I ate over 120 foods from Trader Joe's this year. Here are the 12 I definitely won't be buying in 2022.

For the most part, I've enjoyed Trader Joe's vegan dips, but I didn't think this cashew-based queso one was very good.

Even though I thought its garlicky-chili cashew base did a nice job mimicking that spicy nacho flavor, I couldn't get past its vinegary aftertaste. If you're used to vegan food this might not bother you. But for me, it ruined every bite.

My other gripe with this cashew dip is that it was inconvenient to eat.

At room temperature, the texture is unusually crumbly and impossible to scoop, so you pretty much have to microwave it if you plan on eating this with any chips. That's OK if you're using this to make vegan nachos, but not the best if you want to take this on a picnic somewhere.

For that reason, I don't see myself ever buying it again.

As someone who's known to sprinkle some chevre on top of pretty much anything (soup, salad, you name it!) I thought this goat-cheese-and-sundried-tomato ravioli was a huge letdown.

The main reason was the filling. It was gritty like sand and unusually tangy, which, I don't know about you, but that's not a description I care for in a ravioli that isn't explicitly citrusy.

Despite its pinkish hue, I thought the sun-dried tomato flavor was pretty much nonexistent. The filling felt like just goat cheese.

About the only way to eat these and enjoy them is to cover them in a thick, creamy sauce, but at that point, why not just buy a better ravioli? Trader Joe's has plenty of great options.

This "muffin" was a complete disaster for me.

Even though I followed the microwave instructions exactly, the mix never fully formed into a cohesive food. Instead, it became a goopy mess that looked and smelled like half-raw, half-burnt brownie batter.

I decided to try it anyway, but unless you're a fan of the taste of raw, unsweetened cocoa powder, you can probably skip this one.

Maybe you'll have better luck, though I'm definitely not the only one with this issue. Shortly after my review went live my editor let me know that she, too, had a microwavable disaster experience — her "muffin" also didn't cook correctly and leaked all over the microwave.

I tried over a dozen breakfast options from Trader Joe's this year that I'd recommend instead of this one.

This didn't have enough plantains and had hardly any red peppers. The chicken was so tough it kind of tasted like pieces of dry wood.

In general, there was more rice than anything, which was a huge let-down because the few plantains that were in this bowl had a nice starchy, slightly caramelized flavor. The black beans also tasted fine, but this was supposed to be a colorful bowl with onions and red peppers.

The only redeeming quality of this bowl was that the golden rice was nice and fluffy with a pleasant limey-turmeric taste. However, I could not find any evidence of the so-called "garlic sauce" listed on the box. I guess it was soaked into the veggies?

Either way, the bowl was in need of moisture. Without it, it tasted more like cafeteria food than anything I'd compare to a proper rice bowl.

I hate that I spent nearly $4 dollars on it, too. If I was going to spend this much on lime-flavored rice, I'd order a veggie Chipotle bowl complete with veggies for $3 dollars more.

I wrote about this Greek yogurt dip as part of a fall Trader Joe's roundup earlier this year. To this day, it still makes me wary of some of the yogurt products in the refrigerated section.

Although I appreciate Trader Joe's for always being willing to get experimental with pumpkin products, this was a huge swing and an even bigger miss. The combination of cream cheese, salty parmesan, sharp cheddar, sour yogurt, and mildly sweet squash, and pumpkin spice seasoning was so chaotic it was borderline nauseating.

It seems like the brand was going for a nice savory-sweet blend that would be reminiscent of a pumpkin or squash pasta, but the end product reminded me of the kind of thing a kid might mix together for fun and dare their friends to eat.

Even worse, the whole dip is texturally inconsistent. Some sections were light and airy, and others were dense like a bean dip, with pieces of half-melted cheese, even after warming it in the microwave and mixing it.

When I first sampled this dip as part of my Trader Joe's dip showdown, I had to double-check the label because I genuinely thought it tasted like one of my face masks.

Sure, the texture is delightfully smooth and pourable thanks to the tahini base. But this stuff bitter. Even though it contains garlic, salt, and citrus, the parsley really dominates the flavor.

Parsley is probably at the bottom of the list of herbs I'd reach for. If it's present with other herbs, I don't mind. But on its own? Not my thing.

Perhaps the addition of chickpeas would have helped tone down that herby flavor, but at that point, this dip just becomes another hummus. I feel like Trader Joe's already has plenty of other great ones to go around.

