I Turned 3 Trader Joe’s Products Into Insanely Easy Meals

🍊 3 Trader Joes Staples → 3 Easy Meals! 🍕
In todays video I am taking some of my favorite Trader Joes staples: Orange Chicken, Autumnal Harvest Pasta Sauce, and Pizza Dough, and turning them into three delicious and easy meals anyone can make at home.

✨ Here is what we are cooking:
1️⃣ Orange Chicken Fried Rice Bowl – A quick and flavorful twist on the TJs classic.
2️⃣ Instant Pot Lasagna – A cozy fall inspired meal made with Autumnal Pasta Sauce.
3️⃣ Hawaiian Pizza – Because who does not love a good sweet and savory combo. 🍍

These recipes are perfect for busy weeknights, meal prep, or anyone who loves Trader Joes as much as I do.

🛒 Trader Joes Staples Used:
• Trader Joes Orange Chicken
• Trader Joes Autumnal Harvest Pasta Sauce
• Trader Joes Pizza Dough

Kitchen Gear I Use:
Instant Pot: https://amzn.to/4fkBrsY
Zojirushi 3 Cup Rice Cooker: https://amzn.to/46F1jNZ
Zojirushi 5.5 Cup Rice Cooker: https://amzn.to/4ok82TG

🎥 Gear I Use to Film:
▪️ DJI Action 4 – https://amzn.to/4m7R9tG
▪️ DJI Pocket 3 – https://amzn.to/46Dt7lV
▪️ DJI Mic 2 – https://amzn.to/4ogP1l5

👩‍🍳 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and comment which recipe you would try first.

