Monday, May 19, 2025

Trader Joes Favorites

Our closest Trader Joes is 90 minutes away in Louisville, KY.  We brought a big cooler along on our road trip with the intention of filling it up at Trader Joes.  Our plan worked perfectly.  I bought a fair amount of frozen things which kept the refrigerator things perfectly cold in the car cooler until we got home that night.  We got to try many new things and can't wait to go back.  The friendly staff laughed when we told them we were from Evansville.  Apparently they have met nearly everyone from Evansville shopping at the store.

I'll show you all the things we got and give our review.  We spent $100 and got tons of food.  I bought a $3.99 oversized canvas tote.  It held our whole cart full with just a few items to carry out.  It worked out perfectly for our cooler/road trip situation.  I will probably leave it in my car so I'm prepared for our next trip.  Kevin also wants you to know that the beer options at Trader Joes were awesome!  He found a lot of rare, local and unique beers to try.

We enjoyed all of the frozen dinners!  It took 3 packages to make enough for a family dinner.  They cost about $4/package.  We'd definitely get the penne again.  I served it with grilled chicken.  The kids said the rigatoni was a little too green and less fettucini than they were hoping for.


The Bulgogi Beef had far less beef than the picture showed, but it was good.  We added some sauce to add flavor and probably wouldn't repurchase it.  Kevin was hoping it would be really flavorful and it was pretty mild. The corn was yummy!

Yum!  I added eggs when we ate it as a side for dinner.

All of the produce was really good and fresh.

The salad kits were AMAZING.  We'd likely go back just for a salad stock up.  We got to sample the Sweet Chili Mango Salad in store.  It's a little spicer than I prefer, but the rest of the family loved it.  Fletcher would tell you that he doesn't like salad, but he LOVES this salad.

Both delicious.  I'm craving Casesar salad every day thanks to this kit.

Kevin grabbed this to shred for taco night.  Yum!

The tiny cookies were fun, but we probably wouldn't repurchase.  Olive thought they might be fun in a trail mix or on top of ice cream.  The boys LOVED the PBJ dippers.

Kevin loves this kind of BBQ sauce.  No one else does, but he's excited about it.

We have a running list of Trader Joes items to try and make sure to buy items for our next visit.
What is your favorite Trader Joes must haves?
Leave them in the comments and I will add them to my list.

7 comments:

  1. Yay! I was excited for this post! Our nearest one is 1 hr 45 min away but it's where some of my in-laws live so we occasionally tack on a shopping trip there! We actually just went this past weekend. After your post, I need to try more of their frozen stuff!! One of my children can't have artificial dyes, so I appreciate their sprinkles, M and Ms, etc that are dye-free. We also like a lot of their bread products-- bagels, french bread, etc. Their nut mixes are great and I like their unique sauces. I didn't see the bbq sauce Kevin likes! I'm going to look next time. We aren't Carolina fans either but I'm guessing they have more traditional ones too!

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  2. I have two Trader Joe's in my area and they are building a 3rd one!! We love their focaccia bread, salame, unexpected cheddar, chili lime chips, green tea lemonade, any of their chocolate and their croissants!! I know there are many other items but can't think of them right now! Their frozen croissants are probably our favorite!!

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  3. We don't have Trader Joes in England but can get similar food from various shops but it's just not the same as what you get in the US!
    Those frozen pasta bags look great for when you are short on time and I always have some vegetable fried rice in the freezer. It's a fab side dish.
    I've never seen those PBJ dippers before, how interesting!

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  4. OK - that trader joes is a little over an hour from me too! LOL - we hit it MAYBE once a year. I wish we had one closer to me

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  5. Now that we are empty nesters, many of the TJ's meals are actually pretty economical for us. I love almost all of their products, including their beauty items.

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  6. I ran into people from Evansville at the Louisville TJ's! I was born in Eville and have family there and now I live in Lou. How funny is that!

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  7. I love their corn dipper chips (basically extra delicious Fritos) and their dark chocolate peanuts butter cups are a favorite!

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