To be a lifelong Trader Joe’s shopper, you need to accept one thing as fact: Your favorite offerings could be gone in a second. Between the constant arrival and departure of seasonal foods and the store’s tendency to suddenly retire fan-favorite staples, shopping at TJ’s takes an open heart and a lot of flexibility.
Lovers of Trader Joe’s Enchilada Sauce know that it left shelves just a few months ago, and with it went an easy way to throw spice and flavor into many Mexican dishes, enchiladas included (obviously). Thankfully, TJ’s didn’t leave shoppers hanging too long, because they quickly turned around and launched a new version! Is it worth grabbing or should you look elsewhere for your beautiful spicy red sauce instead?
When I cracked open a jar of the new Trader Joe’s Enchilada Sauce, the aroma instantly made me crave a Margarita, so that’s a good start. I dunked a spoon into the sauce, and it’s about the same consistency as tomato soup. It’s a little watery for my enchilada sauce tastes, but it’s sure to thicken when it gets all nice and bubbly in a casserole dish of enchiladas. I tasted it right off the spoon and it’s very tomatoey with a powerful hit of jalapeno-pepper heat—enough to make my Midwestern taste buds do a double-take. When that settles, you can taste a lot of smoky cumin, along with bits of garlic and onion. The only thing that keeps this from being a quintessential enchilada sauce? A chip warmer in my apartment.
- Trader Joe’s Enchilada Sauce
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Pros: In my opinion, this is everything an enchilada sauce should be and there’s a lot of it! You can use this all in one go or keep the jar in the fridge to give a zesty, Mexican-esque kick to a bunch of dishes. It’s big, bold, and spicy, and unabashedly so. Trader Joe’s Enchilada Sauce seems perfect to warm you up as summer gives way to chillier fall temps and you still need an excuse to put away some ice-cold Margaritas. I really couldn’t find a lot of flaws with this new Trader Joe’s Enchilada Sauce. I didn’t try it head to head with the previous version, but whatever they did to retool it seems to have worked.
Cons: Because I usually rely on restaurants to give me my enchilada fix, I am indeed a novice when it comes to making them at home. Naturally, I looked at the label on this jar of enchilada sauce hoping to find a recipe to go along with the sauce. You know, like the back-of-the-box recipes that are on everything you buy, from the banana bread recipe on Gold Medal Flour to the chocolate chip cookie recipe on a container of Crisco. Well, Trader Joe’s doesn’t actually have that on their enchilada sauce jar. In fact, they don’t even have anything beyond the nutrition facts and ingredients. No cutesy wording to sell me on the beauty of homemade enchiladas. You can find a plethora of recipes online to help you decide how to use Trader Joe’s enchilada sauce, but I would have loved to see them provide one so I know what else to grab at the store.
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!