The Crispy Japanese Treat Trader Joe's Shoppers Love Pairing With Ice Cream

The Trader Joe's freezer section is a wonderland for the savvy shopper. The aisles are full of quick, tasty, and easy meals that cross a variety of cuisines from all around the world. Each Tuesday, Trader Joe's stocks new products with limited quantities, including sweet items in the freezer section. There, you'll find Trader Joe's Japanese Mini Taiyaki to fill up the dessert-sized hole in your heart.

The treats come in a bright blue bag with a pile of fish-shaped treats on the front. Hailing from Japan, these goodies might look savory and fish-flavored at first glance, but they contain no actual fish. Instead, taiyaki traditionally wraps a crispy, fluffy waffle shell around a warm, sweet red bean paste filling, though other filling varieties exist. The Trader Joe's version uses a smooth custard that includes vanilla syrup.

For authenticity, Trader Joe's sources its taiyaki already fully cooked and frozen from Japan rather than relying on a manufacturer in the United States. On the Trader Joe's website, it lists a bag of eight Japanese Mini Taiyakis for $4.99, leaving enough to share with a friend if you so choose. Let's just hope this product doesn't become one of the discontinued fan-favorite TJ's frozen foods.

There are a few different ways you can heat up these taiyakis, giving you a different crunch depending on what you choose. The first is in the oven, which is great for evenly crisping all eight of the custard-filled fish at once. The second is in an air fryer. This takes less time, but the appliance has less space for the treats to cook and could result in uneven cooking as well as some soggy parts. The last is the microwave, which takes a fraction of the time but cannot toast the outside of the taiyaki, leaving it soft and warm.

Next, you'll want to consider how you will serve your Japanese Mini Taiyaki. You can always eat them on their own, but a few different customers have found their own ways of making these waffles even better. Some ideas include taking the freshly baked, warm taiyaki and placing them on top of a scoop of vanilla ice cream to upgrade your sundae game. They'd also be delicious with matcha, chocolate, mango, or strawberry ice cream, to name a few. For a sweet finish, sprinkle on some powdered sugar. 

If you don't want to wait, just eat them frozen. Since these treats are fully cooked before freezing and frozen custard is a dessert anyway, there's no reason not to just dive in. If none of these options suits your fancy, you can treat these mini taiyakis just like they're frozen waffles. Since a waffle-type batter is what the outside is made of, you can finish them as you would for breakfast — like with a drizzle of your favorite maple syrup or with a spoonful of compote, preserves, jam, or jelly.