We love fall here at Freezer Meal Frenzy, and so does Trader Joe’s. When the leaves start turning, Trader Joe’s starts rolling out a bountiful harvest of seasonal specialties. We’ve tasted a huge batch of their frozen fall offerings already, so this year we decided to do something a little bit different.
This week, we plan on running a new Trader Joe’s food review every day. These will not be frozen foods, but seasonal fall items.
For those who want to read new frozen food reviews on those days, we’ll also be posting non-Trader Joe’s frozen food reviews as well. So whether you’re freaky for fall (like we are) or freaky for frozen food (like we also are), then Freezer Meal Frenzy is your place to chill this week.
That said, we discovered the Trader Joe’s Gobbler Quesadilla in the refrigerated section at our local Trader Joe’s. This was close to where we’d find the refrigerated burritos. We couldn’t help ourselves when we saw it; we knew we just had to try it.
You can cook this in the microwave, but we chose to fry it on the stovetop. In our opinion, quesadilla shells are supposed to be a little bit crispy, and that’s just not something you will get in the microwave. (If you want to see the full cooking instructions, check out the package scan at the bottom of this review.)
So what on earth is this thing? Well, this is pretty much what would happen if you took a Thanksgiving dinner and tossed it inside a quesadilla. You’ve got a tortilla filled with mozzarella cheese, then stuffed with turkey breast, butternut squash, cranberries, and kale. And hooboy, is this ever a treat.
The cheese is stretchy and wonderful, and the portion size is pretty generous. One thing we worry about with frozen quesadillas is that they often get real skimpy in the cheese department. Thankfully, that’s not a problem here.
The overall flavor leans toward sweetness, with the cranberries doing much of the heavy lifting and the butternut squash backing them up. There are savory bites of turkey in the mix, but those are overshadowed by the cranberries. This leads to a really interesting flavor combo that we weren’t expecting to work as well as this does.
You could certainly try dipping this in a sauce, but we’re not sure what we’d recommend pairing this with. We ate ours plain, and it tasted great as is. It certainly doesn’t need a dipping sauce, but we don’t want to discourage folks who firmly believe that quesadillas must be dipped. The traditional combo of salsa and sour cream wouldn’t really work here, though you might be able to get away with a white queso or even a touch of BBQ sauce.
Now, going into the holiday season, we might all be expecting to pack on a few extra pounds already. If so, the 600 calories here might not scare you off. It is a pretty hefty amount of calories, though, so be warned. The sodium is pretty bad too, with 1.010 mg per quesadilla. Thankfully, this is a pretty filling meal, so we don’t expect you to be running back to the kitchen for more to eat afterward.
The Trader Joe’s Gobbler Quesadilla is fantastic, but it’s also a calorie-loaded monster. If you’re trying to watch your waistline, you might have to pass this one by. But if you’re looking for a truly interesting flavor fusion this fall, then this just might be your ticket to Turkey Town.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions in this Trader Joe’s autumn-inspired quesadilla, check out our package scan below.
