Trader Joe’s Buffalo Style Chicken Poppers Review

Trader Joe’s Buffalo Chicken Poppers box

Trader Joe’s Buffalo Style Chicken Poppers Review – You know we love Trader Joe’s and we love what they do and they are constantly coming up with new and innovative ideas. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out all the time. We have case in point, the Trader Joe’s Buffalo Style Chicken Poppers. It seems like a lame attempt to cash in on the Buffalo chicken trend, but poorly executed

It looks like we have a box of frozen Buffalo chicken poppers. I think there are nine of them in there, so the whole box is like 750 calories, which is a lot especially if you dip them in some blue cheese dressing. Three of these have 240 calories, most of that comes from the fillo dough because there isn’t much filling so I don’t think there are many calories there.

What you have here is a triangle of fillo dough that has a filling of some spicy cheese and chunks of chicken. You bake these frozen triangles in the oven. Do not microwave them because they just turn to mush. I know because I tried it. The most interesting part of these is the crispy crunchy fillo dough which I really enjoyed. Who doesn’t like crispy fried fillo dough straight from the oven. Contrary to what I’ve read elsewhere on the internet, doing these in an air fryer is not going to give you better results. I did mine in a regular oven with the convection fan turned on and they came out very crispy and crunchy.

Just be careful when you pull them out. They need a long time to cool off. The cheesy filling is molten lava straight out of the oven. After I let them cool off, I tried to cut one for the the glamour shot for this entry and unlike the front of the Trader Joe’s box, the popper kept squishing when I tried to cut it. The filling is mostly cheese and the cheese is pretty darn spicy. Way more spicy than I expected. Sadly, there was barely any meat in the middle of these. It was 98% cheese and these little tiny chunks of what could be chicken meat, but nothing like the shot on the product box.

Sadly, there just wasn’t enough here for me to enjoy. The poppers were a bit too spicy and mostly cheese and not even a lot of cheese. At least if  you are going to skimp on the chicken put some decent amount of cheese in the middle of these things. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend these things. While they were spicy and cheesy, too things I usually love, it wasn’t all that interesting and there wasn’t really much meat. 4 Bells I will give them!

INGREDIENTS

Trader Joe’s Buffalo Chicken Poppers

Water, unbleached enriched flour (enriched flour [wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid], malted barley flour), grilled diced chicken (white meat chicken, water, rice starch, salt), batter (wheat flour, cornstarch, yellow corn flour, salt, leavening [cream of tartar, sodium bicarbonate], xanthan gum), soybean oil, cream cheese (cultured pasteurized milk and cream, salt, stabilizers [carob bean gum and/or guar gum]), cayenne pepper sauce (aged cayenne red peppers, distilled vinegar, salt, xanthan gum, garlic), fontina cheese (pasteurized part skim milk, cheese cultures, salt, microbial enzyme), celery, cornstarch, green onions, reduced fat cheddar cheese (pasteurized part skim milk, cheese cultures, sea salt, microbial enzyme, annatto [color]), reduced fat Monterey jack cheese (pasteurized part skim milk, cheese cultures, sea salt, microbial enzyme), modified cornstarch, red pepper paste (distilled vinegar, red pepper, salt), distilled white vinegar, black pepper, sea salt, garlic powder.

NUTRITION
Serving Size: 3 pieces (101g)
Amount per Serving My Daily Value
Calories 240 Kcal 14%
Total Fat12g 19%
Saturated Fat 3.5g 21%
Trans Fat0g 0%
Cholesterol 20mg 7%
Sodium 340mg 15%
Potassium 70mg 1%
Total Carbohydrate 25g 11%
Dietary Fiber 1g 4%
Sugars 1g 1%
Added Sugars 0g 0%
Protein 8g 17%
Calcium 40mg 4%
Iron 1mg 6%
Vitamin D 0IU 0%

Trader Joe’s Buffalo Chicken Poppers box