Trader Joe's Corn Poblano Chowder

I loved this new soup. Heat-and-serve easy (though with a heavy container to add to the landfill). Spiced enough to be interesting without being the main attraction. Tasty corn and potatoes. I think it's one of the best packaged soups I've had from Trader Joe's.


Will I buy it again? 



via GIPHY

Trader Joe's Pumpkin Bisque

The first taste impression you get from this soup is sweetness. It is, in fact, the sweetest soup of any kind I've ever tasted. There's no added sugar, but honey is the third ingredient, after pumpkin puree and water. I actually enjoyed eating it, but with every spoonful, the sweetness consciously registered as out of place and excessive.

Note the genuine Mason jar used as a container. Nice touch.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Autumnal Harvest Soup

I bought this in October, during the relatively brief time that it was available, but didn't get around to trying it until two weeks ago.

I liked it more than I anticipated, seeing as I'm almost never thrilled with pumpkin/squash stuff. But it's much more tomato and carrot than pumpkin and squash. It's thick, creamy, chunky, and slightly sweet.


Will I buy it again? 

Maybe next year, if they bring it back. It was a nice side dish for a dinner with Nina, and she liked it even more than I did.

Trader Joe's Organic Thai-Style Carrot & Sweet Potato Soup

I was looking for a Thanksgiving side dish that would be some sort of unusual twist on the traditional holiday fare. When I noticed this, it seemed like exactly the thing. Carrots and sweet potatoes, but "Thai-style"--perfect!

Well, it's a fine idea, but poorly executed. As Nina noted, there's nothing distinctly Thai about it. Which is kind of surprising, after realizing that the list of ingredients seems to hit all the right notes: coconut milk, onions, red curry paste, chili peppers, red bell peppers, lemongrass powder, turmeric, lime juice, ginger, etc. But it all somehow gets badly muted and ends up just conveying a vague sense of mild spiciness.

It's not bad. We both ate our share, and I finished up the rest with lunch a few days later. But it feels like a letdown, as if a really creative idea had been ruined somewhere between conception and production. I blame that infamous Trader Joe's Blandification Committee.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butternut Squash Bisque

Not a winner. It's pretty thick, basically just a slightly watered-down puree of pumpkin and squash, with some peppers and other spices thrown in, plus some sweetness, presumably from the honey they've added. I ate my half with dinner last night, but I wasn't thrilled about it. Nina ate only a few spoonfuls of her half before rejecting the rest. No specific criticisms--just didn't like it.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Harvest Chili

From looking at the ingredients list, I thought this seemed like a bad idea--too much squash/cauliflower/pumpkin/sweet potato, and not enough traditional chili ingredients. Upon actually eating it, that concern was confirmed. But I found that an even bigger problem could be stated as "too many onions, not enough tomato." I didn't hate it, but I sure wouldn't have called it "chili" if I had tasted it without benefit of seeing the label. "Spicy vegetable soup," maybe.


Will I buy it again? 

No. Give me soy chorizo chili over this anytime.

Trader Joe's Miso Ramen Soup

I was strangely torn while eating this and trying to decide whether I liked it more or less than its chicken-flavored shelfmate. I don't love miso generally; in fact, I find it a little off-putting. And the miso is quite strong here.

But it was at least interesting, unlike any soup I've had before, whereas the chicken one was just another in a long line of mediocre chicken-noodle soups. So it's got that going for it, which is nice.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Chicken Ramen Soup

Pretty clever of Trader Joe's to release two new flavors of ramen soup in the week before the college kids are heading back to the dorms, eh? (Say, did you know that the University of Southern California has student housing with a Trader Joe's right in the same building? It's almost enough to makes me want to go back and do college all over again. Almost.)

Preparation was easy, following the microwave directions: Open the two little packets inside (one powdered flavoring, one oil), add water, zap for 90 seconds, stir, and let sit for six minutes. The noodles came out cooked just right.

But I can't say I'm excited about the result. Nothing terrible, but it's pretty generic chicken-noodle soup, with a heavy emphasis on the "noodle" part, and only hints and whiffs of the "chicken" part. You could buy any number of similar but better products in a can (and have a recyclable container, rather than one in the trash, as this cup will be).


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Chicken & Vegetable Wonton Soup

I had to look at this several times to be sure I was grasping the concept correctly: frozen soup??? Yep.

You take the bowl from the freezer, peel back the plastic film just enough to be able to add water to the indicated fill line, then microwave for five minutes--that's it.

It smelled strongly of onion while it was cooking, which worried me, but the flavor of onion was not enough to be a problem.

If you've paid attention to the discrepancies between manufactured food package photographs and actual products, you know not to expect the soup to look as you see here. It's much more broth and much less solid ingredients. In particular, it's seriously lacking in vegetables compared to the picture. There are some carrot shreds (not cut pieces as shown), and a few flat bean pods, but that's about it.

The wontons are decent, but so big they're hard to eat. I'd prefer if they miniaturized them down to bite-size, spoon-size.


Will I buy it again? 

No. It wasn't as bad as my worst fears, and actually made a fairly nice centerpiece of my lunch. But between having chicken (which I try to avoid), having a hard plastic one-time-use bowl to add to a landfill, and being only OK instead of something great, this will remain a one-time experiment in a little TJ's oddity.

Trader Joe's Organic Hearty Minestrone Soup

Trader Joe's has tried a slew of these refrigerated soup-in-a-tub varieties. They have mostly been failures, with one standout good one.

This minestrone can now join that as the second good one. It tastes reasonably fresh, and has a nice variety of flavors and textures mingled together, with no off-notes that I detected. It's a million times better than TJ's previous minestrone in a can.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes.

