Trader Joe’s Southwestern Chopped Salad
I eat a lot of salads, especially for lunch. They’re healthy, with lots of fiber, vitamins, and nutrients. They’re also versatile. I can put together any combination of lettuce and greens, fresh veggies, nuts and seeds, dressing, and proteins such as cheese, egg, chicken, or shrimp to make a complete meal.
While I make plenty of salads from scratch using various ingredients, I also enjoy picking up salad kits from the grocery store. They often offer different ingredients and toppings that I don’t always keep in my fridge or pantry, and they’re particularly nice if you aren’t serving a crowd. If you’re only serving salad for a couple of people, you might not want to by entire bags of cabbage, carrots, or other ingredients. It’s also convenient to dump everything into a serving bowl and mix; no chopping required.
Aldi sells a nice range of salad kits, including Asian and Southwestern salad kits, an excellent Caesar salad kit, and a very good sunflower chopped salad kit. Trader Joe’s, which is a cousin to Aldi, also sells salad kits. Not long ago, I tried a good Mediterranean style salad kit from TJ’s.
The last time I was at Trader Joe’s, I decided to try their southwestern chopped salad kit. The bag states this features green cabbage, romaine, cotija cheese, roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds), tortilla strips, green onion, cilantro, and a spicy southwest avocado dressing.
Trader Joe’s Southwestern Chopped Salad cost $3.69 for a 13.6-ounce package at the time of writing. That’s about 27 cents per ounce.
If you’re looking out for allergens, this contains milk. The bag states this is vegetarian.
The kit I bought had a best-by date of almost a week out from the purchase date. Naturally, this is perishable, and you’ll need to keep it refrigerated.
Salad ingredients include green cabbage, romaine lettuce, carrots, cotija cheese, potato starch (anti-caking agent), radish, dry roasted pepitas, green onion, tortilla strips, and cilantro. The dressing includes soybean oil, water, avocado, white wine vinegar, poblano chiles, cane sugar, distilled vinegar, salt, cilantro, cornstarch, cumin, dried onion, xanthan gum, dried garlic, acacia gum, dried chipotle peppers, and red pepper.
One bag contains about four 1-cup servings. One serving of salad with dressing has 150 calories, 12 grams of total fat (15% DV), 3 grams of saturated fat (15% DV), 270 mg of sodium (12% DV), 8 grams of total carbohydrates (3% DV), 2 grams of dietary fiber (7% DV), 3 grams of total sugars, less than 1 gram of added sugars (1% DV), and 4 grams of protein.
We like this salad. It has good-sized chunks of cheese, and the roasted pepitas and tortilla strips give it a nice crunch. The southwest avocado dressing is mildly spicy. It’s more of a vinaigrette dressing, which I appreciate because a lot of southwest salad kits tend to include some type of ranch dressing, so this is a little different. This is a winner.
The Verdict:
Trader Joe’s Southwestern Chopped Salad features green cabbage, romaine lettuce, large chunks of cotija cheese, roasted pepitas, crispy tortilla strips, green onion, and cilantro with a spicy southwest avocado dressing. This is a great combination of ingredients. The dressing is on the mild side of spicy. If you buy salad kits, we recommend this one.
