Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Empanadas – Not My Kind of Empanadas!
I Love Empanadas
Large dumplings with a thicker shell. I had some amazing corn cheese empanadas the other week with an amazing flaky crust. It made me want more, and then I saw Trader Joe’s pumpkin empanadas and immediately went to the checkout line.
Pumpkin Overload
Pumpkin / pumpkin spice season starts earlier and earlier each year… Trader Joe’s was full of pumpkins and pumpkin stuff. A lot of what we wanted to buy (basil, frozen foods) were out of stock, but there were a lot of pumpkin and pumpkin-spice stuff that day. Anyways, let’s move onto their pumpkin empanadas.
4 Empanadas in a Package
…which are in packages of 2 inside the box. Pretty cool. They look like typical frozen food, and the instructions are fairly simple. Heat oven to 350 and remove empanadas from packaging and place in an over proof dish. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or heated through, etc.
The Pumpkin Empanada Shape and Nutrition
The empanadas are pretty flat. They took so disappointing! Each empanada is 160 Calories, which isn’t bad. Let’s put these in the oven and see how they turn out… LOL.
Taste and Texture
I’m not a fan of these Trader Joe’s pumpkin empanadas. The color isn’t as expected as they remained pale after 20 minutes. The packaging had them as a nice golden brown, but these didn’t turn out that way. Perhaps I should have done some kind of eggwash over them, but oh well. The taste is more important anyways! OK, so there is definitely a lot of spice in these pumpkin empanadas. Very mushy, like baby food. Bleh, no pumpkin chunks or anything… just a lot of mush with a heavy clove flavor. I don’t like that.
Worth It?
To me, definitely not. I’m not a fan of the filling and the strong clove flavor. If you like pumpkin puree with clove and allspice, you might enjoy these.
