Trader Joe's Fall Zucchette Pasta

It's time to revisit a Fall Seasonal item that likes to appear on store shelves in the Fall. And yes, this is one of several seasonal kinds of pasta that like to show up on store shelves. In a typical year, you'll see the appearance of the colorful Trofie Colore and the Winter Snowflake Pasta. But at the end of the day, while they may look different, the taste is similar.

Review

I had passed this item several times but didn't pick it up when I saw it. In typical shopping at Trader Joe's style, the next time I went in, it wasn't there and did not reappear until this year. While this does make its annual appearance in time for fall, this is something that made my inner child get excited (like being an adult and finding the stuffed animal in the store excited).

Excitement aside, these are some really cute pasta. I've seen a number of pasta shapes, but the actual little pumpkins are a new one. They're closed on one side almost like someone had hollowed out a pumpkin for carving. Since I have a toddler, he thought they were pretty good. They looked different from what he is used to. Best of all he can pick these up fairly easily.

These are supposed to taste like butternut squash. But aside from the color here, they still just taste like regular pasta. So while these are adorable, they aren't without problems.

In fact, the biggest problem is the directions.

Problems cooking

While this said it takes 7-9 minutes, I was starting to approach 14 minutes to get to al dente.

So you might want to test your pasta before draining it. And test and re-test. Otherwise, they cooked up fine but did not quite hold on to their shape as much as I had hoped. With the small pinhole at the bottom of each pumpkin, some of the mine opened right up and created some flattened pasta. Some just broke into pieces.

While that's no deal-breaker, the butternut squash flavor wasn't very strong or assertive in any way beyond color. So, you are basically getting average pasta that takes a very long time to cook. It's also double the price.

Overall

Now, to be fair if this helped a kid eat their dinner then the $1.99 price tag is worth it. I don't feel like I need an excuse to eat pasta, but I could have put dinner on the table in half the time. For me, this is a buy-once product. If I had kids, my answer might be different.

Until then, this seems to reappear year after year but be prepared for it to disappear as well.

Would I buy this again? While Trader Joe's Fall Zucchette Pasta was fun and whimsical, the taste was ok, it took too long to cook and it did not really taste like butternut squash. It just tasted like, well, pasta. This is a one-and-done for me.

Where to buy

If you can't live without this product, then this item is available during the Fall, usually after Labor Day in most Trader Joe's. If you don't live near Trader Joe's then you can find this product on Amazon through third-party sellers. If that is sold out then ZPasta sells a pretty close product that seems like it pretty much the same.