Nothing hits quite like new snacks from the grocery store! Unless of course, said snacks aren’t good. Then you feel like you spent a good amount of money on something you never intend on eating. We don’t want that for you, so we’re actively trying all the new snacks we can find so that you don’t have to. Of course, that often means we have a bunch of snacks taking up valuable real estate in our pantries, refrigerator, and freezers but I’ve figured out a solution!
I simply offer the snacks I don’t like to guests and neighbors. See what a generous friend I am? Come bask in my largesse!
If you’ve been to my apartment in the last month, I’m sorry, but also, not really. Someone has to eat the bad snacks and it can’t just be me! Anyway, for our latest grocery roundup, we’ve got all sorts of desserts, snacks, and other new foods (or just new to us) that are worth the pickup the next time you go grocery shopping. Also, if you’re in the market mayo, ketchup, pasta sauce, hipster-ass flavor enhancers, or prepackaged ramen — we got you.
For this list, you’re going to find a lot of ice cream and I fully understand that we’re winding down a long and grueling winter, but hey, every day, no matter how cold, is a great day for ice cream. This time around we’ve also got a lot of plant-based snacks on the list. That’s not at all by design, I don’t have a dietary preference for snack-based foods, but even if you aren’t into plant-based foods give some of these a try — you might actually like them.
Here are all our new favorite snacks and sauces!
Michael Angelo’s Nonna’s Secret Sauce Line
Price: $4.48
Marinara sauce, and really any Italian sauce, is so easy to make at home that it’s a wonder anyone buys the jarred stuff. Having said that, making sauce is a whole other step and takes up stove space so if you rather just bay the jarred stuff, we do (begrudgingly) get it. Our best advice for buying jarred marinara is to look for a brand that uses a few ingredients, all of them natural. Michael Angelo’s fits that bill. Nonna’s Secret Marinara is made with slow simmered vine-ripened tomatoes, onions, olive oil, salt, garlic, and basil, and that’s it.
No sugar. No laundry list of fillers, binders, stabilizers, and preservatives. Just the good stuff.
The sauce tastes bright, but not distracting, and is full of rich savory umami notes that elevate your dishes and excite the taste buds. The brand also makes a roasted garlic edition, a tomato basil edition, and a spicy variation. All four are tasty, but I’d say skip out on the roasted garlic and tomato basil jars and add those ingredients into the OG sauce if you have them.
Trader Joe’s — Riced Hearts Of Palm
Price: $3.49
Looking for a way to ditch rice?
Trader Joe’s Hearts of Palm might just be the answer. Made from the center of palm trees, this grain-free rice substitute matches the texture of rice perfectly, if I didn’t know this wasn’t rice, I would just assume it was. Very flavorless rice. Like, the most flavorless rice I’ve ever eaten.
That’s the main drawback of Riced Hearts of Palm (aside from its odd smell), is that it’s all texture, no flavor. But it’s not designed to be eaten completely plain. As I mentioned in the lede, I’m not on some sort of healthy eating path, so I cooked up a couple of eggs, and some bacon, threw some green onions and garlic into the leftover grease, removed them, tossed some broccoli, bell peppers, and carrots into my pan, and then threw the Hearts of Palm into the pan and tossed it all together with some soy sauce and fresh basil.
The results tasted just like fried rice!
The Bottom Line:
Smells weird but the texture is just like rice. The fact that it’s flavorless is not a weakness, but a strength — it lets you build upon it without flavoring your food in an off-putting way. Think of Riced Hearts of Palm as a canvas for flavor.
Häagen-Dazs Coffee Butter Cooke Cone
Price: $4.99
Häagen-Dazs knows ice cream, so when I found out the brand was launching a new line of pre-made ice cream cones, I knew this was going to be a significant step above what’s usually found in the freezer aisle. And I was right because the new Butter Cookie Cones are great!
The full line consists of chocolate, coffee, strawberry, and vanilla, but the best of the bunch is easily coffee. It features Häagen Dazs’ rich coffee-flavored ice cream smothered in espresso fudge with chunks of roasted almond on the top. There is a great balance between sweet and slightly bitter earthy flavors with a luxurious and creamy mouthfeel. Hands down, this is some of the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted on a frozen pre-made cone, but I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of the cone.
It tastes good, don’t get me wrong, it’s sweeter than a traditional waffle cone, but the texture is a bit too soft. I’m missing the crunch of a lower-quality cone!
The Bottom Line:
A high-quality elevated frozen ice cream cone that provides the rich and luxurious ice cream you expect from Häagen-Dazs.
Trader Joe’s — Meatless Ground
Price: $3.99
Trader Joe’s Meatless Ground is exactly what you imagine it to be, ground beef, without the beef. Instead of beef it’s made from pea protein and seasoned with a heavy blend of garlic and onion powder, salt, black pepper, and sugar. Flavor-wise, it tastes pretty good, it’s not quite as savory as real meat but it’s perfectly serviceable in some fried ground beef tacos (which is what I made) and the texture, although a bit harder to break down, is not so laborious to chew through that it becomes distracting.
I cooked mine with some diced potatoes in a cast iron pan (I had to start on the potatoes before putting the meat in) added a few more spices (a dash of cumin, chili powder) and the results were almost as delicious as my regular ground beef fried tacos. I had a few leftovers so the next day I tossed the rest in an omelet with some roasted bell peppers and melted cheese.
