Sweet Rose Coconut Whipped Topping

In design, function, appearance, and texture, this is just like the famous Reddi Wip, or the less famous but all-around superior Cabot whipped cream that Trader Joe's sells.

In flavor, though, there's no chance of confusing this for dairy. It is strongly and distinctly coconut. For me, that's not a bad thing; I can't think of any way I'd use whipped cream in which I would not welcome some coconut flavor. On top of a fruit pie? Sure. On top of chocolate ice cream? Yes, please. On top of angel food cake with diced strawberries? Lay it on thick.

I predict that within several months, the product as you see it here will suddenly disappear from TJ's shelves, to be replaced soon thereafter with an identical one, except now carrying the Trader Joe's name and a more whimsical label design.


Will I buy it again? 

My use of such products is minimal--something like one can a year--but yes, this would be my first choice now.

Trader Joe's Organic Creamy Cashew Fiesta Dip

Nina bought this and served it to me with some chips as a pre-dinner appetizer. She removed the lid and carefully arranged the container so that I couldn't see the name of the product, lest I be negatively prejudiced by my general dislike of nuts.

But here's the weird thing: I liked it, and she didn't. I couldn't really tell much about it at first, because the chips she had were too flavorful on their own. But I brought home the remaining portion, and subsequently tried it with the more neutral Organic Corn Chip Dippers (which I always have on hand), Pretzel Thins, and some non-TJ's tortilla chips. It worked well with all three, but especially with the Dippers.

I suppose it's fair to call it a "cheese dip alternative," but only in the general sense that any dip one chooses other than a cheese dip is a "cheese dip alternative." It doesn't remind me of cheese at all, except with a mighty effort of my imagination. But that's OK; I don't need it to be cheesy.

I don't know how to describe the flavor, because it's unlike anything I can remember. Oddly, there's a fair amount of sweetness to it, despite the ingredients list disclosing no obvious source of sugar. Cashews, potatoes, carrots, onions, green chile peppers, tomato paste, salt, vinegar, plus a few other flavorings--nothing sweet. It's a mystery.

It the "Fiesta" part of the product name is intended to convey something spicy or vaguely Mexican, well, it's false advertising.

Note that this stuff is quite stiff, and will break any wimpy chips you use to scoop it up. You may need to let it sit long enough to attain room temperature before attacking it with something delicate.


Will I buy it again? 

Probably not. Though I like it enough to finish off the tub, I can't imagine picking it over any of my snacking dip staples of hummus and salsas.


Addendum, 2/11/19: 

We tried it heated in the microwave, as suggested by the comment below, and it definitely improved it. It became more flavorful and much easier, physically, to wrangle with chips.

Trader Joe's Almond Mozzarella Style Shreds Cheese Alternative

You may remember a review from almost two years ago of a different Trader Joe's "mozzarella style" shredded cheese substitute, here. It was vile, inedible, and remains on my Bottom Ten list as one of the worst things from TJ's I've ever put in my mouth.

Well, apparently the negative reviews were universal, and that nasty stuff has been discontinued. In its place, we now have this. How does it compare?

It's better, but still not good. It improves from "disgusting" to "meh." I used the entire bag, which is a far sight more than could be said for the product it replaces. But it's virtually flavorless. I basically can't tell by taste whether or not it is present on whatever I've put it on.

The previous version at least had the virtue of being genuinely vegan, for those who care about such points. This one is not; it uses casein (milk protein), and derives some of its flavor (or, "flavor") from Parmesan cheese.


Will I buy it again? 

No. It might have a role in the diet of people especially sensitive to lactose, but that does not include me.

Trader Joe's Soy Creamy Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert Mini Vanilla Sandwiches

Nina bought these and I tried them at her house. Me likey. Me likey mucho. They are very much like the ice cream sandwiches I used to eat as a kid, but with a vegan fake ice cream that performs the rare feat of actually being a convincing alternative to the real thing.


Will I buy it again? 

Definitely. This is a solid winner.

Trader Joe's Soy Slices Cheese Alternative--Cheddar Flavor

A while back, Nina and I reviewed a TJ's product with the same name as this one, but different packaging. I don't know for sure whether TJ's just changed the label, or actually changed the product composition--but I suspect the latter, for two reasons.

1. The new one says "99% lactose free," and the previous version didn't. I suspect they reformulated it to have even less dairy content than before, in order to appease both the lactose-intolerant and the impure vegans willing to make tiny compromises.

