The 9 Best New Foods Coming to Trader Joe's This Spring, According to Employees

Besides the curated smaller-than-supermarket selection, 19-cent bananas and beloved Mandarin Orange Chicken that wins fan-favorite honors year after year, Trader Joe's is known for its rapidly rotating stock. Each season ushers in a new crop of products or returning seasonal favorites. (What would Thanksgiving be without Everything but the Leftovers Seasoning Blend or Christmas without their Gingerbread Ground Coffee?)

Even though the new season doesn't officially start until Sunday, we officially have spring on our minds. Earlier this week, one EatingWell contributor hand-picked her new Trader Joe's product recommendations, and soon after, the TJ's staff joined the party on episode 48 of the Inside Trader Joe's podcast. During the 22-minute episode, co-hosts Matt Sloan, vice president of marketing, and Tara Miller, marketing director, walked us through their favorites that just hit Trader Joe's shelves—or soon will.

Related: The 10 Best Frozen Foods at Trader Joe's, According to Employees

In addition to a retinol serum, cheeseburger-flavored pet treats, two brand-new Trader Joe's wines (Edna Valley pinot noir and Oak Knoll District Napa Valley merlot) and Sparkling White Tea with Pomegranate, here are the upcoming food items crew members are craving.

Discover them all below, then head to the store ASAP to score these yummy-sounding items. We don't know about you, but we don't want to miss our chance at snagging at least one pint of the perky lemon ice cream!

"Think of this as the greatest cheese Danish you might ever have," Sloan explains of this freezer aisle find. "It's flaky, kind of like a croissant."

That flaky pastry exterior is a hint sweet, Miller confirms, and the inside is hiding a pleasantly tart cream cheese filling that cuts through the richness. Watch for this easy party appetizer landing in stores mid-April.

Speaking of cool pastry treats (literally, you'll also spy these in the freezer aisle), Pastel de Nata will soon be making its official nationwide launch.

"We had these for the briefest of moments last year and they just came, went, I couldn't even find them at my store," Sloan admits. The small Portuguese egg custard tarts should arrive in stores mid-March through early April; since they're in transit from Portugal, delivery times may vary. "A simple custard inside a simple flaky crust but you put those simple things together and something extraordinary happens. This one is a spring-only special item in our freezers."

The pastry "is so typical of Portuguese bakeries. It's just really incredible, talk about armchair traveling, and you can get the actual thing, really made in Portugal at Trader Joe's. They're small. They're in cute little tiny…pie pans," Miller adds. We're already dreaming about adding these to our Easter brunch menu for a sweet treat we can (almost) pass off as our own.

In other dessert news, we're sweet on the punny name for this citrus-flavored ice cream.

"[There were] multiple, multiple iterations and some frustration and heartache along the way for the person working on this. But we wound up with something really, really special. It started out as a, dare I say, very basic lemon ice cream," Sloan says. "And conceptually, while that's a thing, gelato al limone in Italy, for example...many of the tasting panel panelists felt like it just didn't connect."

So after the tasting panel, they went back to the brainstorm board and asked what it was missing. Crunch? Salt? A flavor swirl? Lemon Zest? They landed on all of the above, "so it's sweet and it's tart and it's creamy and it's got texture and it's delicious," Miller says. "Late March this one will arrive in stores and it is a limited-edition ice cream. We rotate flavors through our frozen case so that we can have a variety."

If just a hint of lemon flavor is what you're craving, swing by the refrigerator aisle now for a package of this Italian-made fresh pasta.

It's "a filled ravioli filled with ricotta and lemon zest," Sloan says. "The lemons are grown in Sicily, a fantastic producer of citrus and lemons in particular and really wonderful pasta. I like this dressed up very, very simply just with olive oil, maybe a little bit of shaved cheese, but in addition to that, or maybe even instead of that, I like a great big handful of some fresh bitter greens. Maybe some arugula, maybe a little bit of one of the members of the chicory family, you know [like] radicchio. That bitterness pairs so nicely with this lemon ricotta filling."

As for Miller, she likes to keep things simple with a splash of olive oil and cracked black pepper for a cacio e pepe-like entree. (We bet this lemon-ricotta pasta would be dreamy in our Pesto Ravioli with Spinach and Tomatoes!)

Related: How to Meal-Prep a Week of 400-Calorie Lunches from Trader Joe's

Remember FUNYUNS? This is like Joe's variation on the theme with an aroma reminiscent of buttered popcorn, according to Miller.

"What starts off smelling like a dairy butter component becomes more sour cream-like when you actually taste them. Very oniony, in a wonderful way," Sloan says, "These rings, made with lentils and rice, have a different, slightly more toothsome texture. They've got a little seriousness to them. I like that."

What makes these cheesy snacks "fancy," you might be wondering?

"These are Classic Cheese Crunchies enhanced with truffle," Sloan says. "One of our product developers was out scouring the world, as she often does, looking for great things. She came across this producer's truffle cheese crunchy, brought them back. We all flipped out and we're pretty excited to have these coming to your Trader Joe's."

Watch out Panera, you've got some dressing competition with this copycat recipe. Ready to drizzle and available in early April, "it's a…standard salad dressing that you find in a lot of grocery stores and we've never sold it because we've never been able to find one that used the types of ingredients that we allow to be used in our products and still tasted the way you expect it to taste," Miller says.

She prefers to toss it with a green salad, strawberries and slivered almonds, while Sloan says, "people will probably put this on just about everything. I think, fruit. We're heading into the time of year where you're gonna start to see more and more berries and hopefully some stone fruit pretty soon. And this would be great on peaches and nectarines in a salad."

Related: The 5 Best Salad Dressings from Trader Joe's, According to Customers

This product is a spring makeover of TJ's Jingle Jangle, "which remains one of our most popular holiday season products. There's little pretzels drizzled with yogurt and there are little nonpareils with brightly colored sprinkles. There's Dark Chocolate Joe Joe's Cookie Bark, Butter Toffee Peanuts, Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups," Miller says.

This can be enjoyed by the bowlful or handful, of course, but Sloan and Miller agreed the ultimate service style would be as part of a dessert "charcuterie" board.

Popping up on shelves at the beginning of April, this cake mix, "looks like an egg hunt in cupcake form...that has almost everything that you need in that little box," Sloan says.

The green-frosted cupcakes resemble a grassy yard, which are all set to top with speckled caramel-filled chocolate eggs. Try them for bake sales, brunches or a May Day dessert. Or, you know, for any ol' Wednesday.