Sure neither dish was vegan, but both were delicious, and that’s coming from a carnivore!
The Bottom Line:
A good meat substitute that is serviceable in a variety of meat-based dishes.
MadeGood Chocolate Banana Granola Bars
Price: $4.99
I’ll be honest, at first the idea of vegan nut allergen-free granola bars didn’t appeal to me. I’m not vegan, I love honey, and I have no need for a nut-free granola bar. But it turns out, I don’t need any of those ingredients for a granola bar to be good!
MadeGood’s Chocolate Granola bars are amazing, instead of honey, the brand uses agave nectar and brown rice sugar, which doesn’t make the bar as sweet as something like a Quaker Chewy Bar, but still has a significant level of sweetness while tasting floral and intriguing enough to grab the palate. It also has the unbeatable combination that is chocolate and banana! The banana isn’t too strong or overpowering, instead, the flavor hovers over the aftertaste while most of the sweetness is handled by the combination of chocolate, agave syrup, and earthy oats.
The Bottom Line:
A nut-free vegan granola bar that doesn’t taste like it’s sacrificing any flavor.
Mooala Chocolate Bananamilk
Price: $35.99 (Pack of Six)
I love chocolate milk, but I don’t drink it anymore because… I don’t drink milk. Not for any dietary or moral reason, there just isn’t any occasion in my life where I think “mmm milk sounds good right now.” I’ll use it in cooking, I’ll use it in coffee or black tea, but I’m not about to pour myself a glass with dinner like some sort of 1800s farmer or TV dad from the ‘50s (or sociopath, apparently). Chocolate milk before bed, that’s another story, and Mooala’s Chocolate Bananamilk tastes even better than the real stuff.
It’s thick and creamy, and the combination of banana and chocolate is inarguably delicious. Each serving delivers 526mg of potassium and is made with real bananas and cocoa. Be warned though, this doesn’t have nearly as much protein as milk, so if you’re thinking it’ll be a good protein source, it won’t be.
The Bottom Line:
This plant-based milk has the perfect tinge of fruit and a chocolate body that serves as a great before-bed snack.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Cones Duo
Price: $9.99
Hershey is giving us something we never knew we needed! The Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Cones give us that wonderful Reese’s flavor in a frozen ice cream snack. Each box of duos comes with two different variations. The chocolate version features chocolate ice cream drizzled with even more chocolate and infused with a peanut butter swirl in a chocolate-coated waffle cone. It’s rich and intensely chocolatey with just the right amount of peanut butter.
The alternate cone features peanut butter ice cream with the same chocolate drizzle in a chocolate-coated waffle cone. The result is a much more pronounced peanut butter flavor with a hint of chocolate.
Think of the difference between the two like a classic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and a Reese’s Ultimate Peanut Butter Lovers.
The Bottom Line:
It delivers what you’d expect! A Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup if a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup was ice cream. The real draw is that you get two different alterations on a medley of peanut butter and chocolate flavors.
EDITOR’s PICK: Herd & Grace Favorites Box
Price: $269.99
I’ve tried a lot of different mail-order steaks. It’s actually a very good way to buy steak, generally speaking, because the steaks are frozen after butchering and then not unfrozen until you are ready to eat them (they’re shipped on dry ice and come hard as hockey pucks). That means that the chain of being frozen is unbroken until the final user. Versus at the grocery store where they do the defrosting and the steaks might sit for a few days, etc.
With that said, I’ve seen some pretty bad mail-order steak brands. Brands with huge fat caps and little marbleization. For those who don’t know, a fat cap is created when a cow is binge-fed shortly before slaughter. It adds nothing to flavor and is typically discarded. Marbleization, on the other hand, is when a cow is fed evenly throughout its lifetime, thereby creating fat that is integrated and interspersed in the meat. These smaller fat ribbons and globules melt in the pan and add flavor and moistness.
Make sense? Good, now hear this: Of all the mail-order steaks I’ve eaten, Herd & Grace are the most well-marbleized. Not surprisingly, they also result in the tastiest end product.
The Bottom Line:
The best mail-order steak on my radar right now. With this product, you can compete with any steakhouse in America.
EDITOR’s PICK: Keep It Savory Salt Co — Shiitake Cremini Sea Salt/Vanilla Bean Sea Salt
I have avoided “infused salt” because, well… It’s just salt + an ingredient. I know how to do that. Salt + vanilla? Easy. Salt + rosemary or thyme? I can do those too. Still, I have heard good things about this brand and decided to try them. In my opinion, these flavors both live up to the hype. The vanilla salt has real vanilla beans (not just husks) and adds a wonderful sweet-savory note to pancakes and PB&J sandwiches (my preferred late-night snack). I sprinkle some on vanilla ice cream to make “salted vanilla” and also added a few pinches to a recent cake batter.
The mushroom salt feels like a full-on flavor enhancer and I’ve been adding it on top of steaks and into meat dishes to much acclaim. I add it to my bone broth as well.
The Bottom Line:
I get the idea of being pessimistic about flavor-infused salts because it seems like a DIY hack that anyone can do at home, but I’ve had tremendous success with both these and plan to buy them again.
