The $3 Trader Joe’s Frozen Treat I Buy Every Time I Grocery Shop

I know many people who have a post-grocery shopping snack. Maybe it’s a sensible bite like a granola bar, jerky stick, or banana. But I don’t fall into the sensible snack camp and I have no plans of changing that anytime soon. For me, getting through my weekly shop can be, well, a chore — and completing that task means that I get a treat.

My snack of choice? Trader Joe’s Brownie Crisp Ice Cream Sandwiches. They’re easy to eat on the go (or, say, in my car in the parking lot). At just $2.99, they fit comfortably within my budget, and they combine two of my favorite flavors: chocolate and coffee.

Delightfully bite-sized (perhaps two-bites-size, technically), these ice cream sandwiches take TJ’s crispy (and naturally gluten-free!) Brownie Crisp cookies and sandwich them around a creamy scoop of coffee ice cream. The combination of the chocolate chip-studded cookie and coffee ice cream wins me over with the layers of flavor — and a healthy dose of nostalgia. These fudgy, buzzy ice cream sandwiches transport me right back to my teenage days at the mall, walking around dELiA*s with a Java Chip Frappuccino and contemplating which sassy graphic tee was “so me.” If you’re a coffee- and chocolate-lover, look no further.

How did these become my car snack, you might wonder? One day, I realized that these ice cream sandwiches would be perfectly thawed by the time I loaded them into my car. It would be silly not to eat one (or two) on the drive home. Having worked at Trader Joe’s, I know I’m not alone in this. If I had a nickel for every time I saw someone sitting in their parking spot, perfectly zen, eating an ice cream sandwich, let’s just say I’d have a lot of nickels. Whether they make it to your freezer or not, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better midday pick-me-up than the Brownie Crisp Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches. A banana could never.

Do you have a favorite Trader Joe’s snack? Tell us in the comments below.