search instagram twitter facebook pinterest chevron-right chevron-left email menu cross
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to menu-404 navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Let's Eat Cake

Let's Eat Cake is the lifestyle site for Millennial women. We’re your source for lifestyle, entertainment, fashion, beauty, jokes, puns, food news, coffee trends, and baking recipes.

  • Starbucks
  • Drink Recipes
  • Holidays
  • Nail Ideas
  • Weddings
  • Recipes
  • Jokes + Puns
  • About Us
  • Newsletter
  • Advertise
  • Privacy
  • Terms
© 2025 Let's Eat Cake
  • Starbucks
  • Drink Recipes
  • Nail Ideas
  • Holidays
    • Valentine’s Day
    • St Patrick’s Day
    • Christmas
    • Halloween
    • Holiday Recipes
  • Weddings
  • Recipes
    • Breakfast + Brunch Recipes
    • Cakes
    • Cookies
    • Desserts
    • Snacks
    • TikTok Recipes
  • Jokes + Puns
Home » Food » Trader Joe's

14 Popular Trader Joe’s Thanksgiving Items Ranked From Worst to Best

By Hebba Gouda | November 7, 2023 | Updated on November 10, 2023 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links that we collect a share of sales from. Click here for more details.
43 shares
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Green Bean Casserole Bites
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - A Turkey Walks Into a Pumpkin Patch Cookie Kit
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Pumpkin Sticky Toffee Cakes
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Mini Spicy Pumpkin Samosas
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Pumpkin Bisque
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Pumpkin Pie
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Thanksgiving Stuffing Seasoned Popcorn
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Roasted Turkey and Sweet Potato Burrito
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Thanksgiving Stuffing Seasoned Popcorn

As foodies, we always look forward to the endless array of beige starches that is the Thanksgiving spread. As Trader Joe’s lovers, we’re also excited that they roll out the goods in advance, so we taste tested and ranked Trader Joe’s Thanksgiving items from worst to best. Gosh, it’s good to be us.

On November 1st, we’re chomping at the bit to get chomping at a bit of Thanksgiving food. Like athletes in training, we work our way up to the fourth Thursday with a month of sage-ladden, rosemary-studded, gravy-soaked goodness. From pumpkin toffee cakes to seasoned popcorn to butternut squash mac and cheese, our training season has been stacked in the best way.

The aisles of Trader Joe’s are alive with possibilities for Thanksgiving sides and Fall flavors. So we did our due diligence and ranked them all, so you know which to stockpile and which might actually make you miss your Aunt Val’s saltless boiled Brussels.
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked

 

Trader Joe’s Thanksgiving Items Ranked From Worst to Best

14. Riced Cauliflower and Butternut Squash Risotto

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. Fool us thrice, you’re probably cauliflower, bulldozing your way into our favorite dishes and laughing in our faces because we’re naive enough to believe in you.

Cauliflower cannot even be normal rice, let alone a creamy and luscious risotto. We wanted salt. We wanted unctuousness. We wanted…well, we wanted risotto. Next.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trader Joe's fan club (@fansoftraderjoes)

 

13. A Turkey Walks Into a Pumpkin Patch Cookie Kit

The redeeming factors of this kit are that it’s cute, and it comes with a lot of frosting.

But that doesn’t make up for the fact that it’s built on sugar cookies, which are great as roof shingles, but bad as food. If you’re going to be a cookie, be more exciting.
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - A Turkey Walks Into a Pumpkin Patch Cookie Kit

 

12. Green Bean Casserole Bites

While these weren’t the worst tasting on the list, they were certainly the biggest disappointment. We love green bean casserole, and these just missed all of the marks.

The mushroom binder was a little thin, there was a lack of crispy fried onion, and it just didn’t have that flavorful pow that we know and ignore comes from extremely processed cream of mushroom. We like what we like.
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Green Bean Casserole Bites

 

11. Roasted Turkey and Sweet Potato Burrito

Roast turkey, sweet potato, and cranberry are so delicious on our Thanksgiving plates, but something got lost in translation. This burrito version felt like something called #EatCleansGiving that you’d grab from the refrigerated case of a fancy gym’s smoothie bar. The workout is you running from security because you definitely cannot afford a membership there.

We get why you can’t soak a handheld burrito in gravy but also, we want the burrito soaked in gravy.
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Roasted Turkey and Sweet Potato Burrito

 

10. Thanksgiving Stuffing Seasoned Popcorn

This popcorn is a good option for those who aren’t shy about seasoning and want to do some mindless munching. They’re heavy on the Thanksgiving flavor, but the popcorn itself is so light that the herbs can actually get a little overwhelming.

Snacking for long enough will leave you fundamentally confused about the disconnect between your mouth, which is exhausted by the strong flavors, and your stomach, which is still very empty. It’s somehow satisfying and unsatisfying at the same time.

Points for piquing our curiosity, we guess?
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Thanksgiving Stuffing Seasoned Popcorn

 

9. Pumpkin Pie

Look, it’s delicious. Of course it is. Because it’s a pumpkin pie. But that’s the thing. It’s just a pumpkin pie. We can get one anywhere and we’re going to love it, so we couldn’t in good faith put it much higher on the list.

Forgive us, TJ’s pumpkin pie. We’ll probably see you at Thanksgiving.
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Pumpkin Pie

 

8. Everything But The Leftovers Seasoning

This is kind of cheating the game. It’s basically transportable umami in a bottle. Seeing as it’s much easier to carry around and clean up than a bottle of fish sauce, we love it for the convenience of being able to shake it onto anything and everything.

