A long, long time ago, when I was single and living on my own, I remember buying this product from Kroger and hating it. But that was literally almost a decade ago, and a lot can change in that time. So when I saw the same product being offered at Dollar Tree, I figured I would go ahead and give them a shot.
For a dollar, you get around nine tear-shaped morsels that are about half the size of normal ones. But since they‘re around half the price, that seems to be a pretty fair trade-off. The breading is even, and they actually cooked up fairly crispy after following the cooking instructions printed on the box. They looked so good after coming out of the oven, that my hopes for them actually grew a little bit.
The taste varies from bite to bite, but even at its best, none of them are very good. This is pretty much exactly how I remember them from ten years ago–needless to say, nothing has changed. The cream cheese plays no role whatsoever…you know it’s in there, because you can see it (though it looks more like mashed potato), and in some bites, you can taste it, but usually you just get the bitter flavor of jalapeno followed by a mild kick. Even when the cream cheese flavor is noticeable, it’s never the sweet, creamy addition that it is in much better versions of this product. It’s just kind of there.
Even dipping them in ranch didn’t do much to make these any more enticing, and that’s usually my cure-all for terrible foods. For what it’s worth, my wife liked these more than I did, though she would also be fine if we never ate these again. Which we won’t, so that’s a good thing.
Overall: 2/10. The cream cheese looks like mashed potato and somehow has very little bearing on the flavor of this product, which has the overwhelming taste of bitter jalapeno pepper and bland breading. Even dipping them in ranch didn’t do much to salvage them. Despite the cheap price (they are a dollar at Dollar Tree stores), they don’t provide much in the way of value, as much better versions can be had for just a dollar more. I tried these ten years ago and hated them then; some things never do change.