Trader Joe's Latin Style Black Bean Soup

After eating this with dinner again last week, I turned to the blog archives to see what I had written about it. I was surprised to discover that I had never reviewed it. I mentioned it once back in December 2014, and surely intended to write a review then, but I guess it never happened. And then every time I've had it since then, I've assumed that it was done. I didn't take a picture of the box for the same reason, so I had to swipe the one above from Trader Joe's own site.

Anyway, I like this soup. It's just spicy enough to be pleasing and interesting, without being overwhelming. The flavor of the black beans still predominates over the spices. And despite "garlic" being the first thing mentioned after the beans, I don't notice it. (This is a good thing, because I'm not much of a garlic fan.)

I tried thinking of appropriate Latin phrases I could use to make a joke about "Latin style" soup, but failed. I'm sorry.


Will I buy it again? 

In case you hadn't noticed, I have done so several times already.

Trader Joe's Organic Stock--Vegetable

I'm not sure is this is replacing the product that Trader Joe's has called "Organic Hearty Vegetable Broth," or if they will be sold side by side. Online sources disagree as to whether there's any actual difference between "stock" and "broth" when applied to non-meat-containing soup bases.

I didn't bother tasting this on its own, because who would use it that way? I made a batch of my favorite chili with it, and it was as good as always. So the stuff works.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I always keep a container of some such product around for when I get the impulse to make that chili, and this is as good as any.

Trader Joe's Tomato Feta Soup

I was kinda hoping that this soup would be so bad I could make a "tomato fetid" pun. But it's not. I didn't hate it, though I didn't love it, either. I would eat it again, but I wouldn't buy it again.

The reason for that is easy to explain. Compare this to another tomato soup you might choose when you're at Trader Joe's--either this one or this one. The tomato-feta soup requires refrigeration and must be consumed soon. It's more expensive per ounce. It's not as good. And for those who like to avoid dairy, the "feta" part of the program is a problem.

There's just no reason for this product to exist, the way I see things.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Organic Creamy Cauliflower Soup

Sometimes when I debut a new TJ's product at one of my weekly dinners with Nina, we both try it at the same time, but silence prevails because neither of us wants to unfairly influence the opinion of the other. Then somebody breaks the ice.

Last night, with this soup, it was me. I mumbled, "This isn't very good." This implicitly gave Nina permission to reveal the emphatic opinion she had been holding back: "It's TERRIBLE!"

She had three or four spoonfuls before pushing the bowl away and refusing to eat more. I powered through the whole bowl. I was mostly trying to figure out what it was that I was finding so distasteful.

It basically comes down to pepper. I think it's specifically the plain old black pepper--which, though near the end of the list of ingredients by weight, is weirdly front and center in the taste department. Its prominence and dissonance with the other flavors reminds me of the famous Blue Oyster Cult sketch on Saturday Night Live. Except instead of "More cowbell!" somebody in the TJ's test kitchen was yelling "More black pepper!"

I first learned of the existence of this product from following the #TraderJoes tag on Twitter. The person who tweeted about it--Lara from Connecticut--wanted her opinion known here, and I promised to include it:

Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Lentil Soup

I liked this, though mostly for an idiosyncratic reason. Most lentil soups go heavy on onions, and this one did not. They're still in there, but in low enough numbers that I could basically ignore them. That quality alone elevates it above most brands of canned lentil soup that I have tried.

Sadly, however, the Trader Joe's Blandification Committee got all up into this product. It could really use some zesting up. (But not with onions, obviously. Onions do not zest anything up. They ruin things.)


Will I buy it again? 

Probably, though rarely.

Nina's View.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Trader Joe's Organic Creamy Tomato Soup

This is excellent: creamy, flavorful, delicious. I think I like it a little bit less than the similar Organic Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Soup, but it's been quite a while since I had the latter, so I think I would have to try them together to make a clear determination.

But I can tell you this: Other then the occasional use in a recipe, I'm done with Campbell's tomato soup, of which I have consumed in my life approximately enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool. Now I know better.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes.

Trader Joe's Minestrone Soup

This is unforgivably bland, with every last bit of decent flavor thrashed out of it by that evil Trader Joe's Blandification Committee. Not worth the space it will take up on your shelf, on your table, or in your stomach.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Creamy Corn & Roasted Pepper Soup

This soup is not so much "creamy corn and roasted pepper"--with the implication that these are equal partners--but more like "creamy corn soup in which you might detect a little hint of pepper if you close your eyes and concentrate on it."

Given that caveat, it's perfectly edible, but also perfectly forgettable.


Will I buy it again? 

If I do, it will be because I will have forgotten having had it before.


Nina's View

This soup tastes like melted tortillas. Which is not horrible but, as Bob notes, entirely uninteresting. I think any hint of roasted pepper is contributed by an active imagination. Begone, tortilla puree—I have no time for you. 

Trader Joe's Chicken Noodle Soup Low Fat

This is a little more flavorful than the ubiquitous Campbell's, but not by a lot. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about it is that I didn't notice anything about it that gave away its low-fat status. That's not nothing, but it's not enough to get me to love it.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Organic Lentil Vegetable Soup

This is Day Three of New Products Week.


This soup is definitely better than its shelfmate, the Organic Split Pea Soup--but that's not saying much. My first impression was "mediocre." On reheating the leftovers, it improved to "pretty decent." But no number of tastings, I think, would ever elevate it beyond that. The soup definitely tastes of lentils, but if any of the other ingredients contribute additional flavors, they were lost on me.


Will I buy it again? 

No.