Trader Joe’s Seafood Paella Review

Trader Joe's Seafood Paella

The Trader Joe’s Seafood Paella has a reputation for being one of the best-tasting items in the Trader Joe’s frozen food lineup. We can find numerous review websites that give the Seafood Paella high praise. Here’s the thing about that, though: we still haven’t tried it for ourselves.

Now, this is a problem with a pretty simple fix — all we need to do is head down to our local Trader Joe’s, pick up a bag of the Seafood Paella, and cook it up. So that’s exactly what we did. And believe us, we know that this is long overdue.

First off, we’re pleasantly surprised at how easy this is to make. Simply heat up a pan and toss the paella into it. You’ll want to cook it for about four minutes covered, then remove the lid and stir and cook for a few more minutes. You’ll have to eyeball it — when it’s done cooking, the shrimp should be opaque and the rice should be cooked through. Once it reaches that point, it’s ready to be served!

Don’t expect to find jumbo shrimp in this meal; the shrimp here is actually quite small. Now, that’s not necessarily a problem, but we feel like we should point it out to tamper your expectations a bit. As far as flavor goes, this is quite alright. It’s not the best shrimp we’ve ever had, but it’s still a pretty tasty addition to this dish.

Trader Joe's Seafood Paella

You’ll also find mussels and squid in this dish. The squid is a little rubbery, and we could have done without it. The mussels, however, are the backbone of this dish’s flavor. They’re rich and potent, and their flavor will seep into every element of this dish. That gives the whole thing a very seafood-y flavor, but since seafood is in the title, we assume that’s what you’re here for.

The rice soaks up that seafood flavor, so it’s really hard to comment on what it tastes like minus the mussels. Really, it’s presence here is more to offset the seafood flavor than to enhance it, and that’s a good choice. Without it, this meal would be a seafood overload.

There are some veggies mixed in as well, but they have less of a presence than the seafood. We found the peas to be surprisingly good (especially since our expectations had been lowered by one of the reviews we’d read). We don’t always appreciate peas, but they do alright for themselves here.

One bag contains two servings of the stuff, though it’s not difficult to polish off the whole bag in a sitting if you’re hungry. And that’s actually not too big a deal, since this is a low-calorie affair. One serving has 220 calories (40 from fat), so even if you’re eating the whole bag at once you’re only consuming 440 calories (80 from fat). The sodium, however, goes from an acceptable 460 mg to a whopping 920 mg, so that’s the part you’ll need to watch out for if you’re doubling up on this.

The Trader Joe’s Seafood Paella is exactly as good as we’d heard it would be. This is a tasty meal that will really knock a seafood craving on its butt.

If you want to know more about the ingredients or nutrition content in this frozen meal, check out our package scans below.

Trader Joe's Seafood Paella

Trader Joe's Seafood Paella

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Ron
Ron
1 year ago

I just ate some, not knowing because I couldn’t read the list of ingredients. Omg! No wonder it smelled and tasted so bad. It has squid and mussels in it. That’s the first time that I know of that I’ve eaten that. The thought revolts me! “Best tasting”? 

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