Our grocery store food and snack roundup is back! For weeks now, we’ve been grabbing snacks and new food products (or, at the very least, new to us) with every market run — taking a bunch of snacking Ls so that you don’t have to. Sure, it’s created a bit of a love-hate relationship with snacking for us, but that’s the job. We find the snacks that are actually worth your time and money so that you’ll never have to experience the horrors of getting a snack craving and opening your pantry doors only to find Flavor Blasted Cheddar & Sour Cream Goldfish.
Why are we picking on Flavor Blasted Goldfish? Because Flavor Blasted Cheddar & Sour Cream Goldfish are probably the worst new flavor of anything to ever be introduced. Too many ingredients; too much blasting. Just calm down, Pepperidge Farms. Goldfish crackers are meant to be bland.
Anyway, here are a bunch of new(ish) food products that pass our toughest scrutiny! We’ve carefully vetted these flavors to make sure they’re worth your shelf space.
Loud Grandma CBD-infused Chili Crisp Oil
Average Retail Price: $29
Loud Grandma’s CBD_infused Chili Crispy oil is amazing — and that’s not just the CBD talking. You’ll find that this chili crisp has some well-balanced heat, mouth-watering umami, notes of cracked pepper, and just a slight herbal tinge courteously of the CBD. It’ll quickly become a staple in your spice rack.
Made in collaboration between Win Son chef Calvin Eng and gourmet cannabis brand Pot d’Huile, Loud Grandma features 120mg of full-spectrum CBD per jar and is also available in a THC-infused version for those living in California. I haven’t tried the THC version, but if it’s as good as the CBD chili crisp and it gets me high — well… we have a winner, right there.
The Bottom Line:
Peppercorn and umami mingle in mouthwatering harmony, tamed by subtle herbal notes resulting in feelings of well-being after your meal. Is it the CBD? Maybe. Or maybe it’s just food. Who cares, it’s all delicious!
Oreo Chocolate Hazelnut
Average Price: $3.79
I’m not a huge fan of Oreo flavors that deviate away from the classic cookies and cream flavor Oreo is known for. Mint Oreos are always a slight disappointment over the real thing, and Birthday Cake Oreos can take a hike, but these Chocolate Hazelnut Oreos are pretty damn good.
Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t as good as the original. Cookies and cream will always be a better flavor combination than cookies and hazelnut chocolate. But this comes pretty damn close. The hazelnut chocolate isn’t nearly as thick as Nutella, it has an airy quality to it that is more similar to Oreo’s cream filling. Think E.L. Fudge cookie meets and Oreo and you’ve got yourself a pretty good idea of what this newcomer tastes like.
The Bottom Line:
Not quite as good as the original Oreo, but worth subbing in for the OG if you’re getting a little tired of the same old flavor.
Portland BBQ Sauce
Average Price: $6
BBQ sauce from… Portland? We know, we know, the best BBQ comes from the South, but this stuff is seriously good, with a well-balanced smokey flavor that isn’t too sweet or spicy but has that savory umami kick that a good BBQ sauce needs to have.
This organic BBQ sauce has notes of hickory and smoked paprika, with dark bursts of tamarind, allspice, and molasses with each flavor cutting through and being well represented. Our only gripe is, it’s a little red — we would’ve liked a deeper color. Still, seeing flecks of spice is always appealing.
The Bottom Line:
A great balanced organic BBQ sauce that proves the Pacific Northwest can hold its own in the BBQ game.
Sunny D Raspberry Lemonade
Average Price: $1.25 (for 16 oz)
“Ew Sunny D — don’t you know that stuff isn’t even real juice?”
Yeah yeah, blah blah blah, we know, and trust us we aren’t suggesting you buy this stuff for making a whole fruit smoothie at home or anything. This isn’t part of a healthy well-balanced meal or anything. But we’re still recommending it.
Here’s why:
- Fill a tall glass with ice.
- Toss two shots of your favorite dry gin inside.
- Fill to the top with this Sunny D Raspberry Lemonade drink.
- Stir.
Boom! You’ve got yourself a low calorie — just 60 calories in the Sunny D per 8 ounces! — Gin and Juice that tastes a million times better than every White Claw flavor in existence and has fewer calories.
Garnish that by plopping in a slice of grapefruit and you’ve got yourself the best summer treat on this list.
The Bottom Line:
Remember ice + gin + Sunny D + grapefruit = happiness.
Lightlife Plant-Based Ground Beef
Average Price: $7.99
I love this product. In fact, in many ways, I like it more than Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods. Yes, seriously. But here’s the caveat: I like Lightlife mostly because of its texture. As a beef imitator, texturally speaking I think it’s the best on the market. If you make tacos or spaghetti bolognese with this, I doubt you could tell it’s not beef based on appearances.