#TraderJoes #EasyMeals #TraderJoesRecipes #WeeknightDinner #CookingHacks

Are these Trader Joe’s staples as good as everyone says? Let’s find out by cooking three easy meals with the orange chicken, the creamy autoutumnel pasta sauce, and their famous pizza dough. Today, we’re starting with our one pot easy lasagna. Never made it. I’m super excited. We have our no boil noodles, cream cheese, ground beef, tuskcin kale, our Trader Joe’s staple, our autumn creamy pasta sauce, and then some pantry staples, garlic, onions, and some cheese. This entire recipe happens in the Instant Pot. So, add a little oil. We are on the sauté function. And add your pound, a little bit more than a pound if you’d like, of ground beef. [Applause] If you don’t have one of these tools for ground beef, please get it. It’s so nice. Look how it breaks it up. Few bucks is so worth it. Remember to season as you go. So, we are going to add some salt here. And I love this granulated toasted onion powder. M smells so good already. Once you get some nice browning, oh, look at that. That is all flavor. Then you will delaze with about a small onion. I would say like half a cup. I prep my onions and keep them in the freezer ahead of time. So it’s super easy on days like this. The moisture from the onions will start to delaze the pan. And you want to scrape up all of that goodness. We’re going to add our garlic, about three cloves, more or less, depending on what you like. At this point, your kids, your dogs, your partners are going to come running to the kitchen and wonder what you’re doing because it smells so good. Add the kale to the party. I’m going all in. I’m adding a whole bag. Mix that together. Just want to break down the kale a little bit before we add our sauce. And a bit more salt to break down that kale. Salt makes the water come out of leafy greens. And if you want to really break it down, add some acid, like a lemon juice, anything like that. Look at that. It’s like magic. It breaks down so fast. Why do they make that so hard? We’re going to add our pasta sauce, the entire jar. A neat trick I learned online. Put some water in this jar. Shake it up. And then it gets all of the pasta sauce that was hanging out in the jar. mix our sauce together. You could, of course, add a tomato sauce if you wanted to. I just wanted those fall vibes and to see if this pasta sauce was everything people talked about. Oo, this looks good already. Add the no boil noodles. You want to break these up a little bit. They go a little crazy because these become your noodles. I’m going to do in half and see how it goes. I still want this to feel like lasagna. This recipe feels like cheating. I’ve never made this. It’s crazy. Okay, so I’m just going to mix it in just a little bit. And then you want to add enough water to be able to cover these noodles. The recipe said about three cups. We will see. Noodles are fully submerged. We are going to switch to pressure cooking. Going to set this on high for 5 minutes. Good luck, little noodles. While the noodles are cooking, I’m going to prep my parsley. If you don’t know this trick to store herbs, if you believe it, this parsley is actually a week old. So, I bought it. I stored it with a paper towel. I just wrapped it up and kept it in this bag sealed and it works great. I hate when herbs go bad. You get so excited to use fresh herbs and then you look in your fridge and they’re all gross and slimy. I think fresh herbs are the best way to kick up an easy meal. Brings it to the next level. And easy way to chop parsley is to just kind of put it in a little bundle, fold it up, and then just roughly chop it. It’s been 10 minutes. I am going to release the pressure. Pressure’s released. Let’s open her up. Oo. Okay, we got some cooked noodles. All right, look at that. Looking good. The final step of this pasta is to add 8 oz of cream cheese. We’re going to make it nice and creamy, more reminiscent of lasagna. Also adding some pasta sprinkle, a little parm. Be gentle with this pasta. You want to really break it up. You can add the lid back on so the cheese melts. M. So creamy. These are big flappy noodles. I’m kind of excited. I like them. As usual, don’t forget to taste test. We’ll see how this is. Trying the noodle sauce. Oh wow. M. Oh, that’s great. That’s creamy. You get the kind of like pumpkin squash vibe. Oo, it needs a little salt. Add in some salt here. M. The flavor keeps giving. That’s nice. Okay, we’re going to top our pasta with a little of that parsley we chopped up. And I like a little heat, so I’m going to add just a little bit of chili flakes. I’m very excited to try this pasta. Oh, the noodles are so tender. Oh m M. That’s so creamy. That’s like fall in a bite. That’s so good. That fresh parsley really does add a nice element to it. Love the kale in there. The texture, it’s a little crunchy still. It’s nice with the tender noodles. Highly recommend. It was so easy. One pot, you’re done. Oh, this is like a way easier lasagna. I get it. And that pasta sauce, rub it, pick it up before it’s gone. Our next dish is the famous orange chicken. I’ve never made it, so we’re doing it today. I also picked up this kimchi fried rice at Costco. I kid you not, the full box of these packets were five bucks. So, we’re going to try this out. And we’re going to add some frozen veggies to make it a little healthier. Look at this. Three ingredients, full meal, super easy. Get your pan ripping hot. Add some oil. I’m using a walk today. You don’t have to add the frozen veggies. You want to do this first so you can get all the moisture out of these veggies before you add the chicken. Otherwise, you’re going to have some soggy chicken. I’m waiting until the moisture at the bottom of the pan goes away. Now add the chicken. Woo! Look at that steam. The recipe calls for a/4 cup of oil, which I feel like is kind of ridiculous. So, I’m just going to keep adding oil until it’s coated and add it in stages. You could remove the veggies if you wanted to and be extra safe that you weren’t crushing them, but who cares? This will be easy. Just do this in one pot. All right, we’re getting good color on this chicken. You know, another way you could do this is put the chicken in the air fryer. Oo, that would have been good. Optional, but