Can you believe up until last month I was a Trader Joe’s virgin?! For someone who talks about trends all day, every day, I felt left out of the Fall frenzy that seemed to be happening at Trader Joe’s according to literally every single blogger. So my basic self had to go investigate what all the madness was about. In addition to my long list of all things pumpkin and Fall flavored, I asked all of you for your recommendations and y’all did not disappoint!
What did disappoint was honestly a lot of the fall flavored items. See below for my full grocery list that I picked up and which items I would buy again or not.
GROCERY LIST
Pumpkin O’s
Pecan Pumpkin Instant Oatmeal
Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese
Pumpkin Spice Almond Beverage
Dark Chocolate Sea Salted Almonds
Autumnal Harvest Soup
Goat Cheese & Sundried Tomato Raviolis
Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
Cauliflower Pizza Crust
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
Gorgonzola Gnocchi
Chicken Fried Rice
Coconut Shrimp
Everything But The Bagel Seasoning
Chili Limi Seasoning
Dark Chocolate Covered Strawberry Bites
Dark Chocolate Covered Banana Bites
Kung Pao Tempura Cauliflower
Green Goddess Salad Dressing
I’D BUY AGAIN
Pecan Pumpkin Instant Oatmeal
I was pleasantly surprised by this! If you are a fan of on-the-go breakfast meals, this one has a great flavor and I love the pecan pieces in it.
Dark Chocolate Sea Salted Almonds
I’d go back to TJ’s just for these. I demolished these in a few days. So good!! The perfect snack or after dinner small dessert.
Autumnal Harvest Soup
While TJ’s also has a Harvest pasta sauce (which I didn’t see) I used this chunky soup as a pasta and pizza sauce. The flavor is amazing and I love that it has small chunks of veggies. I highly recommend using it on the goat cheese & sundried tomato raviolis or as a pizza sauce on the cauliflower crust.
Goat Cheese & Sundried Tomato Raviolis
100% my favorite purchase from TJ’s. if you are a goat cheese lover, grab these! They are located in the produce section and pair nicely with the Autumnal Harvest Soup used as a pasta sauce.
Cauliflower Pizza Crust
These are all the rage right now! I suggest putting a little olive oil on the crust and baking it for 5 minutes before actually putting your sauce and toppings on so that it doesn’t fall apart. It tasted just like a normal pizza crust with less calories!
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
Flavored with sage and butter this was actually pretty good. I added chicken and goat cheese and loved every bite! I will say it is a little mushy.
Gorgonzola Gnocchi
This honestly didn’t have a ton of flavor. I added spiced apples, walnuts and fresh rosemary to give it some flavor and it was amazing!
Everything But The Bagel Seasoning
This seasoning was probably the most nominated item by all of you. It is pretty darn good on avocado toast.
Green Goddess Salad Dressing
This one came highly recommended by all of you and I see why! It is a good one!
HARD PASS
Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese
Ew. So much ew. I’m not sure if it’s because I microwaved this instead of heating it up in the oven (both were listed as options), but it was dry and did not have a great flavor either. I know a ton of people liked this but I personally did not.
Pumpkin O’s
These tasted like sweet cardboard to me.
Pumpkin Spice Almond Beverage
I tried to love this, i really did. It definitely does NOT work in coffee and to be honest I didn’t 100% love it in anything else that I tried either. While it has a decent flavor, I don’t like that whatever you add it to gets this film on the top of it. Makes me wonder what I’m actually drinking!
For everything else, I did not have a love or a hate relationship with it. If I didn’t list it under “I’d buy again” or “hard pass” then it fell somewhere inbetween the two. Meaning I didn’t dislike but I also didn’t love it. If it sounds good to you, try it! If not, you can probably live without it:) If there are any must have Trader Joe’s items that I did not pick up in my initial haul, please let me know since I’ll be returning very soon!