We Tested 12 Trader Joe's Baking Mixes — These Are The 8 You Have To Try And 4 You Should Skip

Trader Joe's is known for making cooking easier, whether it's with pre-marinated proteins, easy-to-reheat frozen dinners, premade dips, spreads, sauces, or a selection of both recognizable and uniquely playful baking mixes. And the lower price points on essentials don't hurt either. The grocery chain's baking mixes include year-round staples, like buttermilk pancakes and blondie bars, as well as seasonal favorites, like the super popular ube mochi pancakes and waffles or the maple butterscotch blondies.

To find out which TJ's baking mixes are worth trying (and which you should skip), we went to our local store and grabbed all of the products that were currently available. After several days of baking and tasting, it became clear which mixes are the ones we'll keep going back to — and which ones we'll pass on during our next shopping trip. Some items that we didn't expect to love became instant favorites, while others were surprisingly disappointing. After a veritable baking marathon, these are the four Trader Joe's baking mixes to skip and the eight you should definitely try.

Given that brownie batter is typically sugar, cocoa, and butter held together with a couple of eggs, flour tends to be the least important ingredient on my brownie mix radar. Because of this, I wasn't at all hesitant to pick up Trader Joe's Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Brownie mix — along with the fact that gluten-free baking products have come such a long way in the last several years and are often just as satisfying as their wheat-based counterparts. Unfortunately, this particular grocery item, which is made with brown rice flour, is not one such product.

The brownies have the right look, tenderness, and are pleasantly chocolatey thanks to the Dutch-processed cocoa powder and chocolate chips in the mix. But there's a chalky texture that sticks to your tongue from the rice flour, which only intensifies with each bite. Additionally, there are no anti-clumping agents in the ingredients — which isn't a bad thing, necessarily — but the dry mix had a lot of lumps that took some extra effort to break up while stirring the batter.

This gluten-free brownie mix from TJ's costs $4.79 and requires ¼ cup of oil, one egg, and ¼ cup of water. While I wouldn't purchase this item again (even if I was baking gluten free on purpose), I would consider picking up Trader Joe's Brownie Truffle Baking Mix, which has practically all of the same ingredients, save for wheat flour instead of rice.

Even though I had never tried Trader Joe's Ube Mochi Pancake & Waffle Mix before this tasting, I'd absolutely heard the hype about this breakfast item. So let me set your expectations accordingly: The pancakes are, in fact, delicious; they aren't quite as purple as you think they'll be, and consider them more like flat, toasted, chewy mochi than actual pancakes.

Now that you have an idea of what to expect from the texture and color of these flapjacks, you'll be delighted to find that they fluff up nicely while cooking, are fast and easy to make, and have a subtle but noticeable sweet ube flavor to them. Additionally, this product is gluten free, which you probably wouldn't notice if you didn't already know. Instead of wheat flour, it's made with rice flour, which creates the soft and chewy mochi-like texture without being chalky and unappealing.

This TJ's pancake and waffle mix costs $3.99 and makes up to 12 4-inch pancakes per box. The mix requires water, eggs, and oil or butter to make the batter and comes together in about a minute.

Consider Trader Joe's Buttermilk Pancake & Baking Mix to be the store-brand version of Bisquick (although each of their ingredient lists is slightly different). For the sake of this tasting, I made a batch of TJ's pancakes according to the instructions, which came out pleasantly fluffy and were incredibly easy to prepare with the addition of one egg and a cup of water, although the flavor is about as average as it gets.

If you start with the basic mix and add vanilla, sugar, milk, butter, or extras like blueberries, chocolate chips, or bananas, you've got a no-fail pancake base to start with. But basic isn't really the point here. Just like the versatility of a box of Bisquick, this baking mix base can be turned into so many things, including waffles, angel biscuits, focaccia, and lemon and blueberry scones — of which the recipes are all listed on the box.

One 32-ounce (2-pound) box of Trader Joe's pancake mix costs $1.99; the lowest-priced baking mix in this lineup. When compared to a 40-ounce box of Bisquick Original Pancake & Baking Mix that costs $4.69 at my regular grocery store, the TJ's option is an incredible deal.

There is no shortage of options when it comes to blueberry muffin mixes on grocery shelves, and Trader Joe's Blueberry Muffin Mix would seem like a competitive pick. Instead of relying only on added flavors or tiny flakes of blueberries, this product includes a package of dried blueberries that you soak in water to rehydrate before incorporating into the batter. It also asks for eggs, milk, and butter, which all help build the flavor of the muffin mix.

Unfortunately, the rehydrated blueberries don't provide nearly as much flavor as I was expecting or the same juicy pop you'd get from the fresh or canned berries. The muffins themselves are a little on the dry side, which could possibly be remedied by using some oil in place of the butter in the batter.

