size if you want. A Top 10 Trader Joe’s Item!
PRODUCT OF NORWAY. 8 oz package is $2.99. I would buy them again.
The other day, I wanted SHAWARMA CHICKEN but I was a bit resentful at the current price of a package of TJ’s Shawarma Chicken. It now costs about $11-12 ($6.50/lb. currently) way up from what it orginally cost. I knew I had some boneless chicken thighs in my freezer, and I have spices of course and Greek yogurt. Why not just do a DIY SHAWARMA style chicken on my own and save some dough!? So I did just that. How did it turn out? Delicious! You can easily do a DIY Shawarma Chicken if you want to save some money, and who doesn’t these days with the constant inflation and sticker shock when you go shopping?
I used Trader Joe’s boneless skinless chicken thighs that I had in my freezer (I defrosted the chicken overnight in the fridge) Or buy fresh boneless skinless thighs; they will easily be about $2 cheaper per pound (if not more) Vs. TJ’s Shawarma Chicken which has crept up in price a few times from the original $3.99/lb to $6.49/lb as of this post.
DIY Shawarma Chicken Recipe: Put chicken in a bowl and add 3 tablespoons of Greek Yogurt. Add a few teaspoon of fresh lemon juice. Crush 4 cloves of garlic with a little salt and mix into chicken. Add a few spoons (to taste) of ZHOUG Yemeni spicy green sauce. Mix. Even this very simple version will work fine, however to make this better we should add ground spices with “Middle Eastern” flavors. Here’s some ideas for Trader Joe’s spices you can add :
Trader Joe’s EVERYDAY SEASONING (grinder), Onion Salt, Ground Turmeric, Ground Cumin, TJ’s AJIKA blend, TJ Smoked Spanish Paprika, TJ Zaatar spice blend, Black pepper, PINK SEA SALT. A pinch of cinnamon. A small glug of olive oil. MIX everything well so all the spices are mixed in. Let it marinate in fridge for 2-6 hours or overnight or up to 2-3 days. When ready to cook, just make it as you normally grill TJ’s Shawarma chicken thighs. You can of course also make this instead with CHICKEN BREASTS if you prefer white meat but just be very careful about not overcooking them. I like to cook a sliced onion in the same pan as I grill the chicken.
UPDATE (AUG 2025) After a report from a reader about this being discontinued, I investigated with the Trader Joe’s front desk. They looked it up and said it’s “not available”, and looked more and said the Info page for it, said the company who was their supplier went out of business. So their order page for the product says “Not Orderable”. She said the page says Trader Joe’s is looking for a new supplier. Hopefully they will find one. But unfortunately for the time being we can’t buy this anymore at Trader Joe’s. I will update again if more news on this.
Trader Joe’s sells packages of “CARNITAS” (Mexican style oven roasted pork) in the fresh meats section. Frankly you make look at this in the package and it may not look look very appealing to you but trust me, buy this! This is not just good, TJ’s Carnitas are delicious. This is a fantastic product. Its tender, slow roasted pork with a falling apart, melt in your mouth, delicious porky goodness. Carnitas (lit. translations is “little meats”) are a traditional Mexican preparation & cooking method with pork typically cooked in its own fat in enormous copper pots by special Carnitas masters, slowly stirring it for hour with long handle wooden paddles. Cooking carnitas is an art. You can’t even really make carnitas at home. When done the pork is so tender and juicy it is almost falling apart. Typically the cooked carnitas meat is chopped up for tacos or other dishes. “Trader José’s” version of carnitas can be used to make excellent tacos. Now even though it’s fully cooked, it will be far tastier if you brown it and I strongly recommend you do. Its worth the little extra effort and your tacos will be far tastier. Please do not microwave it – despite the fact they say you can on the package. Just toss it in a pan. I cut up the big piece of meat into a few pieces and cooked it on low-med heat for about 10-20 minutes turning the pieces every 5 minutes till all sides are seared, golden brown and delicious. Some interior fat in the meat will melt doing this too. The carnitas may even start to fall apart as you turn it, that’s fine (and an indication of how tender it is). When its all done, take out the meat, rest it a minute or two and then either chop it up into bite size piece or what I like to do is: shred it up using two forks. You can use the carnitas as a filling for tacos or quesadillas with your desired accompaniments. Personally I like traditional Corn Tortillas but use any tortilla you like. Now besides using this for tacos, this tasty roasted pork can be used for other things too of course. So for example this pork is great used for Chinese cooking. No really! I make pork fried rice using the pork cut into bite size pieces instead of Cha Siu and it’s super yummy. How about Ramen? Sure. Cut into slices, grill them a bit and use these as the Ramen topping like the traditional slices of Cha Siu. Italian? Chop up the meat for a super easy tasty meat sauce, which you add to tomato or marinara sauce – voila, an instant “Ragu” or meat sauce for pasta or gnocchi. You can even just serve this delicious pork on its own with some lime or salsa or as a topping for a salad. Or make a Cuban Sandwich with this, ham and some Swiss! Trust me, you will find this TJ Carnitas useful to use for many things. The 12 oz. package of TRADITIONAL CARNITAS goes for $6. I would buy this again
I’ve actually come up with a great hack using the Carnitas to make it into a really tasty easy Chinese Roasted Pork (CHA SIU)
BTW – TJ’s PINEAPPLE SALSA goes very well with this pork carnitas for tacos etc.
