The Freezer Meal Frenzy staff loves season-appropriate food. When fall rolls around, we want to eat all of the pumpkin and squash that we can. We’ve already tried Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Mac & Cheese and Trader Joe’s Cheesy Spaghetti Squash Casserole; both meals were big hits with our team. We decided to continue our autumnal streak with Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Parmigiana with an Amaretti Crunch.
This meal includes both microwave and oven instructions. The microwave cook time is about 4-5 minutes, while it takes 25-30 minutes to heat this parmigiana in the oven. Since we had some extra time on our hands, we decided to cook this one up in the oven. Our meal turned out perfectly. We definitely recommend using the oven if you don’t mind the extra wait.
Like a lot of Trader Joe’s dishes, this meal is slightly deceptive when it comes to serving sizes. The box says that there are two servings per container. That’s probably fine if you’re pairing this dish with a nice salad or side of veggies, but if you’re looking for a meal, there’s no way half of the box is going to fill you up. The squash-based meal just isn’t that substantial.
We definitely enjoyed all of the individual ingredients in this dish. The butternut squash is soft, but not mushy; there’s a slight crunch to it that’s really appealing. The creamy cheese blend is rich and flavorful, and the amaretti cookie crunch has a great texture to it. We’re just not sure we love the way these ingredients taste together. The sweetness of the amaretti doesn’t quite work with the sourness of the cheese. It’s a weird mix of flavors that turned us off.
The back of the box shows nutrition info for one serving, but it also shows this info for the full box. One serving contains about 180 calories, while the whole box has about 350. That’s really not all that bad.
Now, we don’t want to say conclusively that we can’t recommend the Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Parmigiana. If you’re the sort of person that likes to melt cheese on your apple pie, you might find this flavor combination to be pretty appealing. However, the blend isn’t for us. We’ve really enjoyed many of Trader Joe’s fall-themed dishes, but we thought this seasonal meal was a miss.
To learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients in this Trader Joe’s parmigiana, check out our package scan below.