Trader Joe's Blueberry Muffin Mix costs $4.49, which is a little expensive for a mix that only makes about 12 muffins. If you do pick this item up to try, do yourself a favor and grab a small pack of fresh blueberries to toss into the batter instead of the dried ones that come with it.

Fall is usually the season when I like to give banana bread a break and lean into warm-spiced loaf cakes and breads — and Trader Joe's Pumpkin Bread & Muffin Mix is a great option for that. Getting its flavor from dried pumpkin flakes, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice, this mix leans more into the profile of a spice cake, with the pumpkin serving as more of a supporting component. In loaf form, it has a fluffy and moist crumb, isn't too sweet, and easily serves six to eight people.

It's plenty enjoyable as-is but would also be great to add mix-ins to, like chopped nuts or mini chocolate or butterscotch chips. A brown sugar and oat crumble topping or brown butter icing would also be nice additions and would make your pumpkin loaf look completely homemade in the process. This TJ's product costs $3.49 and calls for two eggs, ½ cup of vegetable oil, and one cup of water. It makes one 9x5-inch loaf and takes about an hour to bake. Additionally, the grocery chain offers a gluten-free pumpkin bread and muffin mix that may taste different but would certainly be worth a try based on how great the flour-based version tastes.

Baking mixes tend to stick to the familiar favorites: sugar cookies, buttermilk pancakes, brownies, confetti cake, cornbread, and so on. So it's always exciting to find a product that's out of the ordinary, like Trader Joe's Strawberry & Corn Flake Cake Muffin & Loaf Mix. And if this store-bought item is anything, it's delightfully whimsical. The batter has real sweetened dried strawberry pieces and turns a brilliant pink color once it's mixed with all of the wet ingredients. The muffins are then topped with a mixture of corn flakes and red sanding sugar — a combination that was reminiscent of Taco Bell's Milk Bar strawberry truffles.

The muffins themselves don't bake up quite as pink as the raw batter, but the strawberry flavor is still strong, and the corn flake topping is plenty crunchy. I was also pleased with both the tender texture and overall moistness of the muffins. Trader Joe's Strawberry & Corn Flake Muffin Mix costs $4.49 and requires two eggs, ½ cup of oil, ¾ cup of milk, and 1 tablespoon of butter. First released as a limited-time seasonal item in the summer, I was still able to find the baking mix on my local store's shelves into October — but it probably won't last long.

Trader Joe's Blondie Bar Baking Mix isn't necessarily for the blondie lovers out there — it's more for the chocolate chip cookie lovers of the world. And even as far as that goes, this particular treat doesn't pack very many chocolate chips into it either. Made with semisweet chocolate chips, brown sugar, and a touch of molasses powder for a boost of flavor, these are just ... fine.

The instructions say to cook the blondies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 28 minutes for softer bars and 32 minutes for crispy bars. But even after 28 minutes, they seemed a little crispier than I'd prefer. The texture isn't fudgy or even cakey like you'd expect from a brownie, but decidedly cookie-like. The flavor isn't overly sweet, but pleasant, like the brown sugar-based cookie dough you'd make if you were actually baking chocolate chip cookies.

While this particular mix didn't especially wow me, it's also not horrible. It seems like a great base for those who like to add their own touches to boxed mixes, and cooking it for slightly less time might yield a fudgier texture. The blondie mix costs $3.99 and uses one large egg and a 4-ounce stick of butter.

While Trader Joe's offers a wheat-based cornbread mix option, only the gluten-free variety was available at my local grocery store. Given that the star ingredient in cornbread is typically cornmeal, I was optimistic that the gluten-free mix would be plenty satisfying — and I wasn't let down. True to expectations, the main ingredients in this product are sugar and cornmeal, but what really got me excited were the kernels in the baking mix.

Actual corn kernels are entirely a matter of preference, but this mix also bakes up moist and tender, almost like cake. Baked goods made with rice flour instead of wheat flour tend to have a chalky texture and dry out quickly, but neither of those side effects were an issue with this item. There's also an enjoyable, ever-so-slightly crunchy texture from the cornmeal in the mix.

Trader Joe's Gluten Free Cornbread Mix costs $3.49 and requires one egg, ½ cup of oil, and ¾ cup of milk. It's enough batter for an 8x8-inch or even a 9x9-inch square baking pan. The batter technically makes nine servings but can easily be sliced into 12 or 16 smaller pieces.