2. I described the former version as "a reasonably convincing fake cheese." For this one, wild horses could not drag those words out of my mouth.

If somebody blindfolded you, put a piece of this stuff in your mouth, and asked you to identify it, your response would be, "Limp, oily, thinly sliced cardboard." When, to your surprise, you were told that that was wrong, and you should think of a food product, you would express disbelief. You would then start guessing at random, hoping to end this stupid game. But you would get through, oh, maybe 100 food categories before desperation provoked you to guess "cheese." BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING EVEN VAGUELY CHEESE-LIKE ABOUT THIS CRAP.


Will I buy it again? 

No. It went back to the store for a refund. I'm adding it to my Bottom Ten list. Truly awful.


Nina's View

This stuff literally has no flavor. And when I say "literally," I mean LITERALLY literally, not metaphorically or emphatically literally. NO FLAVOR. None. It does not even taste of cardboard. There's a little salt, maybe. And some oiliness.

The notion that this bears any resemblance to cheddar is beyond absurd.

Seriously, TJ, get a grip.

Trader Joe's Soy Slices Cheese Alternative Cheddar Flavor

These are individually wrapped slices of a reasonably convincing fake cheese.

You'd naturally think that something that is marketed as a "cheese alternative" and made of soy would be a vegan-friendly product. You'd be wrong, at least as applied to this particular item. If you read the fine print on the back, you find that it's labeled "vegetarian" but not "vegan." The label further informs, "Contains: milk & soy." After "soy base," the next ingredient is "casein (milk protein)." There's your culprit right there.

That may explain why this is better than most of the purely vegan cheese substitutes I've tried. It does have that peculiar soy flavor, but it's muted. I notice it only if I pop a bit of the stuff in my mouth naked. Er--that is, the slice is naked, not me. Though I suppose it would taste the same whether or not I was wearing clothes. But the point is that the off-taste is easily masked. Certainly if you plop it on a burger, you're not going to think "soy" when the combination hits your tongue. Something as meek as a Ritz cracker was enough to hide the soyness for me.

But you have to wonder what the target market is for these slices. Vegans won't touch them, obviously. People who identify as vegetarian but not vegan have presumably already decided that they don't object to dairy products, so wouldn't they just buy real cheese slices?

The only niche I can think of that would be interested in this, as opposed to real cheese slices, is people who are so lactose-sensitive that they can't have even the 3/4 of an ounce of cheese that a regular slice would have. That's got to be an unsustainably narrow market.


Will I buy it again? 

Probably not. I originally bought it without reading the back of the package, and so assumed it was a completely non-dairy product. Nina is making serious efforts to reduce her use of milk and milk products, so I had hoped I could offer her this as a small piece of that change. But since it's derived from milk, it's hard to see that it furthers the cause. That being so, I can't think of any good reason to choose this over real cheese slices.


Nina's View

When I first started reducing my dairy intake, the disappearance of cheese was the most painful part of the process. I loooooove cheese and was accustomed to eating a lot of it. Naturally I bought and tried pretty much every cheese substitute available.

Pretty much all the ones that I thought were at all worth eating had dairy products in them. WTF?

The others are pretty much yucky.

The good news for me is that I no longer crave cheese as I once did. I still eat it from time to time in restaurants and at other people's homes, but it has become a much smaller percentage of my diet.

Trader Joe's Soy Cheese Blend Cheese Alternative

This tastes nothing like cheese. It doesn't melt as nicely. And it's made with dairy-derived casein, so it's not even vegan-friendly.

Frankly, I can't imagine why anybody would want to use it.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Strawberry Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert Made With Coconut Milk

Special note: This is Day 2 of Coconut Week. 



Nina bought this and served it for dessert with a dinner she made for us. She also took that picture.

This is good, good stuff. You won't know that it's not made from what Nina has lately been calling "pain juice" (i.e., milk). There's a little hint of coconut flavor, but it is neither unpleasant by itself nor out of harmony with the dominant strawberry.

It's not the greatest strawberry ice cream I've ever had, but it's quite tasty. It's good enough that if all the real strawberry ice cream vanished from Planet Earth tomorrow, and we were left with only this in its place, I would feel no significant loss.

I think it's one notch below its chocolate shelf-mate in overall yumminess, but that's the worst comment I can think to make about it.

The good folks at the "What's Good at Trader Joe's" blog liked it even more than I did, assigning it 9.5 on a scale of 10, and giving it their rare "pantheon" status for excellence. See here.

