Trader Joe’s Coffee Rubbed Spatchcocked Chicken

Trader Joe’s has taken on a new theme in the month of March: coffee. Maybe it’s day light savings time and everyone needs a buzz. Now they placed that caffeinated food item into your dinner with Trader Joe’s Coffee Rubbed Spatchcocked Chicken.

The pros:  Moist chicken ready in about an hour. A very different taste from Trader Joe’s Spatchcocked Lemon Rosemary Chicken.

The cons:  The coffee flavor may not be for everyone.

The verdict:  For $10.29 for this two and half pound bird or $3.99 per pound you are getting a whole chicken minus the spine. Out of the bag there was little excess liquid to speak of. The brine was so dark it made my chicken almost look bruised. I ignored the dark patch and proceeded to cook the chicken in the oven. After pre heating the oven to 400F, my bird was ready in under an hour which is less than the suggested time.

After 50 minutes I removed the chicken and the meat was very tender and the skin was nice and crispy. The question here is whether or not you’ll enjoy the flavor of the brine. This has some pronounced flavors which everyone might not appreciate: coffee, chili powder, cumin and vinegar. I think this is worth a try, but if you don’t love those three flavors you should pass on this in favor of the Trader Joe’s Lemon Rosemary Chicken instead.

For me, I still preferred the Lemon Rosemary Chicken over this. Those flavors reminded me of Sunday dinner.

The bag:

The nutritional information:

The ingredients:

How to prepare:

Out of the package you get:

After being cooked you get:

Would I buy this again?  It was cool to try, but not a hit in my household. The chicken was tender and juicy, but the coffee, chili and cumin flavor made this a hard sell to everyone at the dinner table.

Want to see more items I’ve reviewed from Trader Joe’s? Click on Thoughts & Reviews of Trader Joe’s for a searchable list.

Did you try it? Let me know what you think in the comments section!