So what about the flavor? The flavor of every dish I’ve made with Lightlife has been spectacular. But that’s also been mostly credited to me. I seasoned half a pound with garlic, taco seasoning, and enchilada sauce for a taco salad and fooled myself into thinking it was cow. I did another half pound with garlic, veggie broth, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and mixed it into a quick spaghetti bolognese. Again, 100%.
If you’re looking to plug and play someone else’s product straight into your meals, this isn’t the one. But if you want a platform to hold its texture and take on the flavor of what you season it with — this is really a sterling stand-in for meat.
The Bottom Line:
My personal favorite fake meat and the one I’ve found myself returning to most often.
Dartagnan Malossol Caviar
Average Price: $124.99
I don’t buy caviar a ton. Or often. I guess I don’t technically buy it even occasionally. But I got invited to write about it a fair bit when I was doing restaurant reviews and when I go to a party in Hollywood I hover around the caviar station like Christian Slater on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
So I consider myself something of a poor man’s connoisseur. And D’Argtagnan’s surgeon caviar is fantastic. It features small, tight pearls that are briny and rich without tasting like a mouthful of seawater. The pearls are deep green-black and hold their shape beautifully. There’s a “pop” to them when you press them to the roof of your mouth. On the palate, there’s a clear sense of the sea but you also get a nutty-fatty-almost-porky richness.
As with literally all seafood eaten in our era, the mark of quality is defined through the prism of sustainability and that’s where D’Artagnan’s shines. It’s farm-raised in France and packed within 30 minutes of harvesting. If you’re going to indulge in seafood, it’s nice to know it’s prepared in a way that the environment can handle.
The Bottom Line:
Rather than toast points, I say try this on a bite of blini with custard-style eggs and chives, backed by an ice-cold shot of vodka.
Fatboy Sugar Cookie Sandwich
Average Price $5.19
Ice cream sandwiches are the best dessert. Forget the ice cream cookie sandwich trend of a few years back, stick to the classics. These things endure. And the FatBoy brand is the best. The flavors are powerful but not overly sugary or chemical — two common flaws in a good old ice cream sando.
This flavor is newish for FatBoy (change your name to something that doesn’t guilt me, please) and it’s literally perfect. All the cake and batter and cookie ice cream flavors in the freezer are too sugary — not this one. It’s dense ice cream and carries a sweet flavor but it doesn’t make your teeth ache. It’s addictive and a full dessert but also holds up in the freezer for a few days if you cut it in 1/4ths.
The Bottom Line:
Summer distilled and the best ice cream sandwich at the grocery store.
Folios Cheese Wrap
Average Price $29.99 (three pack)
These things are amazing. They’ve been around for a while, but I just found them and our affair has been quick and passionate. Seriously, I absolutely love them.
And why wouldn’t I? They’re… sheets of cheese. And then you heat them up. And wrap shit.
As a person who fails at keto because I can’t give up burritos, these are my new ace-in-the-hole. They’re just so incredible — so flavorful and work so well as a tortilla stand-in. You can’t really make burritos with them because they don’t flex quite that much, but you can do cone-like wraps. You can also do tacos or put them in a taco salad shaper and do a TACO SALAD ENCASED IN CHEESE.
That’s what I did (I’m on a taco salad kick lately). It was so good that if it’s not in every bowling alley and roadside diner in five years, we riot.
Anyway, these are amazing and you probably don’t need me to wax philosophic about them because ultimately, they’re freaking cheese and cheese is a gift from the gods.
The Bottom Line:
These taste like real cheese and allow you to replace carbs. What more do you want from food tech?
Editor-In-Chief Pick: Bitchin’ Sauce
Average Retail Price: $5
Recently I attended a backyard BBQ that was hosted by a vegan couple I’m friendly with. As I surveyed the table filled with fixings to complement/ dress my Beyond burger, I noticed a sauce I’d not seen before.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s Bitchin’ Sauce, and it’ll change your life,” replied one of the hosts. “We put it on everything.”
Intrigued, I slathered some of it on my burger buns and was quite impressed. So impressed that I went out to the grocery store the next day to basically buy up as much Bitchin’ Sauce as I could find. Since then, I’ve basically planned all my meals to involve Bitchin’ Sauce. It’s astonishingly good, so good that I’m flummoxed as to how I’ve just now come to find out about it.
Best of all, all Bitchin’ Sauce products — and there are currently 13 of them, which our old pals at BroBible recently ranked — are completely vegan and devoid of any GMOs. So far, I’ve used Bitchin’ Sauces on burgers and sandwiches, as a salad dressing, as a dip for chips and veggies, and as a pasta sauce (and there are many other creative ways one can use it).
The Bottom Line:
If I ever decide to go full vegan, you can bet that the raw, cold-processed, almond-based, creamy Bitchin’ Sauce products will be a big reason why.
