30 Trader Joe's Holiday Items, Ranked

The holiday season is always the best time of year (apologies to the Grinch). And Trader Joe's knows how to make it that much better with its extensive seasonal offerings. If you're a TJ's super fan, we're sure you're familiar with the chain's beloved Jingle Jangle, peppermint chocolate goodies, and spiced savory snacks. But this year, Trader Joe's has rolled out some new holiday items along with those classic favs.

From sparkling drinks for toasting the New Year to gingerbread flavored, well, everything, Trader Joe's has you covered. Though it might require a quick fact-check of your local Trader Joe's website to see which items are currently in stock (and a phone call to ask when they're being restocked) that little extra bit of effort has huge payoffs when you realize just how tasty many of these treats are. We went ahead and sampled a wide variety of Trader Joe's holiday foods and beverages and ranked them so that you know which items to snatch up and which ones to avoid.

Trader Joe's is known for adding unique twists on familiar favorites, but the Dark Chocolate Orange is essentially a rip-off with any innovation. It's just like the iconic Terry's Chocolate Orange with the chocolate being shaped like an orange and the ability to easily pull out the "slices" of chocolate, only TJ's version is a far inferior product. We found the combination of citrus and cocoa flavors in this quite awful. Something about it didn't quite balance right, and we don't know if we just got a bad apple (um, orange), but this product was pretty gross. Save your money and try one of the many, many other chocolate items available at the chain.

A Trio of Almonds is a tin filled with, you guessed it, three flavors of almonds. While we enjoyed the sweet and extra crunchy sesame honey almonds, the other two options were lacking. The toasted and salted almonds were rather boring and needed more salt while the caramel coffee almonds were quite possibly the worst-tasting item we tried in this whole list. Unless you really, really love almonds or are just morbidly curious about these flavors, don't waste your money on this trio.

These Mini Peppermint Meringues were like peppermint-flavored air. We enjoyed them, but like most meringues in general, we found them a bit lacking in substance. If you enjoy meringues, you are sure to enjoy these, but if you're not a superfan of the crunchy and chewy cookie, you'll likely find yourself wishing there was more of a peppermint flavor happening, as well as more substance to the bite. Though Trader Joe's insists that these will "melt in your mouth," they pretty much evaporated the second the cookies hit our tongue.

If you've tried any of the truffle snack items from Trader Joe's in the past, you'll probably have an idea of what we're about to say. This popcorn is ridiculously truffle-flavored. Now, we enjoy the flavor of that pricey fungus and think it's delightful when conservatively applied, but that's not the case here. However, our opinion of this item may not be shared with Trader Joe's diehards, as the first time we attempted to acquire the item it was sold out. The popcorn was well-popped and we didn't find any burnt pieces, we just wish there was some salt or another spice in here to balance out the truffle. The flavor is so strong that you can only have a few pieces of White Truffle Popcorn before you need to put the bag down.

If you like sugar cookies, you'll enjoy these festive treats. We think the decoration of the icing is beautiful and these cookies look very festive. The flavor was also your standard sugar cookie; nothing new or unique. Sometimes the basics are the basics for a reason, and that is evident with the  Decked Out Tree Cookies. There's nothing inherently bad about them at all. They just ranked this low because, frankly, they failed to make much of an impact flavor-wise. If you need some cookies to bring to a holiday party and you want to avoid potential nut allergies, these would be a good pick.

This holiday classic reminded us of the fruit punch we'd have as a kid. The ruby red beverage offers a lot of flavors working in harmony, including apple juice, black currant juice, lemon juice, and a variety of spices like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, and even orange peel. The combination worked well, though, as we found all the flavors coming together in a delicious fruit juice concoction. The Winter Wassail Punch was good, but a little goes a long way. If you're inviting some friends over for a holiday get-together consider heating up a batch and spiking it with some rum or bourbon.

We do love a good pun, and Trader Joe's sure knows how to dish them out in the form of product names. Mini Hold the Cone! is a long-time TJ's favorite and this holiday version is among the best versions. The mini scoop of peppermint-flavored ice cream in a tiny chocolate cone is a wonderful bite-sized dessert. It's minty and refreshing, even in the cold winter. We also enjoyed the surprise morsel of chocolate that awaits at the bottom of the cone. But, like a lot of the other items in the middle of this list, it didn't blow us out of the water.