Will I buy it again? 

Happily.


Nina’s View

TOP TEN FO SHO.

I like this better than the chocolate. Now every time I go to TJ’s it will be a struggle NOT to buy this. So good.

Trader Joe's Soy Creamy Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert--Cherry Chocolate Chip

As we have previously noted, Nina has been greatly reducing her consumption of milk products--and I'm not averse to substitutes if they are good ones.

This, my friends, is a good one.

I came to it naive; I had not heard or read anything about it. I just knew that I wanted to try another TJ's ice cream of some sort, and I thought this one looked promising.

When I tasted it, I could hardly believe it. This did say non-dairy, didn't it? I rechecked the label and the list of ingredients. Yep. Then how can it taste so good? How can it have the mouthfeel of real ice cream? I swear that if you fed this to me, telling me it was regular ice cream, there is not one thing about it that would tip me off that you were lying. Now, I wouldn't pit it against some of the super-premium ice creams that I have had in my life. But it's at least as good, and possibly better, than most non-premium ice cream. That that can be said of a soy-derived product is rather astonishing.

I wondered if maybe it was a lack of discriminating palate that made me easily duped, and others would see through the non-dairy ruse. Well, here's a bunch of reviews I found in the first two pages of Google results, some of them dating back to 2008, when it appears this product was first introduced. See for yourself:

Eating at Joe's blog: "I may never go back to dairy ice cream.... Vegan ice cream that [is] as good as the real thing."

San Jose Mercury News comparison test: "Except for the slight beany flavor of soy, this budget-priced dessert is a solid swap for standard ice cream."

A Soy Bean blog: "[I]t's been a LONG time since I've had Ben & Jerry's ice cream. But I do fondly remember the taste of their Cherry Garcia flavor, and this cherry chocolate chip knocks it out of the park!"

PETA Prime blog: "The cherry chocolate chip flavor starts with a yummy cherry base, not vanilla. It is so full of big pieces of cherries and chunks (not chips) of chocolate that you will feel like you are eating frozen chocolate-covered cherries. They definitely did not scrimp on this one--you practically have to chew this bowl of “nice” cream."

Kitchology blog: "Sweet, rich, and creamy, Trader Joe’s Soy Creamy Cherry Chocolate Chip had me from the first spoonful. The smoothness of the cream is perfectly complimented by the crunch of the chocolate chips and the chewiness of the cherries. In my opinion, this blows every other cherry-chocolate ice cream like dessert out of the water. Nothing can compare. Not even Ben and Jerry’s famous Cherry Garcia."

Diana Takes a Bite blog: "TJ's Soy Creamy Cherry Chocolate Chip "ice cream" is beyond compare. There is no contest -- it blows Ben & Jerry's [Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt] completely out of the bowl."

Son of a Vegan blog: "Let me start by saying it is absolutely heavenly, I swear I could hear arcs gloriously playing in the background while I was eating that "ice cream". It has chunks and chunks of cherries and a whole lot of chocolate chips so this "ice cream" is sure to please your sweet tooth."

Rookie Magazine: "Since going vegan in the late ’90s I have always been pretty content with my dairy-free ice cream options. But two summers ago, my dessert world was ROCKED when I came across this cute red-and-green container in the frozen section at Trader Joe’s—a quart of Soy Creamy Cherry Chocolate Chip. Cherries are my favorite fruit and chocolate is my favorite food period, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Reader, IT CHANGED MY VEGAN LIFE: sweet, smooth cherry-flavored cream, big chunks of real cherry, and plenty of chocolate chips. I started telling everyone I knew that it wasn’t just my favorite vegan ice cream, it was my favorite ice cream, period! My non-vegan husband even loves it, and when my ex-vegan friend came to stay with me after living in Asia for a few years, she had the same total mouth orgasm as I did. In fact, she practically wept when she could not figure out how to take a case of it back to China. Now I just get to eat twice as much and say it’s for Lindsay. That works for me and I encourage you to eat some for her, too."

So as you can see, I'm not just imagining things here. This stuff really works as ice cream, whether or not you're consciously choosing to avoid dairy. This is one case where you don't have to settle for something that isn't as good as the "real thing."

I'm just gonna go right ahead and plop it onto my Top Ten list.

Will I buy it again? 

Yes indeed.

