The One Trader Joe's Popcorn Flavor You Simply Can't Skip

Dubbing any Trader Joe's snack as "unskippable" always sounds like a matter of personal preference rather than fact. After all, the beloved grocery chain has some of the best snacks on the market, and its selection of popcorn is especially good. It has a creative variety of flavored kernels, but the piquant popcorn is Trader Joe's best version of the treat.

According to Merriam-Webster, piquant means "agreeably stimulating to the taste," and we agreed that TJ's piquant popcorn stimulates our taste buds. In fact, we gave it the top spot in our ranking of Trader Joe's bagged popcorn flavors. The brown paper bag that houses the kernels says they're spiced with nutritional yeast, onion, sea salt, and garlic, and our taste tester loved that each flavor came across clearly with every bite. The nutritional yeast, an inactive yeast that serves as a vegan cheese substitute and nutrient provider, lends the kernels a savory, cheesy flavor. There's also a nuttiness that comes right after the umaminess, bolstering the earthy taste of the onion and garlic.

What's most noticeable is the scaled-back presence of the sea salt. Typically, popcorns that list it on the packaging tend to have a dominatingly salty taste that shuts out other flavors. In the piquant popcorn, the sea salt simply boosts the savoriness of the kernels while balancing out the other flavors.

The earthy taste of garlic and onion powder, along with the cheesy nutritional yeast, makes piquant popcorn a delicious snack to serve on any occasion. You can present it on its own or make it a part of a larger snack spread with complementary treats. To balance out the savory treat, pair it with something like Trader Joe's Honey Roasted Macadamia Nuts and Cashews. The nuts are glazed with cane sugar and honey and topped with a sprinkle of salt to temper the sweetness. Along with the piquant popcorn, the two are a Trader Joe's snack pairing you absolutely need to try.

For something not quite as sweet, pair the piquant popcorn with Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Pistachios. The rich cocoa's bitterness adds depth to the buttery pistachios without making them too sweet. The earthiness of both pair well with the piquant popcorn, with the chocolatey flavors bringing out the mouth-watering flavor of nutritional yeast.

The Trader Joe's Green Olive Flats Italian Lingue Crackers have a briny bite that will really bring out the "piquant" quality of the beloved popcorn. The crackers are flecked with tiny pieces of the fruit that taste delicious with the umami, allium-rich kernels.