Trader Joe's Southwestern Chopped Salad

The pros:  Trader Joe's Southwestern Chopped Salad is a fun mix of flavors and some of which you might not have thought of throwing into a salad previously.

The cons:  Not enough dressing and you better like cilantro to appreciate this salad. Lots of little plastic bags are in this one package so it seems somewhat wasteful.

The verdict:  I have a love hate relationship with salad mixes. I love to try new things without committing to a large bag of a random ingredient that I might not enjoy. I think of these as full sized samples to try out new flavors. This is no different. While good, this salad mix isn't great

For $3.29 you are getting lots of mix ins. You get a tiny package of cheese, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), tortilla strips and lots and lots of cilantro. If you aren't a fan of cilantro, then steer clear of this salad. The salad has really good texture on its own. There is such a good variety of crunchiness present here. The downside to this salad is the dressing packet.

Avocado has a terrible reputation of browning. This dressing color is far from inviting. While the dressing had some nice southwestern spices to it, there was not enough of it. I could barely coat the lettuce in this package. Even if you do enjoy the dressing, as far as I know, Trader Joe's doesn't sell anything similar, so you would be forced to buy the bag. Cotija cheese is another thing that Trader Joe's doesn't carry either, so once again you'll be forced to buy the bag.

Unlike Trader Joe's Cranberry Salad Mix where you can buy all the components separately, with this you can't. Which I find to be a bummer. I would love to buy a bag of cotija cheese or tortilla strips just for salad. I would also love to remove some of the cilantro. And if you are a fan of the dressing, you are out of luck. So, overall, while it was good, it wasn't great. I'd pass on buying this again.

The bag of Trader Joe's Southwestern Chopped Salad:

The nutritional information:

The ingredients:

How Trader Joe's Describes this salad:

Out of the package you get:

After being mixed together you get:

Would I buy this again?  This is only a maybe for me. There was a lot of cilantro in mine and not enough dressing.

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!