Trader Joe's Vegan Mozzarella Style Shreds

This was the final component in our homemade pizza last week. I've got plenty of real cheese on hand, but Nina has been trying to reduce her use of milk and milk products, so I decided to contribute a bit to that effort by trying this product.

I knew that there was something very off in the taste of the pizza (especially in the leftovers on the second day), but I wasn't sure how to assign the blame, between the underdone crust, the fake spicy ground beef sprinkled as a topping, and the fake cheese. As mentioned yesterday, the sauce was excellent.

It all became clear a couple of days later when I made myself two tostadas: tortillas with refried beans and more of the fake beef. On one I put this fake mozzarella. On the other I put some leftover TJ's Mexican cheese blend.

The difference couldn't have been more stark. It became abundantly clear that the off flavor I had noticed in the pizza was coming from this non-cheese. I wasn't sure how to describe it until I went searching for other reviews, and found this direct comparison of the TJ's product against another vegan mozzarella substitute--specifically a brand called "Daiya," which I had not heard of before. In the reviewer's words, "It tastes like Parmesan cheese mixed with mayonnaise mixed with foot. It is atrocious." A commenter on that post added, "I tried it on a pizza. Ugh, what a disappointment! I managed to eat it without vomiting, but I am wondering if the strange churning in my gut two hours later is a bad sign. I am throwing out the rest...."

I, too, ended up throwing away half of the tostada with the TJ's fake cheese. It was that bad. In retrospect, I think the yumminess of the pizza sauce is what made the pizza palatable in spite of having this ickiness on it. Once that was no longer present, and the full taste of the "shreds" was unmasked, it was inedible.

I threw away the rest of the bag, and hereby add this product to my own little hall of shame, the Bottom Ten list.

Will I buy it again? 

Good lord, no. But the review linked above and comments on it make me want to try the Daiya brand.


Nina's View

I am indeed trying to cut down on the amount of condensed cow-pain I eat. I've been trying all sorts of substitutes and have been generally dismayed at how lame (at best) or disgusting (at worst) they mostly seem to be so far.

My only encounter with these shreds were on the pizza Bob made, which was not a rollicking success in general but in which the fake cheese receded so far in flavor as to not register at all one way or the other.

I am prepared to take Bob's word at it that it's pretty awful.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert Made With Coconut Milk

Asheville has a restaurant called "Plant" (just a stone's throw from Trader Joe's, by coincidence) in which every item on the menu is vegan. Nina and I ate there once just after I had moved here. What I remember most about it was the amazing non-dairy ice cream, made from coconut milk. I never would have been able to tell that it wasn't the real thing. It recently got picked up for national distribution as part of the Amy's Kitchen line of natural/organic grocery items.

After the rousing success of my first trial of a Trader Joe's ice cream product (the luscious Pomegranate Blueberry Sherbet), I was ready for another. When I saw this chocolate fake ice cream made from coconut milk, I immediately remembered the stuff from Plant, and grabbed a pint, hoping that it would be as good, though with some trepidation that it might be inferior, and thus a big disappointment.

I was not disappointed. It's scrumptious. I ate half of the pint in my first sitting, and (1) that was after a big dinner, and (2) I definitely could have polished off the whole thing, absent the exercise of a heaping helping of self-restraint.

It's soft, creamy, smooth, delicious. There is definitely a coconut note present, but I consider that a plus; coconut and chocolate are a great combination, as the Mounds bar proved decades ago. I will go so far as to say that if all real chocolate ice cream vanished from the face of the earth tomorrow, leaving only this product, I would not miss the dairy stuff. I could be entirely content substituting this for chocolate ice cream as long as I live.

Now the question is, can I refrain from eating every last bit that's left before Nina's next visit three days from now? If I can manage that kind of self-discipline, I think I'll qualify as a Shaolin monk.

If you're thinking that that kind of praise is leading up to another Top Ten award, you are correct.

Will I buy it again? 

Definitely. I'm also eager to try the Plant/Amy's version once it hits stores, and compare them side by side.

Nina's View

There was indeed a spoonful and a half in the bottom of the carton by the time I arrived. I ate that spoonful and a half and I liked it. Since I'm gradually reducing dairy in my diet (I will spare you the disquisition on how dairy farming is basically the production of JUICE OF PAIN), I've found that coconut milk makes a pretty decent substitute in many cases. This would be one of those.

Weirdo that I am, chocolate is not at the top of my favorites list. I'd welcome the opportunity to try other flavors of this confection.