Raise your hand if you’ve been patiently awaiting fall! Ok, no joke, one of my friends and my favorite things to do when the leaves start to change is to experiment with all the amazing Trader Joe’s fall foods. Who knew a squash salsa could be so delicious? Who knew pumpkin granola bark could be gross? It’s only with careful investigation that we now have this knowledge. And today we’re sharing it, as we give you our list of the best Trader Joe’s fall gluten free products.
It’s like a treasure hunt of sorts. It might be good, it might be terrible, but it’s always fun to try.
My best friend came to visit from Los Angeles, and we set upon this mission. $100 + down at Trader Joe’s, and we were ready to go.
But let’s be real, there are a lot of absolutely terrible fall-inspired products. So read on as we want you to save you the hassle.
We sat down for a whole day and sampled every Trader Joe’s product we could find with the words fall or pumpkin in it, and now I present to you our running commentary and our rankings of best to worst!
Best Trader Joe’s Fall Gluten Free Products
#1 Trader Joe’s Baker Josef’s Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread
Rating: 10/10
This is so damn delicious. It reminds us of Starbucks’ pumpkin loaf, which is also so damn delicious, but not gluten free and a total sugar bomb. This one is actually not TOO bad for you. It’s perfect for an afternoon pick me up paired with a latte. We devoured this entire loaf within two days. That tells you all you need to know. Without a doubt, this is our top Trader Joe’s fall gluten free product.
#2 Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Pumpkin Pancake Mix
Rating: 9.5/10
These shocked us as to how good they were. They were sweet and cinnamon-y, but without that fake tasting pumpkin flavor. Our notes read:”: just a hint of fall.” You really couldn’t tell they were pumpkin at all. I accidentally added a few more tablespoons of water, and dare I say, it made them even better! They ended up a lot more crepe-like, and when I made them again this weekend, I added extra water just to get that thin light pancake. My friend said there’s no way you would know these were gluten free.
#3 Trader Joe’s Organic Cold Pressed Fuji Apple Spiced Cider
Rating: 9/10
The spiced cider was another one of our favorite products. Notes read…absolutely delicious! It was more of a refreshing apple juice than a spiced cider; there was really very little spice at all. This product would be equally good after a workout as it would be mixed with alcohol. And hey, it’s 99% juice, so it’s healthy right?!
#3 Toscano Cheese Dusted with Cinnamon
Rating: 9/10
So we really weren’t sure how we’d feel about this, but it actually was quite tasty. First of all, the cheese is absolutely delicious, and the cinnamon flavor was quite light and subtle. This would be good for a fall party cheese plate!
#5 Ghosts & Bats Crispy Potato Snacks
Rating: 8.5/10
If you think regular potato chips are too salty, then these are for you. They are like a really, REALLY Baked Lay with hardly any salt. Our notes also said “they remind us of the potato element in Veggie Straws.” We actually enjoyed the blandness of the chips. You could eat handfuls and handfuls of these.
#6 Vanilla Pumpkin Scented Candle
Rating: 8/10
We can’t forget about the home goods and beauty products. We love a good pumpkin candle. This one smells like a freshly baked sugar cookie. The only knock on it is the smell doesn’t linger or fill your house the way we feel a good candle should. But if you’re sitting next to it, it’s quite pleasant. Don’t bother with the Harvest Apple scent…it’s trash.
#7 Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Body Butter
Rating: 7.5/10
This product, I feel, will split a lot of votes. We are totally here for this product. It smells a little sweet in the container, but I think it mellows out on the skin. Strangely, we think it smells more like apple than pumpkin. My husband says it smells like a fall candle. It’s also got a great silky texture and leaves the skin super soft and hydrated.
#8 Pumpkin O’s
Rating: 7/10
So again, a product that doesn’t taste a lot like pumpkin… we coined it more like Apple Cinnamon O’s. They just taste sweet. These are certainly worth a try, but we don’t know if we’d buy again.
#8 Pumpkin Tortilla Chips
Rating: 7/10
This product is what it says it is. It’s similar to a sweet potato chip with maybe a hint of cinnamon, but it definitely does not have any of that fake pumpkin taste. Notes read… it does the job, and really what more do you need out of a chip?
#8 Fall Harvest Salsa
Rating: 7/10
This pairs nicely with the Pumpkin Tortilla Chips. It reminds us of a mango salsa with a fall twist.
#10 3 Seed Sweet Potato Crackers
Rating: 6.5/10
These are just average. They do go nicely with the cinnamon cheese, but they’re really too small to be a vehicle for anything. They also taste heavily seedy. We wouldn’t buy again, but we’ll finish the box.
#11 Candy Corn Popcorn
Rating: 6/10
My friend’s first word when looking at the package: “disgusting!”
But the Candy Corn Popcorn won us over; it’s actually not that bad! We couldn’t eat more than a handful of it, because it’s very sweet. It is exactly as advertised…candy corn coated popcorn.
#12 Pumpkin Spice Almond Milk
Rating: 5.5/10
A splash… just a SPLASH… of this isn’t bad. We have a Nespresso and a milk frother that we use every morning with Trader Joe’s Lactose Free milk. I mixed that with about two tablespoons of the almond milk, and it was just a hint of fall. If you love PSL’s, maybe you could do a little more, but I find it to be a little sweet for my liking.
#13 Pumpkin Ice Cream
Rating: depends on who you ask
So I don’t mind eggnog…my friend hates eggnog. We both decided it tastes a lot like eggnog.
#14 Autumnal Harvest Pasta Sauce
Rating: depends on who you ask
This one caused some major divisions in our household. My friend thought it was delicious and gobbled up the whole bowl. I couldn’t even get past one bite.
Don’t even bother with…
Apricot Cherry Cranberry Goat’s Milk Cheese- So many things happening here, and wayyyy too tart.
Pumpkin Spice Granola Bark- Tastes like a fall candle.
Pumpkin Cream Cheese – Just eh.
Carrot Cake Spread- Two sweet and raisin-y…maybe ok if you mixed it with cream cheese?
