Who’s in a holiday mood today? Well, if you are, we’ve got a holiday-themed meal for you: the Trader Joe’s Breaded Turkey-Less Stuffed Roast with Gravy.
Oh, we should clarify that we mean we have a review for you, not the meal itself. Do we have to clarify that? That was obvious, right? Okay, so we might have gone a little heavy on the eggnog…
Anyway, we’re checking out this meatless roast from Trader Joe’s today, in honor of the holiday season. According to the Trader Joe’s website: “Made mostly from wheat gluten, our vegan Roast is first stuffed with wild rice, cranberries, celery and onions. Then, our supplier coats it in a crisp, delicious breading seasoned with herbs and red pepper flakes, infusing each bite with terrifically tempting texture and taste.”
Sounds pretty exciting, right?
Before we eat this, we must cook it. There’s a little bit more to cooking this than, say, heating up a frozen pizza, but it’s still a whole lot easier than making something like this from scratch. You’ll have to wrap up the roast in aluminum foil, then bake it for 30 minutes. Unwrap it like a Christmas gift, then place it back in for another 15 minutes. You’ll also need to heat up the gravy, which you can do in the microwave or in a saucepan on the stove. (To read the full cooking instructions for this frozen food, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
In case we’ve not yet made it clear, this is a vegan-friendly take on the classic turkey roast. That means it uses a gluten and wheat flour turkey substitute for a majority of the dish. If you’re expecting something super authentic-tasting, you’re probably going to be disappointed. This is a bit too dry, and the consistency feels more like a super dense bread than a turkey. The flavor is also very earthy, but with sweet undertones. If you’ve ever eaten actual turkey before, you know that none of these descriptions sound like real turkey.
But this also comes with breading on the outside and stuffing on the inside. Then, to top it all off, there’s a good amount of gravy to drizzle over everything. And all of this works really hard to make up for the faux turkey.
The breading has a lovely texture, and the flavor is great. It is seasoned with “herbs and red pepper flakes,” which really makes it stand out. In fact, it makes the ends of the roast especially good.
The stuffing is made from wild rice, onions, cranberries, and celery. It’s quite good, though we can’t help wishing there was more of it. Unlike the image on the box, the actual roast contains just a tiny amount of stuffing in the very center. But what’s here is delicious.
The gravy is pretty good. It’s not amazing, but it’s also vegan-friendly, and it complements the rest of the meal really well. We do understand why this isn’t a real turkey or chicken gravy, but we think we’d prefer either of those to this vegan-friendly goop. That said, it does the job it sets out to do.
According to the package, there are about six servings in this loaf. We think that’s definitely a substantial amount of food, especially since we imagine you’ll be eating this with plenty of side dishes. If you stick with just 1/6 of the loaf, you’ll be looking at 300 calories and 600 mg of sodium. Of course, adding gravy takes that up to 360 calories and 960 mg of sodium.
The Trader Joe’s Breaded Turkey-Less Stuffed Roast with Gravy is surprisingly good considering how hard it must have been to make this a vegan-friendly meal. While our meat-eating staffers would have definitely preferred the real thing, this actually makes a decent-tasting alternative. It’s not authentic-tasting, but it does have its own flavor that we find appealing.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen roast, check out our package scans below.
