I tried 13 of Trader Joe’s holiday meal items, and I’d buy 7 of them again

Trader Joe’s eggplant parmigiana sfogliatelle was the first time I saw sfogliatelle, an Italian pastry, used in a savory dish.

I thought the delicate layered pastry would make for a phenomenal texture.

When I baked the appetizer, the exterior became crispy and flaky, and the interior was moist and chewy.

The eggplant pieces pulled apart easily, though the cheesy, saucy filling was a little messy.

They were simple to make in the air fryer, and I thought they looked more elegant than anything you’d expect to come from the freezer aisle.

I wasn’t sure if I’d like Trader Joe’s figgy cheddar because I usually prefer unadulterated cheeses. However, I decided to give it a try.

The fig flavor gave the cheese a subtle hint of sweetness, and the rum (in which the figs were marinated) contributed a light, pleasant spiced note.

The cheese paired well with the chili cracker from Trader Joe’s scalloped cracker trio, as the sweetness of the fig complemented the spice.

This pack of Trader Joe’s mini quiches comes with two flavors: uncured bacon with sweet onion and Swiss cheese with mushroom.

Out of the package, I thought they looked promising and perfectly portioned.

The mini quiches were surprisingly moist.

I especially liked the version with uncured bacon and sweet onion, because they had a nice smoky flavor.

My wife preferred the mushroom-and-Swiss option, but that one was a touch too mushroom-heavy for my taste.

Lasagna is a holiday staple for the Italian-American half of my family, so I had high expectations for Trader Joe’s family-style meat lasagna.

At first glance, the components of the baked lasagna were oddly distributed — all the meat sauce was on top of the noodles and the bottom layers were solely pasta and ricotta.

Luckily, there was plenty of sauce to spread around.

I wouldn’t be able to pass it off as homemade, but it was good enough to buy for my family of four again.

However, if the Italian side of my family finds out I’m praising a store-bought lasagna, I might not be welcome at the next party.

If there’s one thing I could tell from Trader Joe’s shrimp pouches of many colors, it’s that food in various hues is always better than boring old monochromatic options.

My 3-year-old daughter squealed with delight and insisted on trying each color when she saw these festive dumplings.

I pan-fried my shrimp dumplings so they’d be crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

The dumplings weren’t anything super special, but they were still pretty good and fun to look at.

I’ll likely serve these as an appetizer this holiday season.

The label for Trader Joe’s Brie en croûte listed all sorts of ways to gussy the thing up — like dolloping raspberry preserves or red peppers and pine nuts on top.

I went for the most basic preparation.

On its own, the pastry-wrapped Brie didn’t look like something I’d want to put out for guests.

But when I sliced into it, all the molten Brie came cascading out, and I was reminded that cheese is delicious.

I thought the Brie paired perfectly with the flaky bits of pastry.

Many people eat crackers straight from a box, but I usually prefer them crumbled into soup or used as a vessel for a spread.

Though these crackers come in rosemary, red-chili, and garlic flavors, my family wasn’t exactly thrilled to try Trader Joe’s scalloped cracker trio.

The crackers were a bit thicker and less crunchy than the kinds we usually like.

That being said, they were heartier, and I could see them holding up on a charcuterie tray, especially if dipped into an antipasto spread.

Trader Joe’s fried olive bites looked like a simple variation of jalapeño poppers.

When I air-fried them, a lot of the cheese filling oozed out onto the appliance’s tray.

I expected a full olive stuffed with cheese, but these were more like breaded and fried cheese-filled balls of olive tapenade.

If you truly love the flavor of olives, this is the appetizer for you.

The label on Trader Joe’s holiday hash suggests using the mix of diced butternut squash, sweet potato, red onion, and celery in soups and stuffings.

I sautéed the hash to use as a side dish.

The holiday hash was tasty, thanks to the sage’s assertive flavor and the squash’s sweetness.

However, the slightly mushy hash didn’t look the most appetizing, and it even turned off my squash-loving son.

Still, I could imagine it being a time-saver if I was making a wintertime stew.

As a porchetta lover, I had high hopes for Trader Joe’s uncured bacon-wrapped porchetta pork roast.

Per the instructions, I roasted the pork at 500 degrees Fahrenheit until the bacon was browned and crispy.

This was supposed to take 25 minutes, but the bacon didn’t seem that crispy even after 30 minutes in the oven.

I still followed the instructions and lowered the temperature to 325 degrees, as I feared I’d scorch the thing.

I enjoy rosemary, but, in my opinion, too much of the herb was stuffed into the pork.

The meat tasted best in a sandwich alongside the holiday vegetable hash, as the vegetables and bread helped cut the rosemary flavor.

I assumed Trader Joe’s cranberry chevre would just be goat cheese rolled in sweetened, dried cranberries. However, it looked like the fruit was also whipped into the cheese.

I didn’t find the chevre to have enough of a tangy edge.

It was OK on one of the rosemary crackers from the scalloped cracker trio, but I could also picture it on a sandwich with the porchetta and holiday hash.

I didn’t know what to expect from Trader Joe’s artichoke bread pudding.

Judging from the label, it seemed like a reconfiguration of stuffed artichokes.

The bread pudding also came in an oven-safe casserole dish.

The oven didn’t fix the bread pudding’s off-putting appearance, in my opinion.

Taste-wise, it was too heavy and had a strong black-pepper flavor.

It was the type of thing that tasted good on the first bite but was unpleasant by the third.

I wasn’t certain if I’d like Trader Joe’s Portuguese tarts, which had a filling of bechamel, egg yolks, diced potato, and salted cod.

I tried not to let the “cod custard tarts” label deter me.

We try pretty hard not to waste much food in my household but we didn’t even come close to finishing the tarts.

These were a bit like a cream-based seafood chowder embedded in pastry, but they mostly tasted like goopy cod.