Trader Joe’s Grilled Jerk Chicken Thigh Skewers with Mango Chutney Review

Trader Joe's Grilled Jerk Chicken Thigh Skewers

Sometimes, we’ll be cruising the aisles of our local Trader Joe’s, and we’ll stumble upon something that we simply can’t pass by. This was the case when we discovered the Trader Joe’s Grilled Jerk Chicken Thigh Skewers. Skewered chicken thigh with a mango chutney sauce? Sign us up, please!

So we purchased a box, brought it home, and cooked it up.

The package recommends that you cook these on a grill, and we can definitely see how these would be amazing if cooked that way. However, we decided to use the oven instructions instead, which had us preheat to 400 degrees fahrenheit, toss the skewers onto a cookie sheet wrapped in aluminum foil, then cook for about six minutes. Now, they’re not quite done at this point, so hold on for a little bit longer.

Trader Joe's Grilled Jerk Chicken Thigh Skewers

The sauce comes on the side, so you’ll want to get that thawing in some warm water as soon as you possibly can. When the skewers come out of the oven after the first six minutes, slather them in some of the mango chutney sauce. During this step, you’ll realize the importance of that aluminum foil, as it gets pretty messy. We found the chutney to be more of a paste than a glaze, which made this step a little tricky. We ended up using our fingers to squish the sauce and rub it on the skewers. When you’ve finished all that, flip over the skewers and stick them back into the oven for an additional six minutes.

So, while there is supposedly three servings in a box, there’s no real way to only cook part of a box unless you have a good solution for storing the chutney for later use. We thought it would be easier to just cook all of these up at once, then figure out how many we’d be eating once they came out of the oven (we ate all of them).

One package is supposed to contain about six skewers, and ours had exactly that.

Trader Joe's Grilled Jerk Chicken Thigh Skewers

Taken on its own, this is hands-down some of the best frozen chicken we’ve ever had. It’s far juicier than it looks in our picture — we can hardly begin to explain how juicy this is. It’s also rich in flavor, and it has some jerk seasoning and charred grill marks on it. No matter how you slice it, this is some fantastic chicken.

Be warned that the mango chutney is super mangoey. This stuff tastes like a mango smoothie. That means its’ sweet and pulpy, and it creates an interesting contrast with the chicken. Now, this is certainly not a flavor combo that everybody is going to enjoy — it’s one of those sweet-meets-savory affairs. We liked it quite a bit.

Because the chutney comes as a side, you could easily swap it out for another sauce. We’d actually really like to try these with some BBQ sauce — or even som teriyaki sauce. This is one of those frozen foods that just begs to be experimented with.

Two skewers with sauce contain about 170 calories (60 from fat), so if you end up eating the whole box at once (like we did), you’ll be consuming 510 calories (180 from fat). That’s quite a bit more than we’d like, so you’re probably best trying to split this into two servings if you can. The sodium is even worse. That 670 mg (per two skewers) becomes 2,010 mg. To that, we can only say, “oof.”

Trader Joe’s Grilled Jerk Chicken Thigh Skewers are very, very good. The chicken is the main event here, so even if you’re not a big fan of the chutney, you should still give these a try. You could always chuck the sauce packet and slather on some BBQ sauce instead.

To learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients in these Trader Joe’s skewers, check out our package scans below.

Trader Joe's Grilled Jerk Chicken Thigh Skewers

Trader Joe's Grilled Jerk Chicken Thigh Skewers

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