This is one of the strangest reviews we’ve done here at Freezer Meal Frenzy. We typically review frozen food, but this week we’re breaking free of all conventions and checking out some of Trader Joe’s non-frozen food items. (We started on Monday with the Gobbler Quesadilla.)
We’re a few days deep into this review project at this point, and today we’re doing a double review — we’re checking out both the Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Bagels and the Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Cream Cheese Spread. It seems criminal to separate these two, so we’re considering them a pairing and reviewing them both at once.
These bagels are whole, so you’ll need to slice them in half before you toast them. We suppose you could eat them raw (we’ve seen people do it and it always amazes us), but we’re on Team Toasted when it comes to our bagels. Any old toaster should be fine, but we got all fancy and busted out the toaster oven. Once they were tastefully toasted, we slathered on some of the pumpkin-flavored cream cheese.
The bagels themselves have a subtler pumpkin flavor. It’s definitely there, but these aren’t as pumpkiny as we expected. That changes, of course, when you add the cream cheese. This stuff is really flavorful, and it’s enhanced by cinnamon. It ends up tasting a little bit like a pumpkin pie filling. It’s very good.
If you eat one bagel on its own, you’re chomping down 240 calories. Slathering on some cream cheese adds about 70 calories to that, bringing this up to 310 calories per bagel. That’s not extremely bad, but there are certainly lighter things to eat at breakfast time. Then again, it’s fall, and you might as well indulge in pumpkin season while it lasts.
The Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Bagels are fine on their own, but when paired with the Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Cream Cheese Spread, they really become something special. We definitely recommend picking up both if you’re looking for a pumpkin-infused treat to start your day on the right foot. Plus, if you really want to go all out on the whole pumpkin-for-breakfast thing, you can pair these bagels with the Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Coffee. What a treat!
To learn more about the nutrition content and ingredients in the bagels or cream cheese, check out our package photos below.
