Trader Joe’s Snacky Clusters Review

Trader Joe’s has gone and done it again. Seemingly mashed up some different tastes and ingredients in ways you wouldn’t expect. Chocolate and potato chips? Who would’ve thought they would ever do it?!??! Run, don’t walk to your closest Trader Joe’s for some chocolate deliciousness.

I don’t know if you remember when you were a kid, the Reese’s Cup commercials where two guys are together and blame each other for getting peanut butter in their chocolate and the other way around. They both taste their new concoction and love it. I feel like this when I taste these. It’s like someone crunched up some salty snacks, in this case, potato chips, corn dippers, and pretzel nuggets, and rolled them in some milk chocolate. 

(I want to say I am still extremely upset that many years ago Trader Joe’s did away with their regular pretzel nuggets. They were one of the best products they had and then randomly one day poof! It’s love/hate with Trader Joe’s, I tell you!)

Trader Joe’s is famous for their snacks. Sometimes I think that’s the only reason I go there. Their collection of chocolate snacks is the best and most unique around. They are always trying different and unique flavor combinations. 

If you’ve lived under a rock for the past few years, you’ll not know about all the salty/sweet treats that people have come up with. Even a global chocolate company like Rittersport made a cornflakes and chocolate bar! which is absolutely delicious… 

Ok, let’s back up here and talk about what we have here. Trader Joe’s Snacky Clusters are lumps of chocolate that have little bits of potato chips, corn chips, and pretzel nuggets that have been crushed up and rolled in melted chocolate.

I remember, years ago, when I first had some dark chocolate with some sea salt sprinkled on top at a fine chocolate shop here in the Seattle area, it blew my mind. Such a good combination. These follow in that vein. Mixing something chocolatey with something crunchy and salty seems to be a match made in heaven.

There has been some hate for these out on

social media forums. People say they are heavily flavored by the corn chips but honestly, I didn’t get that. They also mention that you can’t really see or taste the potato chips in the clusters when you can easily see the corn chips and pretzel bits. My guess is that the potato chips got pulverized and kind of got dissolved in the hot chocolate mixture. Either way, the clusters are still very good.

I think the true beauty of these clusters is transforming these by putting them on something like ice cream. Get a nice big bowl of vanilla ice cream and put these clusters on top. OMG, that’s a flavor bomb right there!

My Final Thoughts

At $3.99 you get about six servings per bag. They are about 160 calories per serving per 1 oz or four pieces. That’s a ton of calories for a small handful of chocolate, just something to keep an eye on. But I really like the crunchy, salty, chocolatey mixture of flavors and they work so well. The only suggestion I would have for Trader Joe’s to make these really shine is to make the chocolate dark. I like milk chocolate, but dark chocolate is so much better. I am going to rate these 7 Bells!

Ingredients

• MILK CHOCOLATE (SUGAR, MILK, UNSWEETENED CHOCOLATE, COCOA BUTTER, SOY LECITHIN [EMULSIFIER], NATURAL VANILLA FLAVOR)
• POTATO CHIPS (POTATOES, SUNFLOWER OIL, SEA SALT)
• CORN CHIP DIPPERS (YELLOW CORN MEAL, CANOLA AND/OR SUNFLOWER AND/OR SAFFLOWER OIL, SEA SALT)
• MINI PRETZEL NUGGETS (UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR [WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID], MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, SALT, SOYBEAN OIL, SODIUM HYDROXIDE [PROCESSING AID]).

• CONTAINS MILK, SOY, WHEAT.
• MAY CONTAIN EGG, PEANUT, ALMOND, CASHEW, COCONUT, PECAN.