Trader Joe's sure loves its adjectives in product names, alright. The Quite Possibly The World's Largest Fusilli (yes, that's really the name), is certainly eye-catching, and thankfully, not merely a novelty act. This popular type of pasta, even in giant form, is very tasty, easy to cook, and a great vehicle for your favorite sauce from pesto to creamy vodka, but beyond the size, there's nothing new or exciting going on with this macaroni.  

More of a sleepy tea than a Winter Wake Up Tea (in our opinion) we thoroughly this hot sippsr. We found the flavors to be exciting and fresh, with notes of cinnamon at the forefront. One downside for us, though, was that we were confused why each tea bag had to be individually wrapped in plastic. Overall, this was an above average tea most people would enjoy, but it wasn't the unique specialty item we tend to prefer when we're shopping at Trader Joe's.

If your familiarity with sugar plums is exclusively through stories you've heard and not in your actual real life, you're missing out. While not for everybody, we think Trader Joe's has done a solid job of taking this underused holiday flavor and transforming it into this Sparkling Sugar Plum Beverage. The combination of sparkling water, plum juice, and white grape concentrates impresses. Even if you've tried grape juice before and are thinking this product sounds similar, fear not. We found that the carbonation and plum juice balanced well with the white grape concentrate, so it doesn't taste like your standard glass of Welch's. It's actually quite sweet, a bit fruity, and an overall enjoyable drink. 

Ah, the Joe-Joe's. The chocolate sandwich cookie (think of an Oreo) covered in a blanket of chocolate is a quintessential Trader Joe's item beloved by many. This concept allows Trader Joe's to make many different-flavored iterations of the classic Joe Joe's, including the seasonal Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Joe Joe's. We appreciated the strong peppermint flavor and thought it balanced well with the dark chocolate, and we loved the crunch the cookie on the inside brought. As much as we loved the outstanding flavors we just thought these were a little messy and hard to eat so be sure to grab a napkin.  

The Astounding Multi-Flavor Joe-Joe's are aptly named in our opinion because we were astounded at the incredible flavors, variety, and just how many cookies fit into the tin. The package includes the Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Joe-Joe's, Vanilla Ginger (not too heavy on the ginger flavor, thankfully), Double Chocolate (a basic for a reason), and Peanut Butter (reminds us of Girl Scouts' Peanut Butter Patties). If you're a Joe-Joe's fanatic, go ahead and pick these up. 

We're not sure about you, but one of our family traditions on Christmas Eve each year is to end the meal off with chocolate mousse. So when we saw these Mini Chocolate Mousse Desserts in the frozen section in Trader Joe's, we jumped at the chance to try them (and mentally compare them to our own mousse we have each year). Luckily, these bite-sized desserts are a winner in our book. The packaging style of these makes them mess-free and easy to pop out, and you can eat them either as a frozen ice cream-esque dessert, or follow the instructions and let them thaw for two hours before eating. 

When we opened this drink, we weren't sure what to expect. Would it be more of a juice, a soda, a seltzer, or something we've never even tried before? Well, we're happy to report that the Sparkling Pomegranate Punch Beverage is delicious with the tart pomegranate notes balancing wonderfully with the kick of sweetness. It reminds us of a White Claw (albeit a non-alcoholic one, though you can always spike it).  Sipping on the cute 8.45-ounce can of this sparkling juice is a great alternative if you're sober or want to slow down on the drinking for the night.

Obviously, nothing beats homemade latkes, but Trader Joe's Traditional Latkes Potato Pancakes come pretty darn close. Easy to make, quick to cook, and with a delicious outcome, it's everything you'd want in a Trader Joe's product. These rank at the very top of the list because we could eat about 100 of them. These potato pancakes are warm, flavorful, and the perfect savory balance to all those sweets you'll be having this winter. If you need a cooking reprieve during one of the eight Hannukah nights, grab a box of these.