Trader Joe’s Uncooked Ground Buffalo Burgers Review

My my, Trader Joe’s has a mighty assortment of burgers in their frozen food section. And the mightiest of all might be the ones made from buffalo. Sure, they have turkey burgers and fish burgers and shrimp burgers and veggie burgers, but they also have buffalo burgers in their assortment.

Now, we know that what they’re calling buffalo is actually bison, but we’re more interested in how these taste than whether or not the title is accurate. (Besides, bison in North America are often casually referred to as buffalo, even if the word is not technically correct.)

So today we’re checking out the Trader Joe’s Uncooked Ground Buffalo Burgers. These frozen patties have been on our watch list for a while now, so we’re quite excited to finally dig in.

First, we must cook these. And before they’re cooked, they must be thawed overnight. You’ll need to plan ahead if you want to cook these up, since they come raw and shouldn’t be undercooked. Cooking them from frozen increases the chances that they won’t cook thoroughly, so definitely don’t skip out on this step in the process. (If you want complete cooking instructions for these burgers, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)

If you’ve never had a buffalo burger before, one thing you should be aware of it that bison meat tends to be quite dense. It feels heavy when it hits your stomach. These burgers are no exception, which means they aren’t designed to be a light snack — with some toppings and a bun, one of these burgers becomes a pretty decent meal.

These particular burgers are a bit tougher than beef, which is to be expected, and they’re quite juicy as well. When we cooked our first patty, we were surprised at how much water was in the pan by the time our burger was done cooking.

These burgers really aren’t anything fancy — the patties are made with ground bison meat and nothing else for added flavor, texture or color. This is raw meat here, which makes it a blank canvas for your wildest sandwich endeavors.

There are so many ways to top a burger. Surprisingly, Trader Joe’s has created a recipe for these involving fig. For us, though, we went with some of the classics: mayo, mustard, ketchup, lettuce, and swiss cheese. It felt like the right thing to do.

Now, a single patty contains 370 calories, and that’s not taking into consideration the bun or the toppings. These burgers can very quickly become calorie monsters. On the other hand, they’re low in sodium, with just 80 mg of sodium per patty.

The Trader Joe’s Uncooked Ground Buffalo Burgers are very good, though they’re heavy and loaded with calories. While we wouldn’t recommend these for daily eating, we do think they’re a fantastic way to put a smackdown on a ravenous meat craving. Carnivores rejoice, these burgers satisfy the hunger!

To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for these Trader Joe’s frozen burger patties, check out our package scans below.