I’m going to add some green onions. You want to cook those a little bit because it brings out the sweetness in the onions. And then I’m going to turn off the heat and add our sauce. Woo! M! That sauce smells so good. Oh, it smells like Panda Express. Woo! That’s crazy. Look at that. Yum. This rice is so easy. All you do is cut a little slit, put it in the microwave for a minute, and that is it. And by the way, this rice is vegan. So, if you wanted to make a fully vegan dish, just get the cauliflower version of orange chicken, and you’d be good to go. All right, let’s check out this Korean rice. M. Smells pretty good. Looks great. Let’s taste the rice alone. It’s pretty mild. It’s got a little of the kimchi flavor, which I think will actually pair well with this orange chicken. The texture is okay. That’s really pretty good for microwavable rice. This orange chicken looks so good. This is going to be our lunches this week, so I’m very excited about it. Okay, let’s see if the famous Trader Joe’s chicken is everything people talk about. M. Okay. The chicken is very tender, which is nice. There’s no like weird chewy parts. The sauce isn’t as strong as something like Panda Express, but it’s there. It’s orangey. It’s sweet, savory. M. Actually, the chicken has a nice aftertaste. Okay, let’s go in one more. When you get a nice bite with the sauce. M. This is pretty good. Okay, Trader Joe’s, I get it. Our last meal is everybody’s favorite pizza. I’ve let our pizza dough sit out on the counter in an oil bowl just to get a little more pliable and it proves a little and grows in size. I’m going Hawaiian today. I’m trying to get back into Hawaiian pizza. I had it recently. I thought it was great. So, we have our fresh pineapple, mozzarella cheese, Canadian bacon, and regular old red sauce. I’m using pasta sauce. It totally works. You don’t need pizza sauce. You just need to make sure that it’s thin. And then our secret. I picked this spicy honey sauce up from Trader Joe’s. So, I’m gonna put that on top. I turned our oven on to as high as I can go, 500 degrees. You want to mimic a pizza oven as best you can. And I’m going to work right on our pizza stone and add some flour. I know you’re supposed to heat this up, but I don’t have a weight to bring the pizza onto the stone after I finish working on it. So, we’re going to make do with what we got. This pizza dough smells so good. All right, onto our pizza stone. And I’ve heard you don’t want to roll this dough. You just want to spread it with your fingers starting with the center. I had to make pizza at a college job for a little bit in the cafeteria. So, this is bringing me back. Now, it’s going to shrink, so really kind of push it to the edges. And I got the herb pizza dough. There’s regular and there’s also a gluten-free option. Oo, getting a little thin right there. Going to add our sauce. Again, go lightly. You don’t want a huge pile of sauce because what you’re trying to prevent is a pizza getting too soggy. That is the number one issue with making pizza at home. Okay, I’m going to call that good. Add our cheese. I had a bunch of snacksiz mozzarella from Costco that I wasn’t eating fast enough. So, these are actually little snack size mozzarella that I just squish up and I’m using. That’s fun making pizza. You have to be creative. You can put whatever toppings you wanted to, but let me know in the comments if you’re a fan of Hawaiian pizza. I know that’s controversial, but I’m coming around, you guys. I’m coming around. It’s pretty good. Then, we’re going to go our Canadian bacon. I had these slices and I just cut them up pretty thinly. Oh, looks good. And with this fresh pineapple, oh, that’s so good. I’m going to break it into pieces and dry it just a little bit so it doesn’t put so much moisture onto the pizza. And if you’re new to my channel, welcome. This is how I prep our meals for the week. I have a very busy job and stressful and so I cook on Sundays and make these recipes and so we can eat them during the week. It’s how I stay ahead, make sure we’re eating well and manage it through the week. So like this one, I’ll cook this pizza. We’ll probably eat a little bit of it, save it, and then I might make another one later in the week as well. Into the oven it goes. We’re going to set 5 minute timer and check it. Real talk, when you’re cooking, make yourself a really nice drink. You deserve it. You’re putting in all the work. Just enjoy the process. I’m drinking Trader Joe’s pumpkin cold brew with their foam on top. Delicious. Okay, pizza. Oh my, this looks so good. Take a look at this pizza. I left it in for 14 minutes. Oh. M. We got a little char on the pineapple. That’s going to be so good. Look at the cheese bubbling. The crust. It’s hard when I tap on it, which is great. Can’t wait to try this out. Our pizza has been cooling. Look how delicious this looks. I can’t get over it. Our final touch, which is totally optional, is their spicy honey sauce. I’m going to add some woo to the top here. Just drizzle it lightly. Add a little sweetness, a little spicy. I think it’s going to go great. All right, let’s slice this up. [Music] So far, so good. [Music] All right, let’s dig into this pizza and see how the pizza dough is. M m. That’s good pizza. M. You can see how the pizza crust is cooked on the bottom. I went pretty thin with mine. I think that’s what you want to do. Otherwise, it won’t cook through cuz it’s almost a little too moist, but it’s still it’s hard on the bottom, which is awesome. M. That honey. Okay, I got to get some pineapple. That fresh pineapple so good on this. If you don’t like Hawaiian pizza, you got to try making it yourself. That is so good. Check out this crust. It’s crispy. This dough is only $1.50. And if you are in the mood for pizza, this is one of the cheapest ways to get your fix. And let me know your favorite pizza recipe in the comments. Trader Joe’s delivered on every single one of these staples. I’m honestly surprised, but very delighted. This was so delicious and very easy to make. If you found this video useful, please consider subscribing. It really helps out our channel and we make a new one like this every single week. So, thank you so much for hanging with me in my kitchen. We’ll see you next time. Bye.