Grocery shopping when you live alone can be quite a hassle; it always feels hard to cost-effectively shop for one person. The good news is that there are few grocery stores more suited for this specific problem than the pre-packaged single serving wonderland that is Trader Joe’s. Want to know what to grab next time you’re there? Here are some great ones.
Sandwiches and Wraps
For the easiest, lowest-hassle lunch possible, you can pop over to the premade sandwich and wrap section. They range from fine to great, which means there’s no way to truly mess this up. These things are cheap, too, so grab a bag of chips and call it a lunch.
Rice Bowls
A microwave is all that stands between you and a tasty, beautifully low-effort meal. More varieties and seasonal flavors are always around, so keep your eyes peeled the next time you pass the frozen rice.
BBQ-Cut Salmon
These pre-sliced salmon filets are terrific; easy to air fry, roast, and sear as well as fully freezable if you’re not going to take down three slices this week. This is Atlantic salmon, too, and that’s what you want.
Oven Dinners
These guys are great, doubly so if you’re making a dinner intended to give you leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch. Most of them serve two, but you know what? You’re hungry and it’s your house. Maybe tonight it serves one.
Tamales
In both the frozen and fresh sections, you’ll find tamales of considerable quality. A few of these with a little pico de gallo make for a great meal. And pro tip: The fresh ones freeze really well, so really, they’re all frozen.
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Frozen Pasta
Trader Joe’s is gifting you the power of only using one pan to make pasta, and that’s a special thing. You probably can’t pick the wrong thing, but I especially recommend that pillowy, cheesy gnocchi.
Microwavable Indian Food
Joe’s Indian food section is kind of his “Free Bird,” you know? He’s known for it, and the people want it. These meals stretch across generations, with college students clamouring for them just as hard as single adults.
Frozen Vegetables
It’s easy to waste money on fresh produce when we shop for more than we’ll use before it expires. With the frozen stuff, you can grab a little bit of whatever you need when you’re cooking, and stash the rest indefinitely.
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Cubed Garlic and Ginger
I could write a manifesto on how much I love this stuff. To crush your own garlic and ginger can be pretty labor intensive, but here they’ve been given the ice cube treatment. You’ll find them in the frozen section in little cubes of exactly a tablespoon each, and they pop right out of their holder with ease. Thank you, Dorot Gardens.
Bagged Salad
It’s hard to buy ingredients for only a few servings of salad (it always feels like a half of tomato and a heart or two of Romaine end up going to waste), but with these premade salads, that won’t be an issue.
You can get two healthy entree salads for yourself out of one of these, and plenty more than that if you’re looking for a little side salad. I love that Sesame Crunch Chopped Salad to death.
Squiggly Noodles
If the preposterously expensive squiggly noodles from that big-time TV chef are too much of a drain on your wallet, go for the Joe’s dupe. You’ll get four servings for $5, and that’s a steal. I love these things, and there are a million ways you can easily spruce these up into a great meal for cheap.
Wine
Let’s be honest. You’re alone. Trader Joe’s has shockingly good wine for shockingly cheap. Stock up. You deserve it.
Hold the Cones
It can be hard to pull the trigger on a whole pint of ice cream when you’re alone (at least, sometimes it can be) but a nice box of Hold the Cones is virtually guiltless. Plus, a single serving size is three cones which is one of my favorite sentences in the English language. Take that box down, friends.
