The broth looked a bit thicker than I usually expect from a minestrone — it really was "hearty." There were also a lot of flecks of what appeared to be seasoning and some big hunks of stewed tomato.

I could tell right out of the package there was less orzo and more carrots than I'd like.

There was a strong, sweet flavor of tomato, but not much to balance it out. It could've used something tangy or spicy, fragrant seasonings, or some more flavorful vegetables.

As I suspected, it also could've used more orzo.

I've noticed several Trader Joe's soups go heavy on the carrots, but this is the only place where the carrots are the best part of the soup.

I could list some things that this soup looks like, but I don't want to gross anybody out. I'll just say it looked very unappetizing gurgling out of the container.

The label said it's high in fiber — and it looked it.

However, it smelled lightly of nutmeg and cloves, which was a pleasant autumnal aroma. 

Like the minestrone, it had an assertive, tomato-y sweetness. Luckily, it was a bit more palatable here with the warm spices.

Unfortunately, lentils tend to be mealy, and the lumpy-grainy texture wasn't very appealing to me. It paired pretty well with the crusty bread — mostly because the bread masked the texture a bit.

I'm not eager to eat the soup again.

I'm not a fan of mushrooms, so off the bat, I didn't expect to like the organic creamy mushroom soup with carrots and kale. 

The soup was also a greyish-brownish color that wasn't necessarily appetizing.

Trader Joe's mushroom soup was a pleasant surprise, in that I didn't mind it all. It didn't taste much like mushrooms, and it had a nice, thick consistency.

It tasted like the most generic, basic version of soup imaginable — sort of vaguely salty and vegetal. If any flavor stood out, it was probably the hunks of carrot.

I wouldn't buy it again, but I wouldn't push it away if it were served to me.

It looked like chicken soup.

Until I filled up a bowl, I actually didn't realize it wasn't chicken-noodle soup, which seems like a far preferable and more filling meal option. There were also a lot of carrots again.

Before I even tried this, I could tell I'd like it better with noodles. 

It was very mild, even by the standards of chicken soup.

There was a good portion of chicken, which I appreciated, and the meat itself was tender. However, in my opinion, the broth was bland and the vegetables were mushy. With bread, I thought it tasted almost indistinguishable from warm, salty water.

It's good enough that it'd certainly do the trick when you're under the weather, but I can't imagine choosing it for a meal when I'm healthy.

Just from transferring the pumpkin-butternut squash bisque to a bowl, I could tell it was thinner and less creamy looking than similar bisques I've enjoyed. 

Nevertheless, the orangish-brown color was appetizing and appropriate for the fall, and the soup smelled autumnal, like nutmeg.

As I expected, the soup wasn't as thick as I hoped.

It was rich with flavor — sweet, with a mild kick of black pepper and some vinegary tang — but I would've liked something a bit more substantive. It almost overwhelmed my taste buds without doing much to fill my stomach.

Luckily, the bisque was better with a spoonful of sour cream stirred in, but I couldn't imagine buying it again.

It was a bit thinner than I want a broccoli-cheddar soup to be — I'm ideally looking for some cheesy goopiness.

However, I appreciated the reasonably large florets of broccoli. Sometimes, elsewhere, the soup feels like it's just made of broccoli scraps. 

The soup was cheesy, but not overpoweringly so. It was smooth and not too rich, which can be an issue for this style of soup. There was also a good texture to the vegetables, especially the broccoli.

However, I felt like it needed an extra kick of some sort, especially when I tried it with bread. A little bit of black pepper served it well.

Out of the container, the chowder was easily the thickest of the soups I tried. Luckily, it thinned out a bit once I heated it up.

There was a subtle seafood scent to it, but it also looked and smelled a bit like white gravy — something you might serve over biscuits for breakfast. 

The chowder wasn't extremely spicy, just surprisingly so from the cracks of black pepper.

There was some ambient clammy flavor in the soup, and the clams themselves were pleasantly tender and tasty, but I wanted more of them. The cubes of potato provided much of the bulk of the soup. 

I liked the look of the lobster bisque.

I could tell it was thicker than most of the Trader Joe's soups I tried, and the bright pinkish-orange color seemed right for the flavor. The visible bits of thyme and black pepper also boded well.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the $5 price tag, there's not much lobster in the lobster bisque — it's mostly there in tiny little shreds that add some texture to the soup.

