I Tried And Ranked Every Item In Trader Joe's Product Hall Of Fame

Trader Joe's is stocked with so many craveworthy snacks, flavorful meals, and sweet treats that it almost seems impossible to pick a favorite. But somehow, each year, the general public has found a way. For the past 16 years, the grocery chain has held its annual Customer Choice Awards, where shoppers get to vote on the items they love the most, with categories ranging from Best Beverage to Best Cheese and everything in between.

But, of course, favoritism eventually created an uneven playing field. To fix that dilemma, Trader Joe's made the executive decision in 2023 to retire items that won too many times. But instead of letting them completely fade away from recent memory, the chain created something to memorialize items that had already won five or more times: the Trader Joe's Product Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame currently consists of six items: Chili & Lime Flavored Rolled Corn Tortilla Chips, Mandarin Orange Chicken, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, Peanut Butter Filled Pretzel Nuggets, Unexpected Cheddar, and Soy Chorizo. But which of these legendary TJ's items really reigns supreme? Rather than asking Trader Joe's to do some kind of special-edition Customer Choice Awards solely for the Product Hall of Fame, I took matters into my own hands by trying and ranking each item based on factors such as price, value, flavor, and overall innovation. With every product being a winner in its own right, it wasn't easy, but I've narrowed down which ones are most worth tossing into your cart on your next TJ's run.

Coming in sixth place in my ranking is the Mandarin Orange Chicken. Considering this item won "Best Overall" in the 2022 Customer Choice Awards, my expectations were quite high. At $5.49, the value of the product is pretty solid. It comes with enough frozen chicken for multiple meals and more than one sauce packet, which means you don't have to try to find a creative way to seal and save your packet of sauce after opening it (though you can make a quick and easy orange chicken sauce with just barbecue sauce, orange marmalade, and soy sauce).

Ultimately, the Mandarin Orange Chicken landed at the bottom because it didn't feel like a unique enough offering to draw me to Trader Joe's. It tasted like a less refined version of the Chinese takeout restaurant around the corner from my house. For a couple extra dollars, I could get nearly the same meal (and a half pint of rice to boot).

That said, it's far from a bad dish. The sauce is sweet, tangy, and a little savory, and it coming in a separate packet makes it easy to manage how much you put on your chicken. The dish is relatively quick and easy to prepare and surprisingly pretty filling. But we're comparing the best of the best here, and, out of the six Hall of Fame items, this was the one I'm least likely to rush back for.

Before trying Trader Joe's Soy Chorizo, I didn't know what to expect. Truth be told, I had never had traditional chorizo, never mind a soy-based version. But as a lover of bold and spicy flavors, I was pleasantly surprised by the product. According to Trader Joe's website, the vegan protein is seasoned with "a blend of paprika, sea salt, vinegar, red pepper, and garlic powder." And trust me, you can taste it. The soy-based protein is savory with a mild spice and tangy undertone. It was one of the most flavorful — if not the most flavorful — products of the entire Hall of Fame. Plus, it has great value. For just $2.99, you can get multiple meals out of it (at the rate I'm going, I may have six more soy chorizo dinners ahead of me).

Still, the Soy Chorizo lands relatively low in my ranking for two reasons. First, the texture was a bit off-putting for me, as it was a bit chewier than expected. Granted, I ate it on its own (which is perhaps not the best way to enjoy even standard chorizo), and since I do not typically eat a lot of soy-based products, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and attributed my dislike for the texture to a lack of familiarity with the food. Perhaps more importantly, I gave the product only a fifth-place ranking because Soy Chorizo is a pretty standard product in the grocery world, and it seems that there are many comparable options out there. While I have yet to try those competitors, I do think its prevalence in the market makes it less of a unique Trader Joe's find.

Next up, we have the Peanut Butter Filled Pretzel Nuggets. These bite-sized snacks were pretty good but are in the middle of the pack for a reason. Would I grab a bag if I saw it on the shelf? Absolutely. Would I specifically go to Trader Joe's just for this item? Probably not.

