Trader Joe's Pizza Veggie Burgers

With a vegetarian girlfriend to cook for every week, I'm always eager to try any proteinaceous-looking item that can serve as an easy main course. The Pizza Veggie Burgers apparently joined the Trader Joe's lineup sometime in early 2013, though I had overlooked them on many trips through the store before they somehow caught my eye.

My first try at one of these, during a weekly Nina dinner, was not entirely pleasant, primarily because I had scorched them pretty badly. Though microwaving is an option, I thought they might be better done stovetop in a little oil. They probably are--but only if you don't burn them. D'oh!

But since then I've eaten the last two of the four in the box, prepared the same way, but without burning. My conclusion: I really like them a lot. It's not like you'll be fooled into thinking you're eating a pizza, but the combination of ingredients definitely evokes cheese pizza, what with the tomato, basil, and mozzarella. I still treated them as I would burgers, with pickles and ketchup, and I was very happy with the result.

Never once did I have a thought along the lines of, "Well, it's OK for a veggie burger, but I wish I were eating a real burger instead." (Which, I confess, happens with most veggie burgers.) Since they're not trying to trick you into thinking they're hamburgers, there is no disappointment when the effort fails.

The consistency is perfect: they don't crumble apart, yet there is no toughness at all.

The first two reviews I found in a Google search were similarly positive, with enthusiastic fans being made on first tasting:

http://eatingatjoes.com/2013/09/12/trader-joes-pizza-veggie-burgers/

http://shannonslifestyle.blogspot.com/2013/07/trader-joes-pizza-veggie-burgers.html

Will I buy it again? 

Eagerly. But I'll be eating them alone, as Nina was not favorably impressed.

Nina's View

So, maybe by now you've read where Bob revisited his review of the Tomato Hummus. 

I feel very much the same way about these pizza burgers as I did about that hummus spread. Just a bunch of weirdly artificial tomatoish flavor, excessively rubbery texture, and nasty rear of the tongue cheesery vileness. 

So, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln—nope, just did not care for them one little bit.

I wonder whether Bob might revise his opinion of these in a few months' time. I am willing, as always, to try them again in case I was having an unhappy taste-buds attack of some sort. But I'm not hopeful that they'll make a better second impression.


Addendum 

Sometimes when our views are as far apart as they were for this item, a second sampling after the passage of some time moderates one of our views. It was not so here. Nina was a good enough sport to allow me to serve these burgers to her again a few months after the first time. Each of us had the same opinion as we did originally.