Regardless, the bisque is very tasty. It's rich and buttery, with the sweet, delicate acidity of sherry wine and savory hints of thyme.

Sometimes, I find lobster bisques a little too heavy, but this one was hearty without feeling overindulgent. 

It was a little toward the pinkish side of the tomato-soup color spectrum, but not nearly as pink as most cream-heavy versions.

The soup was sort of lumpy in consistency, not blender-smooth, and there were small, dark-green bits of basil floating around. 

The tomato flavor was bright and tangy, and there was just enough cream to smooth out the acidity.

The taste of the feta was subtle, but the cheese came across in moist bursts of crumbly texture mixed in with bits of finely diced onion.

The herbs, though visible, weren't especially pungent, but there was a freshness to the flavor that made it the best of the bunch. Plus, it married perfectly with the toasty, crusty bread.

None of the Trader Joe's soups felt especially indulgent or adventurous, and that's OK. People looking for extravagant lunches probably aren't buying soup at Trader Joe's.

Although the taste of the minestrone and the texture of the lentils turned me off, the other seven ranged from fine to very good. 

The New England clam chowder, lobster bisque, and tomato feta will all probably find a place in my lunch rotation.

This story was originally published in October 2023 and most recently updated on December 5, 2024. 

Apple pie is delicious any time of year, but it's especially tasty in the fall.

Baking a pie from scratch can require a lot of effort, and sometimes, you may need to take a shortcut.

So I tried options from Kroger, Whole Foods, and Safeway to find the best grocery-store apple pie you can pick up in a pinch.

Kroger's bakery offered a toffee apple pie, and the label said it was freshly baked in the store.

Surprisingly, I didn't see any typical lattice apple pies. The only other option was flavored like brown sugar and maple, so I went with the toffee one.

The golden apple pie from Kroger looked very good, but cutting into it was incredibly difficult. It was soft and mushy, and it started to fall apart as I removed a slice.

The bottom crust on this pie seemed underbaked, and the streusel topping was doughy. It certainly needed more time to cook. That said, it could've just been that someone took my particular pie out of the oven too soon. 

The outer crust was good, but the rest of the pie's flavor fell flat for me. I thought the apple filling had an odd artificial taste, and the soft texture was unappetizing.

When I arrived at Whole Foods, the only options were half pies. A bakery employee told me that the pies are baked in the morning, then are typically cut in half.

If you're looking for a whole pie, it's apparently best to call ahead in the morning and ask that one be set aside. I asked for two halves to be put in a box so I could take home an entire pie.

The flavor of Whole Foods' apple pie absolutely blew me away. It tasted homemade.

The crust was flaky and buttery. Even though the center wasn't quite fully baked, the filling still tasted fresh and flavorful with a slight crunch.

The apples tasted fresh and had just a touch of sugar and cinnamon to enhance their flavor.

Other than the middle of the crust being a bit soft, it was a very good pie. Maybe the one I got was just taken out of the oven too soon. 

Safeway sells much larger pies, and I found both lattice and Dutch options. The raw pies apparently come to the store frozen and are then baked on-site.

I bought an 11-inch lattice pie.

The apple pie from Safeway was beautiful, with a nice lattice topping. But it was tricky to cut — the slice fell apart as I removed it from the pie dish.

The crust was underbaked and quite soggy in the middle, even though the outer portions had a nice golden look and crispy texture. I wondered if my specific pie was just not left in the oven long enough or not baked at an ideal temperature.

I also thought it tasted fairly bland and was not very flaky. Plus the filling tasted incredibly sweet to me, with an overwhelming cinnamon flavor.

It was easy to head into each store and find an apple pie when I visited in September. It was a bit trickier to get a whole one at Whole Foods, but the bakery employee I spoke to was incredibly helpful.

For each store, it's also possible to call ahead of time and ask the bakery to put a pie aside for you.

But I was disappointed that all three seemed to have an underbaked crust. It takes a lot of patience to bake an apple pie — at home, it can take close to an hour — but it seemed like each grocery story didn't leave the dessert in the oven long enough. 

I thought Kroger and Safeway's pies tasted a bit too artificial, and their crusts did not impress me. 

If I needed to purchase a grocery-store apple pie again, I'd only consider Whole Foods' option because the flavor was so incredible. But in general, I'd probably just carve out the time to bake my own dessert at home. 

This story was originally published on October 5, 2022, and most recently updated on November 25, 2024.