It's not like the chips fail at delivering what they advertise — they are coated in a salty, dilly seasoning that tastes identical to a real pickle.

I can appreciate the idea behind these, but these feel like a "second choice" snack — something you get only because you can't have what you really want (in this case, actual pickles).

Tthe combination of dry chips with that strong vinegary-dill flavor was overwhelming. Even worse, the flavor lingers on the tongue long after you're done eating.

I'm not saying pickled-flavored items can't turn into new classics — Trader Joe's killer pickle hummus is a great example — but I can't see myself willingly choosing these over any other chip flavor.

Salt and vinegar chips already exist to satisfy my craving for a sharp bite of acid. These didn't need to exist.

Other than the cute orange-frosting design, these sandwich cookies didn't have much going for them.

The cookies weren't as sweet as they should have been, and the neon-orange vanilla-bean frosting was pasty and lacked any real flavor. It sort of reminded me of a buttercream frosting before you add anything to it besides powdered sugar.

All this to say, considering most of the sandwich cookies Trader Joe's sells are pretty solid, these Halloween Joe-Joes felt more like a trick than a treat. For that reason, they won't be making an appearance in my basket next year.

If you're looking for an alternative option for the fall, the pumpkin Joe-Joes have my biggest stamp of approval.

With a name like fiocchetti, I expected a dish that would be on par with something I'd order from an Italian restaurant. I also thought the pink sauce was supposed to be a rich combination of Alfredo, garlic, and tomato, but it didn't taste like that at all.

As I cooked this on my stove, I kept waiting for the ingredients to thicken into a creamy mixture, but the best I got was a watery-thin, oily broth with a vaguely tomato flavor.

It's a shame because the fiocchetti cooks well in the pan. Although the taleggio filling is smooth, it didn't offer enough flavor to make this pasta close to the realm of something I'd label as "delicious," or even "cheesy."

I was surprised since taleggio is supposed to be pungent like brie, but it reminded me of a mild cream cheese.

On the whole, this dish is in desperate need of something to give it that extra oomph, like garlic and herbs.

I think this is a solid cheap and simple option for picky eaters and kids, but if you want a more flavorful and elevated dish I'd skip it.

My friends suggested I try this again by swapping the water in the recipe for cream and adding seasonings. It definitely improved the dish, but if I have to add things to make this taste good, I'd rather buy jarred sauce and noodles and make something myself.

Pad thai is my favorite takeout dish, so I was really looking forward to this quick at-home version — especially since it was vegetarian.

Sadly, this was one of my bigger disappointments of the year. For one, the dish is overrun with bean sprouts. I don't consider myself a picky person, but this was excessive.

Even worse was how inconsistent the texture was. The rice noodles stuck together in clumps no matter how much I stirred it, with some parts tasting crunchy and over (or under?) cooked, while others had a gummy, microwaved-food feel.

I also think Trader Joe's missed the mark with the flavor. To be clear, I wasn't expecting to get restaurant-quality, but this was way off. Part of what makes pad thai so yummy is the balance of sweet, salty, and spicy flavors, but the sauce on this tasted more like sweet-and-sour sauce than anything.

Finally, I'm not sure whose idea it was to swap peanuts — an essential ingredient that gives the dish its unique crunch — for cashews, but I'd like a word … they do not do pad thai justice.

Avocado may have been on the ingredients list for this dip, but I tasted nothing of the sort in this green-tinted mayonnaise-y concoction.

But you know what there sure was a lot of? Parsley. Parsley, salt, mayonnaise. Seriously, what is up with Trader Joe's parsley obsession?

All I could think about when eating this dip was how I wish Trader Joe's would stop messing with us and give us a proper vegan ranch.

It's possible my experience with this dip was unfairly influenced by how I ate it. Because it was in a dip taste test, I ate it with a plain chip, which was too much herbs to take in at once.

Maybe spread this on a sandwich underneath a bunch of other toppings this might be OK — but I'm not sure I'm willing to buy this again to find out.

Basically, these are cooked mushrooms that have been coated in sunflower oil, salt, and dried.

In theory, these snacks should be superb. After all, mushrooms are loaded with flavor. However, I find mushrooms are best when they're used to enhance other dishes, or when they're paired with other bold seasonings.

These mushroom snacks are tasty for a few bites, but I found their umami taste was pretty one-note and got old quickly. I also didn't love that a single serving of these was 340 calories.

I don't think these are good enough to sit among the other killer veggie-based snacks on Trader Joe's shelves.