The Indian-Style Food Item You Need To Stop Overlooking At Trader Joe's

Trader Joe's has no shortage of impressive food, including its frozen options. Still, some of its best everyday products are easy to overlook in favor of more glamorous-sounding seasonal releases. One such regular item is so good that a Mashed writer highlighted it as a hidden gem she frequently stocks up on. While Trader Joe's has plenty of delicious Indian food, its private label frozen garlic naan has won her affection.

Our writer praises the garlic naan for its simplicity, stating she can just throw it in the oven right when she turns it on and soon get a piece of perfectly cooked bread. Or go a step further and prepare it as a flatbread naan pizza. At four pieces for $2.99, it's much cheaper than frozen pizza, though, and as our writer mentions in her article, it's even less expensive than Aldi's garlic naan.

Besides using the Trader Joe's garlic naan as pizza, or as a side for scooping up other Indian dishes, our writer mentions it's also great for making wraps and eating with a salad. If you like a little crunch with your meal, you can bake the naan for a few extra minutes, which she says is perfect "for soup or dip lovers looking for an alternative to crackers."

Aside from Trader Joe's, you can also get packaged garlic naan brands like Stonefire Authentic Flatbreads, Bombay Kitchen, or Truly Indian at other grocery and big-box stores, including Kroger and Walmart. If you want even better garlic naan, however, your best bet is to patronize local Indian restaurants and markets. You can also try your hand at making the flatbread at home with our naan recipe; just brush it with ghee and add some minced garlic for a more authentic flavor.

Interestingly, although naan is a part of modern Indian cuisine, its origins are actually Persian. Historians believe the flatbread originated in what is now Iran, before making its way to the Indian subcontinent during the medieval period. Because it required refined flour, yeast, and other relatively expensive ingredients at the time, it was once considered a luxury reserved for noblemen. Today, naan is typically made by combining flour, yogurt, and yeast into a soft dough before baking it at high heat. It is an especially common North Indian food item alongside other Indian breads like roti.

Trader Joe's shoppers give the garlic naan high praise, with one Redditor claiming, "As an Indian, I absolutely love this stuff and always have some in my freezer." Other Redditors compared the frozen garlic naan with the fresh naan at Trader Joe's, noting the frozen one is actually closer to restaurant quality. While no grocery store version can perfectly replicate naan fresh from a tandoor oven, Trader Joe's offerings have won over plenty of shoppers.