Ground turkey is something I buy fairly frequently at Trader Joe’s as I find it a versatile ingredient. It’s a convenient protein to have on hand in the fridge, or freezer. Obviously also it has less fat and calories than ground beef, plus is much less expensive, all of which is why ground turkey is a big go-to ingredient for many people. Taste-wise however ground turkey is on the bland side and needs some jazzing up to be tasty. I have found it benefits from two things. One, deep browning. Getting it really browned improves its flavor (due to the Maillard effect). Number two: using lots of seasoning. One excellent match for ground turkey is TJ’s taco seasoning, the 79 cents “miracle” packet. Other good Trader Joe’s seasoning blends that match well with it are: TJ’s Cuban Style Citrus Garlic Blend seasoning, TJ’s Ajika Georgian Seasoning, ground cumin, black pepper and of course lots of garlic, ground or especially fresh chopped garlic. So my “secret” for ground turkey is I season it really, really generously, coating it completely, as the TJ ground turkey is pretty “wet” which make it’s hard to brown. I’ve found a good amount of dry seasoning coating on the outside gives it a drier surface that makes it brown more easily. So if you put a good deal of seasoning on the outside to provide a dry surface for pan grilling (add as little salt or no salt since the seasonings may have salt, check the package) it helps. I also try to minimally compress the ground meat even if making into a burger. I don’t compress the meat much either, as minimally as possible. I sprinkle the dry seasonings generously all over and gently lay it into a VERY hot cast iron pan with good tablespoon or two of olive oil or an oil and butter mix. I don’t touch or move it at all until the bottom side has turned quite brown which can take a good 6-8 minutes. If making turkey for tacos, I just lay it from the package (seasoned) into the pan and try to not break it up until it is done and very browned. This yields large chunks which I like. If you want to mix it with other ingredients like chopped veggies, then you can even add an egg and some binder (panko, breadcrumbs, etc) and then form that into patties.
Ground turkey recipes are all over the internet and found easily. Here’s mine for a fast turkey bean chili.
EASY TURKEY BEAN CHILI: Season turkey as described above, Cook in a hot pan in a nice slug of oilve oil (better still a mix of oil & butter). Cook until turkey is very browned on one side; then flip and add a chopped medium onion and ground cumin to taste. Sauté together until the onion is a lightly browned and fragrant. Add a few cloves of chopped garlic. Break up the turkey keeping a few large chunks for texture. Add a large tablespoon of Tomato paste, mix in and cook on low-medium heat for a minute. Add a can of drained red kidney (or black beans) then a can of Fire Roasted Tomatoes with Green Chiles. Rinse out the can with some water to get everything and add all that liquid. Simmer everything on low for about 20-30 minutes to let the flavors blend. Taste and adjust seasoning/salt if needed. Serve with rice with grated cheddar cheese on top. (Variation -Turkey Bean Chili Soup; this can easily become a soup instead of a stew, just add more liquid (chicken or beef broth or another can of tomatoes) and simmer together till done. )
The TJ ground turkey goes for about $4 a lb. The regular turkey is better overall. The more expensive all white meat ground turkey breast kind can turn out too dry unless you are super careful cooking it, and mix it with other ingredients to keep it moist. If you don’t use ground turkey within 2 days of purchase, put the package in the freezer, and do an overnight defrost in the fridge the day before you want to use it. Yes I know it has a 2 week “use by” date on the package but all ground meats are best used as fresh as possible, within a day or two. TJ’s dates are way too generous for me.
UPDATE: (April 2022, I noticed ground turkey has prices crept up about 50 cents due to rampant inflation)
This is the wild same Argentinian Red Shrimp TJ’s has but packaged up with seasoned butter for a ready-to-cook meal. Convenient, yes, but naturally you pay extra for said convenience. We made this and the finished dish with the sauce was very tasty, but honestly nothing I could not have done with maybe 5 minutes of little effort. This pack is $8 for a 9 oz portion which cooked, makes for two meager portions for 2 as a dinner. To make this into a full meal (for two) I served the shrimp with a few sides plus a salad and a little French bread. Follow the instructions on the package which are to thaw overnight in the fridge. After defrosting I used a thin knife to get it out of the package (actually a bit tricky) and tossed the whole mess into a hot nonstick pan with a little (extra) butter. These Red Shrimp cook fast – they will be done in about 1 1/2 minutes – so be careful not to overcook them if you want the shrimp to stay plump and juicy.
Frankly if you want to get more bang for your buck it’s easy to just buy a pound of shrimp and make a similar sauce. Buy the bag of frozen WILD RED ARGENTINIAN SHRIMP ($10.99) and just add some butter and seasonings. This package is convenient but not great value and its so easy to make shrimp and add a few things. Personally I probably won’t buy this again, I’ll just do it myself. Your call.
Need a recipe for a sauce? Here you go:
GINGER/GARLIC BUTTER SAUCE: Grate or finely chop 1/2″ of fresh ginger and 2-3 cloves of garlic (optional: a little grated fresh lemon peel too); Melt about 2 tablespoons of butter in a hot non-stick pan; Toss the garlic and ginger into. Sauté 30 seconds, then toss in your (defrosted) shrimp and cook tossing them for about 60-90 seconds just until the shrimp turn opaque (max, 2 minutes lest they will shrink up). As soon as they are opaque and pink. add the juice of 1/2 a lemon. Optional: if you like spice, add a small spoon of BOMBA or your favorite something spicy to taste. Add a pinch salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped parsley or scallions. Serve with rice and/or crusty bread to mop up the tasty sauce.
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
Recent Comments