Trader Joe’s Spaghetti Carbonara Reviews
Ingredients:
PARTIALLY COOKED SPAGHETTI (WATER, DURUM WHEAT SEMOLINA, SALT. MAY CONTAIN SOY.), WATER, CREAM, UNCURED PANCETTA, NO NITRITES OR NITRATES ADDED* (PORK, SEA SALT, SALT), SKIM MILK POWDER, BUTTER (CREAM), HARD GRATING CHEESE (MILK, SALT, ANIMAL RENNET, EGG WHITE LYSOZYME), GRANA PADANO CHEESE (MILK, SALT, ANIMAL RENNET, EGG LYSOZYME), CORNSTARCH, PECORINO ROMANO CHEESE (PASTEURIZED SHEEPS MILK, SALT, LACTIC ACID STARTER CULTURE, ANIMAL RENNET), EGG, SALT, NUTMEG, WHITE PEPPER., *EXCEPT FOR THOSE NATURALLY OCCURING IN SALT.
Justin –
From Club Trader Joe’s 2025:
“Not a bad deal for $4.29/16 Oz. Enough for two people if you make a side salad and some garlic bread!
Anyway, I continued to cook it per the instructions and it all came together and I plated some of it. The sauce sets up pretty quickly after you remove it from the heat so get it on a plate and don’t goof around. I noticed that although you could see some of the pancetta, it really doesn’t show up like it does on the bag picture but let’s plow ahead.
Ok, this plated up really nice and it smells awesome. The pasta is cooked perfectly and the sauce is nice and thick. The sauce has a nice cheesy bite to it and you can taste a little bit of the pancetta. The noodles, which I didn’t expect to cook right, ended up being perfect.
But, let us get one thing straight. This is more like an Alfredo than a Carbonara, to be honest. If you look at it in that context, Trader Joe’s fails miserably because this isn’t Carbonara. But as a pasta dish with a light cheesy cream sauce with some pancetta, it’s pretty darn good coming from a bag. It needs a sprinkling of parmesan, ground pepper and some parsley and you have a nice 2nd course. “