We found a wonderful new (to us) product at Trader Joe’s this week: Trader Joe’s Olive Tapenade: Traditional. We have tried a Trader Joe’s tapenade item before, but it was discontinued last year and we have not found another product to take its place- until now.

This wonderful product (which is found in the refrigerated case near the salsa and hummus) is an excellent version of a tapenade. There are nice big pieces of olives, pimentos and garlic in this spread giving a lot of flavor in each bite. This is one of those yummy items to have in your frigid to add some pizzazz to an ordinary meal or snack

Are you familiar with the many ways to use Tapenade? Here are a few ways we like to enjoy this Trader Joe’s Olive Tapenade:

Spread thinly on a cracker or slice of bread

Tossed with hot pasta and Parmesan cheese

Spooned onto a piece of baked fish after cooking

As a dip with vegetables

But our favorite is in a cold pasta salad!

This is how we used our container of Trader Joe’s Olive Tapenade. We bought all the ingredients at Trader Joe’s as well- So easy and convenient! First we cooked some whole wheat pasta, then sliced some cherry tomatoes in ½, added a can of garbanzo beans, sliced some green onions and used the Olive Tapenade and some Balsamic Vinegar as the dressing. We mixed everything all together and …. well…. YUM!

The pasta salad was very colorful and all those flavors combined overnight and the next day the pasta salad was just fantastic!

Do you like Tapenade? Have you tried this item? What did you think?