The Freezer Meal Frenzy staff loves a good potato, even if it’s a potato in name only. Even though sweet potatoes aren’t actually potatoes, we welcome their presence in potato-themed dishes. We also welcome cheese in almost any dish, which is why we couldn’t wait to try the Trader Joe’s One Potato Two Potato Gratin.
If you’re in a hurry, you can microwave this dish, but we’d recommend taking the longer route and heating this in your oven. Oven cooking takes about 45 minutes, but it gives you those perfectly crispy edges you just can’t get in the microwave. It also makes it easy to ensure that the dish is cooked evenly. We suspect that you might wind up with a cold center if you try to heat this the fast way!
If you’ve ever had funeral potatoes — or another potato gratin dish — then elements of this are going to taste familiar to you. The combination of cheese, milk, and perfectly-cooked potatoes will always be the ultimate comfort dish. However, the inclusion of sweet potatoes really transforms this into something special.
The regular potatoes are the perfect blend between hard and soft. They crumble in your mouth when you bite into them, but they’re not quite in mashed potato territory. The sweet potatoes, on the other hand, have slightly crispy exteriors. They’re still incredibly soft on the inside, however, and that makes biting into them a real treat.
We would have been happy with just potatoes and cheese, but there are a few other ingredients that really take this to the next level. Scattered throughout the dish are small, meaty pieces of white mushroom. The dish also includes dried porcini mushrooms, which gives it some extra flavor. We think this would be delicious with some thyme sprinkled over it, but it’s already seasoned with garlic and black pepper.
Trader Joe’s One Potato Two Potato Gratin is a frozen side dish that you could easily serve at Thanksgiving. Unless you’re averse to mushrooms — or potatoes — there’s nothing you won’t love about this meal. It’s a beautiful blend of ingredients we love. Just make sure you don’t do what we did and eat the entire thing in one sitting. It’s definitely on the heavier side!
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Trader Joe’s potato gratin dish, check out our package scans below.
