The Absolute Best Prepared Food At Trader Joe's Is A Classic Salad

When you need a quick bite, the range of prepared foods at Trader Joe's is extensive. You can cherry-pick from tamales and potato salad to lentil soup, wraps, and egg bites, which is why we had such an awesome time taste-testing them to curate our list of 13 Trader Joe's best prepared foods, ranked. And the well-deserved winner of the top spot? The Waldorf salad. Crisp with romaine and sweet with chopped apples, it had just the right amount of crunch and was perfectly balanced. 

While Trader Joe's version of the Waldorf salad features all of the traditional ingredients found in a old-school recipe, such as chopped apples, walnuts, and grapes, the label on the tub describes it as a "twist on a classic salad." This is because it comes with two scrumptious additions; a sachet of brown sugar maple dressing and lots of grilled chicken. Normally, a Waldorf salad is coated in a mellow dressing made with mayo, a spritz of lemon juice, and seasonings. However, we found the maple dressing to be the perfect pivot from the norm. Incredibly flavored, without overwhelming the combined elements in the rest of the dish, it provided a touch of welcome sweetness. Made primarily of apple cider vinegar, Dijon, brown sugar, and maple syrup, the dressing also contains warming spices, such as cinnamon, ground ginger, and nutmeg. It's so delightful that a Reddit user has described its flavor as so good that they'd drink it.

The nutrition label on a Trader Joe's Waldorf salad states that there are 3.5 servings per tub (with each 100g of dressed serving containing 5g of protein) but as it includes chicken, we say the whole tub can be enjoyed as a satisfying full-on meal for one. This would make the total protein count just shy of 20g. However, the salad can be divided into a starter or side salad too to serve with a main meal, or customized with the addition of more protein and veggies. Having said that, we reckon it's super-convenient and restaurant-worthy as is. Suffice it to say we inadvertently ate the entire contents of the box because the salad was so tasty when coated in the sweet, mustardy dressing.

The worst prepared food in our ranking, however, was Trader Joe's lemon herb macaroni salad. We found it to be particularly tangy from the addition of dill relish and capers and it also had a distinct vinegar-y aroma. The briny quality of the dressing didn't tickle our tastebuds and we were left thinking the tub should've been labelled as a dill pickle mac salad as the lemon and herbs featured on the label took a backseat against the forward-flavor of the pickle.