We Ranked Every Trader Joe’s Popsicle (And We Have A New Favorite)

At this point, we’re deep in the throes of summer. For most of us, the heat is unrelenting and if you’ve been keeping up with our Best Things We Ate This Week series you’ll know that just about the only thing keeping us going right now is to constantly have some kind of frozen treat in hand. Whether it’s ice cream, a popsicle, or some combination of the two, we’re doing just about everything we can to keep cool during the summertime festivities. Fun in the sun is only true until everyone’s hot, grumpy, or tired from the sun rays beating down on us. 

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Luckily, Trader Joe’s is helping us mitigate the struggle this summer with its large collection of popsicles available in stores. With eight varieties to choose from though, where do you even begin? Well, of course, we here at Sporked have your back. And, without further ado, here are all eight flavors of popsicles from Trader Joe’s ranked so you know exactly what to buy to beat the heat.

Mango Cream Bars

Every time I finish one of these Mango Cream Bars, I’m sad and disappointed that the experience couldn’t have gone on forever. You finish one, and it was so good that you immediately need to crack open another. The interior is a lusciously creamy vanilla ice cream and the exterior is a somehow soft frozen mango juice/puree. It’s the perfect level of sweet, since the creamy ice cream is balanced out delectably by the tropical tanginess of the mango. It’s everything an ideal orange Creamsicle should be but with a more tropical summer vibe.

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Pineapple Coconut Bars

If you love a Dole Whip or a piña colada, this is the popsicle for you. There’s no creamy ice cream in the bar at all, but the coconut in the pineapple gives it that creamy edge. The pineapple flavor tastes so exceptionally fresh and it’s put into the most refreshing form that fruit can take: frozen. It’s also not overwhelmingly coconut flavored, which I appreciate as someone who feels that coconut flavor can be overpowering very quickly. There’s no sunscreen-y flavor and the pineapple and coconut are very well balanced with each other.

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

Passionfruit Guava Bars

The texture of this bar is pretty exceptional. I expected it to be far icier, but it has a wonderfully creamy quality without actually having any dairy in it. It’s soft, and the flavor is pretty great too. Well… at least for the guava portion of the bar. Unfortunately, the stronger of the two flavors in this bar (the guava) only takes up 1/3 of the bar. So, after that, it does kind of feel a little bit monotonous and boring. The passionfruit flavor doesn’t really feel as strong or well represented as the guava and it’s lacking the same oomph. If the guava and passionfruit in the bar were better distributed, it would’ve been a much stronger showing. But, as is, it still one of the better and more interesting popsicle flavors I’ve had in a while.

Rating:

8/10

Sporks

Root Beer Float Bars

Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that I do not love root beer. But, what I can say about this bar is that the icy root beer exterior is a strong and bold display of root beer flavor. The interior is the same creamy vanilla ice cream as is in the Mango Cream Bars, and the two interact with each other remarkably similarly to a root beer float―minus the fizz. I went outsourcing another opinion on this bar from someone more appreciative of a root beer float and they were distinctly positive about the bar. Regardless, I do feel that the texture of the root beer exterior is icy in a bad way. It’s a bit bothersome to the tooth. This bar is probably better to lick than to bite. 

Rating:

7/10

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Fruit Frenzy Bar

These bars are pretty much just as stereotypical of a frozen fruit bar as you can get. They’re icy and I feel like they pretty much match the expectations set up by the packaging. Each flavor was distinct and obvious that it was the flavor it represented. And you could really tell that because of the detectable real fruit that has been blended down in order to make it. Unfortunately for this bar, part of the reason you could tell it was natural was because it was full of seeds. And not in a way that was pleasant. This might be a hot take, but I really don’t think that you should have to pick strawberry seeds out of your teeth if you want to have a popsicle. I think Trader Joe’s could’ve made that effort and really made these a lot more enjoyable. The flavor really met expectations though, so there’s nothing to complain about in that regard.

Rating:

5/10

Sporks

Tangerine Cream Bars

This bar takes on the same format as the mango and root beer cream bars. So, naturally, the ice cream in the middle is creamy soft and delicious. But for this bar, the exterior is lacking a lot in texture and flavor. I’m a big fan of a tangerine when it’s ripe and in-season. That’s not what the tangerine flavor in this bar tasted like though. It was disappointing. And lacked the certain concentration necessary to really have made this bar delicious. Additionally, the tangerine exterior was too icy and not lovely to take a bite of.

Rating:

4/10

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Strawberry Lemonade Ice Bars

I really thought that these were gonna be my favorite before tasting the bars. I love lemonade and I love strawberry lemonade even more. Unfortunately, the inside layer that is more dense of strawberry was very strange in flavor. Maybe I got a bad pack, but it oddly tasted of onion. Enough so that after I took a couple bites, I didn’t want to finish the bar. Had the bars been made with just an exterior layer it would’ve been hard to keep me away from the box and they probably would’ve been gone within a day or two. The exterior was exactly as delicious as I’d expected. It isn’t until you get to the interior layer that it is confusing and gross.

Rating:

3/10

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Organic Freezer Pops

For these, I just have to say: meh. None of the flavors are particularly delicious, and despite saying that they’re all made with 100% juice, some of them still taste distinctly artificial. The orange flavor taste like some kind of medicine and the cherry does, too. At least in the cherry flavor the lime really helps to mitigate some of the unpleasantness. The texture wasn’t any redemption either. So, while they aren’t the worst popsicle on the market, I can’t say there isn’t a situation in which I’d recommend these to someone―especially when the #1 popsicle in this ranking is my new all-time favorite.

Rating:

3/10

Sporks