Still, peanut-butter-filled-pretzel beauty is truly in the eye (or the taste buds) of the beholder. My mother is a huge fan of this product; honestly, it's probably the only Trader Joe's snack she buys, and I get the appeal. They're crunchy and salty (I mean, can we talk about that delicious coarse salt?), with a slight sweetness and richness from that peanut butter filling. And with a $2.69 price tag for a hefty amount of pretzel nuggets, the value is pretty good too. Overall, I really enjoyed the peanut-butter-filled snack — just not as much as some of the other items on today's list. If I had to make one tweak to the item, I'd want the peanut butter filling to be a bit creamier. It was more solid than smooth, which might be appealing to some but was a bit of a letdown for me.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of Trader Joe's Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, so I certainly wasn't complaining when I saw the dark chocolate version in the Product Hall of Fame. Simply put: This product is so good. The peanut butter is smooth and almost liquidy — a far cry from the solid, almost crumbly filling you get in a Reese's peanut butter cup (which, by the way, you can dip in marshmallow fluff and roast over your stovetop for a simple s'mores hack). In contrast, this filling feels like pure peanut butter, and I absolutely love it. Peanut butter and chocolate are a match made in dessert heaven, and this peanut butter cup is proof.

As a milk chocolate peanut butter cup fan, I really enjoyed the deeper flavor that the dark chocolate version possessed. The chocolate was perfectly tempered with a nice crunch and wasn't overly sweet, making the cups a nice sweet treat that's also extremely snackable. So many cups come in a container, though it never seems to last long enough.

The Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups snagged the third spot for their innovation. To be clear, I'm not saying Trader Joe's invented the peanut butter cup, but the product is similar enough to that classic peanut butter cup we all know and love but different enough to make it stand out and warrant a trip to Trader Joe's just to buy it (if you can find it, of course — pro tip: Make sure to look up to the higher shelves in Trader Joe's frozen food aisle).

The top two products were incredibly hard for me to rank. While both of these items are incredibly tasty and unique in their own right, coming in with a well-earned second place is the Unexpected Cheddar Cheese. The cheese is a beautiful blend of cheddar and Parmesan (which isn't the same as Parmigiano-Reggiano) flavors with the creamy texture of a classic cheddar cheese. Where it really stands out is its uniqueness. When I crave it, I can't think of a single other store that carries an adequate dupe. While it didn't take the top spot in my ranking, it definitely wins the award for most innovative (petition to make that an official Customer Choice Awards category?).

My only critique is that the product name is a bit misleading. A better name for it might've been "Unexpected Parmesan" because, to me at least, it's a bit more Parm-forward than cheddar-forward. So if you're really hoping for big cheddar cheese flavor, don't expect the unexpected (cheddar) to do you any favors. But if you like Parmesan and are in for a bit of a twist, this is definitely a TJ's find I'd toss into my cart if I were you.

Though the decision between Unexpected Cheddar Cheese and this next item was a tough one, the more I thought about it, the clearer the answer became. I mean, Chili & Lime Flavored Rolled Corn Tortilla Chips are practically Trader Joe's royalty at this point. I first heard about them when I was in high school, and they're still a fan favorite to this day — and for good reason. The flavor combo is bold and striking. They're spicy from the chili, slightly tangy from the lime, and taste so good it's almost impossible to put the bag down.

While the invention of a spicy chip may not be novel (this TJ's find is commonly nicknamed "Trader Joe's Takis," after all), this version still feels distinctly different. Sure, they may look similar to Takis (a fiery snack that can make your fried chicken even more flavorful), but the flavor of the TJ's version is more authentic, and the color isn't nearly as alarming. This is absolutely a product I'd go out of my way to head to Trader Joe's for, and honestly, I already have. Trader Joe's fans named these chips their favorite overall item at the 16th Annual Customer Choice Awards for a reason, and now they officially have the Food Republic favorite overall stamp of approval too.

To determine my rankings, I conducted a taste test of the six items that have been inducted into the Trader Joe's Hall of Fame. Unlike other rankings I've done, which compared different flavors of the same food item, the products I had to compare in this piece were completely different from one another. Because of this, one of the most important factors in my ranking was innovation. To do well in this category, the product didn't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel, but it did have to stand out enough among similar products on the market that I'd make a trip to Trader Joe's specifically to buy it. Using this as a standard created a clear basis for comparison across the various foods. From there, I evaluated each item on price, value, and flavor as well.