Trader Joe’s Shrimp Stir-Fry with Gourmet Pepper Seasoning Review

Trader Joe's Shrimp Stir-Fry with Gourmet Pepper Seasoning

While many of our staffers here at Freezer Meal Frenzy are vegetarians, the ones who aren’t tend to really like shrimp. While there aren’t a ton of fast, frozen options for shrimp lovers out there, we’ve managed to find several that we quite enjoy. We’re always willing to expand our shrimp horizons, so today we’re checking out the Trader Joe’s Shrimp Stir-Fry with Gourmet Pepper Seasoning.

Cooking this stir-fry is pretty easy, though there are a few steps — most importantly, you’ll need to heat the shrimp for longer than the veggies to make sure they cook all the way through. Still, it’s not a ton of work and all it takes is a skillet and some vegetable oil. Plus, all of the ingredients you’ll need for each step are already separated out for you. (If you want to see the full cooking instructions, check out our package scans at the bottom of this article.)

Trader Joe's Shrimp Stir-Fry with Gourmet Pepper Seasoning

While this could very well be served over rice, we chose to eat it plain to get a better idea of what the contents of the package taste like on their own.

First off, let’s talk about the shrimp. We actually found them to be a little dry, but the flavor is great. On top of the base flavor of the shrimp, the pepper seasoning really makes these little guys pop.

The rest of this stir-fry is a vegetable blend containing broccoli, snap peas, red bell peppers, bean sprouts, and water chestnuts. Of all of these, our favorite veggie here is the sugar snap peas. They have a fresh taste to them, and they retain a decent amount of crisp that makes them satisfying to bite into.

Trader Joe's Shrimp Stir-Fry with Gourmet Pepper Seasoning

As you can see in the image above, there’s a ton of broccoli here. The weird thing, however, is that so much of the broccoli portion is made of stems. It seemed like we had a piece of broccoli stem in just about every single bite. Now, we would have been fine with this broccoli overload if this blend wasn’t so darn stem-heavy, but the over-reliance on stems is really an issue here.

Also, where are the bean sprouts? Aside from a few tiny little pieces, our dish was very much lacking in the bean sprout department. We’re not sure if we just got a bad batch, but we were certainly expecting more bean sprouts in the blend.

The bag says it contains 2.5 servings, but we think one person could quite easily polish off a bag on their own, even if you added a little rice. If you stick with Trader Joe’s recommendation, you’ll only be consuming 70 calories (5 from fat), and if you eat the whole bag you’ll still only be consuming 175 calories (12.5 from fat). However, the sodium really adds up, flying from 580 mg to a whopping 1,450 mg. Yikes!

The Trader Joe’s Shrimp Stir-Fry with Gourmet Pepper Seasoning is alright, but the overuse of broccoli stems and virtual lack of bean sprouts really sets this dish back. The seasoning is great, of course, and the shrimp is pretty good, but there are some relatively large (yet easily fixable) flaws with this stir-fry.

To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Trader Joe’s frozen stir-fry, check out our package scans below.

Trader Joe's Shrimp Stir-Fry with Gourmet Pepper Seasoning
Trader Joe's Shrimp Stir-Fry with Gourmet Pepper Seasoning
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Karola
Karola
1 year ago

I tried the Shrimp Stir-Fry tonight, following the directions how to cook it.
I served it over frozen brown rice (Trader Joe’s). In spite of adding some pepper, garlic powder and Tamari sauce at the end, it was pathetic.
The little shrimp were tough and dry and some of the vegetables were tough broccoli stem ends that I would not feed a goat if I had one.
So you keep food like this in the store, but you discontinue things I like the wonderful Mango Ginger Chutney and the (long ago) breaded frozen mushrooms (I never forgave you for that!!!) etc. etc. When are you bringing back the Gluten Free Raisin Bread ?

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