How You SHOULD Be Using Trader Joe's Scallion Pancakes

If you’re doing at-home dim sum, there’s lots of stuff to pick up a Trader Joe’s: The store stocks ginger-infused pork soup dumplings (which we love), steamed buns filled with BBQ pork, and even Taiwanese Green Onion Pancakes. They come five to a bag in the frozen aisle and, yes, you can dunk them in hoisin and eat them on their own, but folks on Reddit have a better idea: scallion pancake tacos.

What are scallion pancakes, anyway?

Scallion pancakes are green onion-infused Chinese flatbreads that are typically made with a simple combo of flour, water, and salt. The key is layering—much like pastries, scallion pancakes have laminations, which make them flaky and crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

And while Trader Joe’s makes some of our favorite flour tortillas, we have to admit that the prospect of using these as taco shells is pret-ty compelling.

What should you buy to fill them with?

Redditors have a bunch of suggestions:

Eggs and cheese to make breakfast tacos. If you want to keep the Asian vibe, add a drizzle of chili crisp.
Trader Joe’s Shrimp Boom Bah. Another user suggested these fried shrimp from the TJ’s frozen aisle, which come tails-off and battered. Just toss them in the spicy-sweet sauce that comes in the box and add some slaw for crunch. (A few of TJ’s bagged salad kits are pretty slaw-adjacent.)
Trader Joe’s Beefless Bulgogi. Try it with sliced cukes and a drizzle of sriracha mayo or yum-yum sauce. The Redditor who posted this hack called it “easily one of the best things I’ve made possibly in my entire life.”

The possibilities are kind of endless, if we’re being honest. You can even do a little fusion and fill them with Trader Joe’s frozen Indian dishes (chicken tikka masala tacos sound SO GOOD). Let us know in the comments what you come up with.

About the Author

Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks. Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown. What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction. Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home. Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.