Pumpkin pie lovers should immediately drop what they're doing and head to the nearest Trader Joe's to stock up on this pumpkin spice snickerdoodle cookie mix — it's that serious. Fresh out of the oven, these snickerdoodles are intensely soft, spiced, and practically bursting with pumpkin flavor. They're about as close to pumpkin pie in cookie form as you'll get. As someone who loves snickerdoodles but doesn't particularly care for the pureed, baby food-like texture of pumpkin pie, I'd definitely prefer these to the pie version at Thanksgiving.

What's more, these cookies stay pleasantly soft and chewy for days after they're baked, even if you leave them on the counter unwrapped (guilty). Be warned that these are noticeably more spiced than your typical cinnamon sugar-covered grocery-store snickerdoodle cookie. Along with pumpkin powder, the dough includes cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and clove, and the sugar and spice mix included for rolling the cookie dough in has the same spices.

Available seasonally in the fall, Trader Joe's Pumpkin & Spice Snickerdoodle Cookie Mix costs $3.99 and needs an additional 4-ounce stick of butter, an egg, and 1 tablespoon of milk. It only takes about 10 to 12 minutes to bake and makes up to 22 cookies, depending on how large you scoop them.

Trader Joe's Cookies & Creme Cookie Mix is one of the delightfully whimsical baking mixes the grocery store offers, and there's no denying how texturally exciting it is, especially for cookies and creme lovers. With that said, it's by far the sweetest of the products I tasted for this review. The cookies are designed like your typical chocolate chip cookies, with a mix of both white and light brown sugars, but the usual semisweet chocolate chips are replaced with sweet white "chocolatey" chips and pieces of chopped chocolate creme sandwich cookies.

The mix makes 12 cookies when scooped into the recommended 2.5-tablespoon portions, but given how sweet they are, I'd recommend splitting that in half and stretching it to 24 cookies instead. Additional instructions are given for turning this mix into cookie bars, which might be another good option if you'd like to slice the bars into smaller squares.

A box of the cookies and creme cookie mix costs $3.99 and needs one egg and 3 ounces (¾ stick) of butter to make. While I found the treats nearly too sweet to enjoy, I appreciate that they stay semi-soft for several days after baking, which is a nice textural contrast to the crunchy chocolate sandwich cookie chunks marbled into the dough.

You might wonder how it's possible to make a loaf of banana bread without actually adding any bananas, and yet — Trader Joe's Banana Bread Mix manages to do just that. I've tasted a lot of store-bought banana bread mixes, and after trying Trader Joe's version again, it's still high on my list.

The banana flavor in this mix comes from banana flakes which, once baked, meld perfectly into the batter. The loaf bakes up tender and moist, with a boost from wheat germ, bran, and natural vanilla flavor in the mix. If you're feeling ambitious, fresh banana chunks, mini chocolate chips, ½ teaspoon of cinnamon, or chopped walnuts would all be great additions.

TJ's Banana Bread Mix costs $2.99 and needs two large eggs, ⅓ cup of vegetable oil, and ¾ cup of water. The box also includes directions for muffins that swap butter for the oil in the instructions and a more complex recipe for a caramelized banana upside-down cake.

If there's one baking mix on this list that you absolutely need to try, it's Trader Joe's Maple Butterscotch Blondie Baking Mix. As someone who never really saw the appeal of blondies over brownies, this baking mix has made me an absolute convert. The blondie batter itself is flavored with maple (both maple-flavored bits and maple syrup powder) before getting a thick butterscotch syrup drizzle on top. The blondies bake up to an ideal fudgy texture, while the butterscotch syrup stays pliable and chewy. It also only takes about 22 minutes to bake, which is ideal for those of us who have very little self-control around something so indulgent.

The mix costs $4.99 and requires one large egg and a 4-ounce stick of butter. This product is new to shelves in 2026,  meaning the only downside is that it's a strictly seasonal fall item. If your local Trader Joe's has it in stock, do yourself a favor and buy as many as the store will allow so you can enjoy these phenomenal blondies until the next time they're (hopefully) on grocery store shelves.

All of the Trader Joe's baking mixes in this article were chosen from what was available at my local grocery store in NYC during the early fall season. Heavy consideration was given to the final texture and flavor of each baked item, followed by the difficulty of preparation and finally the overall yield. The prices were not a major factor when choosing baking mixes for this tasting, although it was a consideration when judging the overall value of the grocery item along with the yield and flavor of the final product.

Like many bakers, my love of baking began with boxed mixes and has grown into a professional baking career of over 15 years. With that said, I followed each set of instructions as closely as possible, without making any additions or substitutions. I have noted some adjustments you could consider making to a particular mix where it was appropriate. Current prices and additional ingredient details are included for those who want to plan their next baking project before heading to the store. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own and in no way endorsed or sponsored by Trader Joe's.