Trader Joe’s Honeycrisp Apple Granola Has One Big Issue

Talk to anyone who went to the University of Minnesota and they’ll probably gush about Honeycrisp apples within five minutes. That’s right—we invented them! So of course I love to see new Trader Joe’s Honeycrisp Apple Granola on shelves. That’s hometown pride, baby! But I’ll approach this review as a fair judge. I do tend to be a TJ’s denier more than a truther, after all. So let’s find out if a bag of Trader Joe’s Honeycrisp Apple Granola deserves a spot in your kitchen this fall season.

For starters, this stuff is pretty much what you’d expect: crispy rolled oats with dried apples scattered throughout. TJ’s adds a mixture of cane sugar, honey, molasses, and fall spices, including cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and clove, to the rolled oats. This mixture serves as the mortar that keeps everything together and delivers a general sweetness to the granola. Still, apple is the dominant flavor profile. While the apples are added in individual slices (rather than being incorporated into the clusters of granola), the honeycrisp apple flavor infuses everything, so you can still taste it when you don’t actually get any apple slices in a bite. And while Trader Joe’s really praises honeycrisp apples for their crunch in their description of the product, the apples in this granola are not crunchy. They are just chewy bits that dissolve away in an instant. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; let’s talk pros and cons.

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Trader Joe’s Honeycrisp Apple Granola

Trader Joe’s

Pros: The folks at Trader Joe’s must be texture fanatics like me because they really nailed the crunch component of this granola. It’s crispy so you get a satisfying bite but the individual granola clusters crumble nicely as you chew so the roof of your mouth doesn’t get torn up. You could munch on this all day long, or throw it into a cup of yogurt or bowl of milk and have just as pleasant of an experience. While the base layer of sugar coating the rolled oats may be a little basic, it launches the apple to really win you over on the landing.

Cons: I wish they had a heavier hand when they added the spices into the granola. You really have to strain to taste anything but the apples to find them and even then you really only notice the cinnamon and ginger. I’m a big lover of cardamom and clove, especially this time of the year, so please give us more, Trader Joe’s! I’m also docking the score by one Spork since this granola manages to take the crunchiest, crispest apple known to man and sap it of all crunch. I mean, I understand why they are the way they are, but that doesn’t quell the disappointment.

Rating:

8/10

Sporks