I ate 13 Trader Joe's salads and ranked them. I found most of them to be cheap and pretty good.

Lucien FormichellaJun 26, 2023, 17:57 IST

I tried all of the prepackaged salads at Trader Joe's I could find.Lucien Formichella

I ate all the prepackaged salads at Trader Joe's I could find and ranked them.
No salad was bad. My favorite was the Field Fresh chopped salad with grilled chicken.

Eating a premade salad makes me feel like I have a cheat code for life.

A fairly healthy lunch or dinner without the prep work? Count me in. Plus, with premade salads, I don't need to make a ton of dressing that will get thrown out or force me to eat the same thing three days in a row.

And so, I purchased 13 prepackaged salads from Trader Joe's and ranked them from worst to best. Impressively, no Trader Joe's salad I bought cost more than $6. If that's not a reason to spend hours combing through the options to find the best one, I don't know what is.

I wasn't optimistic about Trader Joe's Caesar-style salad.

Trader Joe's Caesar-style salad comes in a bag.Lucien Formichella

As predicted, this wasn't for me.

The Caesar salad came with croutons and shredded cheese.Lucien Formichella

The Pacific salad with chicken seemed plain.

Trader Joe's Pacific salad with chicken comes with roasted almonds.Lucien Formichella

The salad wasn't bad, but I wished it had more toppings.

I wished I'd gotten more chicken.Lucien Formichella

Trader Joe's Mexicali-inspired salad was loaded with toppings.

I couldn't wait to taste the creamy jalapeno dressing.Lucien Formichella

The salad perhaps had too many toppings and flavors.

Trader Joe's Mexicali-inspired salad was a lot.Lucien Formichella

The Chinese-inspired salad with chicken had solid ingredients.

Trader Joe's Chinese-inspired salad seemed sturdy.Lucien Formichella

I was pretty underwhelmed by Trader Joe's Chinese-inspired salad.

The Trader Joe's Chinese-inspired salad seemed one-note.Lucien Formichella

Trader Joe's barbecue-and-black-pepper Toscano chopped salad looked pretty good.

Some ingredients in Trader Joe's barbecue-and-black-pepper Toscano chopped salad come in separate bags within the main package.Lucien Formichella

The barbecue-flavored dressing made this feel a little weird.

The salad was tasty, but not my favorite.Lucien Formichella

Trader Joe's lemon-chicken-and-arugula salad came with couscous.

Trader Joe's lemon-chicken-and-arugula salad had a spicy red-pepper dressing.Lucien Formichella

The main downside of this salad was the spicy dressing.

Trader Joe's lemon-chicken-and-arugula salad had flavorful protein.Lucien Formichella

Trader Joe's classic Greek salad seemed simple.

Trader Joe's classic Greek was loaded with produce.Lucien Formichella

The Greek salad was solid.

The red onion helped elevate the salad.Lucien Formichella

Trader Joe's Southwestern chopped salad had a cabbage-and-romaine base.

The chopped salad came with a spicy dressing.Lucien Formichella

The Southwestern salad was pretty tasty.

The tortilla strips were nice and crunchy.Lucien Formichella

Trader Joe's harvest salad with grilled chicken seemed like a safe bet.

Trader Joe's harvest salad with grilled chicken had classic ingredients.Lucien Formichella

This salad felt like a solid staple even though it didn't stand out much.

The harvest salad felt healthy.Lucien Formichella

I was excited to try Trader Joe's peanut-and-crispy-noodle salad kit.

Trader Joe's peanut-and-crispy-noodle salad kit.Lucien Formichella

It was tasty, but it was missing something.

The dressing was nice and tangy.Lucien Formichella

Trader Joe's elote chopped salad kit seemed to have a lot of solid ingredients.

Trader Joe's elote chopped salad kit came with a few toppings.Lucien Formichella

The elote chopped salad was delicious and missing only a protein.

Trader Joe's elote chopped salad impressed me.Lucien Formichella

The broccoli-and-kale slaw seemed like a good idea.

Trader Joe's broccoli-and-kale slaw seemed simple.Lucien Formichella

This slaw was fantastic.

The salad had a perfect balance of sweetness.Lucien Formichella

Trader Joe's Field Fresh chopped salad with grilled white chicken seemed like it'd be refreshing.

Trader Joe's Field Fresh chopped salad with grilled white chicken sounded good in the store.Lucien Formichella

The chain nailed it with this salad.

Trader Joe's Field Fresh chopped salad with grilled white chicken is a new staple for me.Lucien Formichella

Overall, there were no bad salads to be found at Trader Joe's.

Trader Joe's is a good place to grab a prepackaged salad.Lucien Formichella

I live in the UK and buy my family's groceries at Aldi, the country's cheapest supermarket. Come shopping with me.

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