If you loved Trader Joe’s Neapolitan Joe-Joe’s and were wishing the chocolate, strawberry and vanilla combo would show up elsewhere, you’re in luck. Trader Joe’s just rolled out Neapolitan Puffs Cereal ($3.69 for a 10 oz. box) and it’s gluten-free.
Made with garbanzo bean, navy bean, and pinto bean flour along with rice flour, the cereal has a good crunch that holds up pretty well with milk. The strawberry tastes real, confirmed by the freeze dried strawberries on the ingredient list. It does have a little bit of an aftertaste (compared to standard wheat or corn cereals), but its sweetness does a good job of masking it. With 10g sugar in 1 cup of cereal, it’s as sweet as most fruity grocery store breakfast cereals, but it does make pretty tasty cereal milk.
Trader Joe’s also has a gluten-free Cocoa Crunch Cereal ($3.49 for a 9.5 oz box). So if you go cuckoo for chocolate cereals, you might like this one. Made with rice, sorghum and corn flour, these puffs have a more traditional, crunchy mouth feel. It also holds up well in milk and between the two, I preferred the Cocoa Crunch, just because it’s a little less sweet (just a little, it still has 9g of sugar per cup of cereal).
If you have a major sweet tooth, I could see using both of these in cereal treats, but the added sugar with the marshmallows would probably be a little too much for me.
Check out our other recent “We Tried’s” from Trader Joe’s:
Trader Joe’s Sparkling Coconut Water with Yuzu