This scores higher for gameplay than for pure taste, but perks are perks.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Follow us on our Trader Joes Treasure Hunt (@trader_joes_treasure_hunt)

 

7. Pumpkin Bisque

Some people get tingles up their spine when their lovers brush against them a certain way or breathe a sweet nothing into their ear. That’s how we feel when we think about soup season. We go right to a creamy bisque.

We were worried this pumpkin option wouldn’t live up to our unrealistic expectations, but we’re so happy to be wrong – especially topped with some crispy onions or salty pumpkin seeds. Is it getting hot in here? Oh good, our soup must be ready.
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Pumpkin Bisque

 

6. Thanksgiving Stuffing Seasoned Kettle Chips

We’re sadistic in the way we love kettle chips. We love a salt bloat that makes our mittens feel snug and a chip so crunchy that it cuts up our mouths a little bit, and these chips deliver.

We barely got the bag open before we were overtaken with the smell of Thanksgiving seasoning, and we’re happy to say they taste as good as they smell. We think this year we’ll use them to scoop up our mashed potatoes instead of a spoon. Bring on the chaos.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Follow us on our Trader Joes Treasure Hunt (@trader_joes_treasure_hunt)

 

5. Turkey Sausage Stuffing Fried Rice

We’re not normally huge on rice around Thanksgiving. We think it should give the other starches a chance to shine. But you know what? Simone Biles was right to not step aside and so, too, was rice.

This is comforting in its taste and inventive in its format. It’s absolutely delicious, and we happily ate the whole bag.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Follow us on our Trader Joes Treasure Hunt (@trader_joes_treasure_hunt)

 

4. Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese

Considering we saw some mixed reviews, we were shocked by how much we liked this. Scratch that. How much we loved it. How much we still love it. How much we still think about it, all the time. We feel like we’re Noah and this mac is Allie and we want to write it a letter every day for a year.

If you’re not a butternut squash fan, you’ll be sad by this mac and cheese, but we’ll be happy, because more for us. It’s creamy and rich and comforting and slightly sweet. We’re big fans.
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese

 

3. Mini Spicy Pumpkin Samosas

We’re suckers for spice. That’s why we’ve done a hot sauce ranking and why we’ve deemed it worth it that our insides are exploding.

These are perfectly seasoned and ever-so-tinglingly spicy, which has them sitting pretty in our top choices. We love the marriage of slightly sweet pumpkin and paneer cheese in a crispy handheld shell, and our only sadness is that these are seasonal.
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Mini Spicy Pumpkin Samosas

 

2. Pumpkin Sticky Toffee Cakes

Wow, talk about a decadent, comforting dessert. These cakes pack a wallop of pumpkin flavor inside of a moist, sticky, mini bundt. We thank the lord these are already individually portioned, because we know we would eat however much of this was put in front of us.
Best Trader Joe's Thanksgiving Items Ranked - Pumpkin Sticky Toffee Cakes

 

1. Pumpkin Ginger Hold The Cone

The reigning champion of Fall TJ’s foods. We don’t care if it’s not overwhelmingly specific to Thanksgiving, we make room in our freezers every year for as many boxes as we dare buy.

The perfectly fresh take on a pumpkin pie and a gingersnap at the same time, these refreshing treats round out any Fall dinner perfectly. The ice cream is smooth. The candy coating is crunchy. The cone is ever so slightly spicy. This dessert is a 10, which is at least how many we can eat at a time.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alejandra Martinez (@traderjoesnew)

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Hebba Gouda
Hebba Gouda
Hebba is a New Jersey born, Minnesota educated brunch enthusiast who is strongly in favor of the Oxford comma. She likes nostalgic songs, jigsaw puzzles, and middle brownie pieces. She dislikes humidity, sports, and sports in humidity. She uses her background in science and creative writing as part of the team behind the podcast Two What's?! and a Wow! You can find her being silly on Twitter and serious on LinkedIn.
Hebba Gouda
Latest posts by Hebba Gouda (see all)
  • The 10 Best Products At Trader Joe’s This April - April 14, 2024
  • The 18 Best Trader Joe’s Items to Buy This March - March 4, 2024
  • Level Up Your St. Patrick’s Day Party Spread With These Easy Food Ideas - February 28, 2024
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. This post may contain affiliate links from Amazon and other sites that we collect a share of sales from.
43 shares

Read This Next

The 21 Best New Products Arriving At Trader Joe’s This November

The 21 Best New Products Arriving At Trader Joe’s This November

Baskin-Robbins New Ice Cream Flavor Is Inspired By Your Favorite Thanksgiving Sides

Baskin-Robbins New Ice Cream Flavor Is Inspired By Your Favorite Thanksgiving Sides

Trader Joe’s Has The Best Pies, And We Can Prove It With This List

Trader Joe’s Has The Best Pies, And We Can Prove It With This List

19 Trader Joe’s Thanksgiving Items That Will Outshine the Turkey

19 Trader Joe’s Thanksgiving Items That Will Outshine the Turkey

Reader Interactions

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Primary Sidebar

Trending Now

Footer

  • About Us
  • Press
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA
  • Contact
  • News
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • Twitter
  • Subscribe
© 2016–2025 Let's Eat Cake
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
43 shares
43 shares