The French Macarons are like silver bullets in the Trader Joe’s frozen food arsenal. They’re one of those treat items that a person might rewrite their entire grocery list over. “If I get my milk at Trader Joe’s today instead of Target, I can pick up some of those macarons, hmmmmmmm!”
While not everybody loves these frozen desserts, these macarons are usually considered among the must-try items at Trader Joe’s. The thing is, for as long as we’ve been shopping at TJ’s, we’ve never actually tried the macarons. Today that changes, folks, as we’re busting open a box of Trader Joe’s Chocolate and Vanilla French Macarons.
Just as the box proclaims, there are a dozen macarons inside. They come packed inside a plastic tray that keeps them safe and tidy while you’re taking them home from your local Trader Joe’s.
There’s no prep work required here. You simply pull one out of the box and eat it straight from the freezer.
Judging by the image on the box, you might expect these to be larger than they actually are. They look absolutely gargantuan on the packaging: these things look to be about the size of an oatmeal cream pie.
To those of you who are taking this literally: No, we never actually thought these were that large. They would not even fit inside the box if they were. But the image on the box makes them out to be that size. We’re commenting on that, not on our personal expectations. We recently had some confusion about this in our comment section, so we needed to write a whole stupid paragraph to clarify exactly what we mean here.
To keep your expectations in check, we took a picture of these next to a dinner fork, which you can see below.
So no, these are not the size of an oatmeal cream pie, nor are they the size of Oreo cookies, which might be a more reasonable assumption. Each one is not much larger in diameter than a bottle cap. You could easily eat one in a single bite, but we strongly suggest you don’t just Cookie Monster your way through these.
If you’ve never had a macaron before, the experience of biting into one is somewhere between indulgent and divine. These don’t break apart like a normal cookie; they sort of collapse and compress into an almost gummy mash of condensed sweet bliss. It’s really hard to describe the pleasure of sinking your teeth into a cold macaron. The unusual (but wonderful) consistency comes as a result of using almond flour instead of the standard stuff.
There are two types of macaron in this package: vanilla and chocolate. The vanilla version has a sort of vanilla wafer-y flavor, while the chocolate version tastes a bit more like a rich piece of chocolate cake. Both are decadent and incredible.
The package considers three macarons to be a serving. This is quite possibly the ideal serving size, but it does leave you with a horrible, terrible fate: choosing whether to double up on chocolate or vanilla. This is quite the predicament. If you can somehow manage it, you’ll only be taking in 110 calories and 15 mg of sodium. That’s nothing considering how sweet and flavorful these little puppies are.
The Trader Joe’s Chocolate & Vanilla Macarons have completely won us over. These are an absolutely wonderful dessert to keep in your freezer. You could share these with guests, but you might instead want to keep them hidden away for yourself. We promise we won’t tattle!
To learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients for these Trader Joe’s macarons, check out our package scan below.
