I love Spanish food, especially paella. I make it fairly frequently at home and the whole family loves it. Trader Joe’s has just about everything you need to make it, except maybe authentic paella rice (which you can buy here Paella Rice). Paella is a the national dish of Spain and comes in all types of versions from chicken to sausage to rabbit. But the most well known type is seafood. Making paella from scratch can be expensive and labor intensive and there is a certain trick to getting it just right, especially the soccart which is a crispy crunchy bottom which most people in North America even realize is a thing. I have a dedicated paella pan that helps with this process. I highly suggest you get one too.
But that is here nor there… We are here to talk about Trader Joe’s Seafood Paella. I’ve seen it over the years sitting in the frozen section. Another forgotten item that nobody really cares about in the Trader Joe’s review game. it’s just not that sexy. It isn’t vegan or gluten free or pumpkin spice flavored or any of the trendy things, but it’s been around for a while. Honestly, I just didn’t have very high hopes for this dish. Frozen seafood and rice. Usually the seafood just turns out mushy or tough. It’s really hard to get right.
I was pleasantly surprised with this. It’s pretty easy to make. Just dump the whole bag in a hot non-stick pan. Give it a quick stir and put the lid on and bring the temperature to medium and let it cook for about 3-4 minutes until the shrimp turns completely opaque. Take the lid off and stir it a bit to make sure you get all the shrimp. A couple of mine had frozen together so I needed to break them apart and makes sure everything was cooked all the way through. But that’s pretty much it. In about 5 or so minutes you have a very nice meal for one person.
I really liked the flavors. A touch of heat and the saffron really came through. The rice was the right consistency, although sadly there is no crunchy bottom, but that would over cook everything. There was plenty of mussels and shrimp. Way more than I expected. I really like this dish and will probably stock up on it. It’s not really enough to share. I think the whole bag was about 500 calories. The only downside is the picture on the bag bears little resemblance to the actually product when you cook it, but I’ll give them a pass it was really good!
I truly love this Paella Its addictive and it does look inside just like the image on the package it is loaded with seafood and the best of all I can really taste the saffron the most important ingredient! I just want to know where the seafood is from. I know it must be farmed but really I can’t do China or Asia farmed.. it’s just not healthy as we all know..I plant to ask because I truly love this paella and I add my own green peas to add in to what is already there
How is it that you state that “… The only downside is the picture on the bag bears little resemblance to the actually product when you cook it…” but the only person commenting states it looks exactly like the picture? I mean, they both can’t be true. Why do you think it doesn’t? How did the different types of seafood taste? Also, why is the picture not bearing a resemblance to the outside package picture a downside if you liked it?
Claudia, You can look at my picture vs. the bag picture in my review. It looks similar but as with many product shots, they don’t look the same. There is not nearly as much “stuff” in the paella in real life compared to the product shot. I should clarify that. Either way, it was a something I really liked!
I’ve recently moved to California, and I’m a little bummed I can’t find this at my local TJ’s.
I don’t think I’ve seen it in the store for a while. I’ll check next time I am there.