They say French onion soup is the epitome of comfort—a bubbling crock of cheesy, brothy goodness that hugs your soul on a cold day. But what if you could take all that cozy, savory magic and cram it into something as light and airy as popcorn? Enter Trader Joe’s French Onion Flavored Popcorn, the snack that asks, “Why bother with a spoon when you can just dive in handful by handful?” Let’s see if this bag lives up to its lofty ambitions—or if it’s just a salty sack of broken dreams.
French Onion dip meets popcorn. How absurd! But is it really? When I first saw this on the shelves at Trader Joe’s I was like who in the hell is coming up with these crazy popcorn flavors? We just had our annual release of Everything But The Leftovers popcorn and as soon as Thanksgiving was over, we get this onion soup popcorn but I did a little digging and it makes sense, a little bit.
I was reading the ingredients for this review and saw that one of the ingredients was “French Onion Seasoning” and I was thinking, is that really a thing? So, I did what anyone would and searched Google for “French Onion Seasoning” and lo and behold, there it is! They actually sell this stuff as a shakeable seasoning you can use on recipes. But of course you can, why not? It’s got a lot of
Then it dawned on my that someone at Trader Joe’s went to someone’s party somewhere and had some popcorn with this French Onion seasoning on it and came back to the product development team and said we have a quick and dirty new product we can push out. Just look at the cheap looking photograph they slapped on the bag!
When I opened the bag you could smell the fake French onion flavors popping out of the bag. Actually it smelled more like onion salt and a little bit of butter thrown in for good measure. As you can see from the picture above the popcorn looks dirty but is actually just the seasoning clinging to the popcorn.
The popcorn is nicely popped and has a good shape. Not a lot of broken pieces at the bottom of the bag which is a good thing. At first I didn’t mind the the flavor of the popcorn but as a got to the bottom of the bowl, the fake oniony flavor started to wear on my. Let me be honest, it’s not my favorite flavor. You might love it though, so I suggest getting a bag if you think you’d like it. It’s $2.69 for a bag so hardly an expensive mistake if you don’t like it. My dog liked it! If you really like it, make your own with that Kinder’s French Onion Seasoning I posted about above.
Final Thoughts
In the end, Trader Joe’s French Onion Flavored Popcorn is a bit like that coworker who tells slightly offbeat jokes—occasionally amusing but mostly leaves you scratching your head. The flavor is oddly compelling in small doses, but the oniony tang and powdery coating start to feel a little weird the longer you snack. It’s not offensive, but it’s not exactly winning any awards either. If you’re a French onion soup fanatic, you might enjoy the novelty, but don’t expect it to replace your favorite salty snacks. Six out of ten stars—a snack that’s worth a try, but maybe just once.
