The One Target Good & Gather Snack We'll Never Repurchase

After trying and ranking 12 Good & Gather snacks from Target's in-house food brand, we have some serious opinions on which ones are actually good and which don't quite hit the mark. One, unfortunately, has to sink to last place, and it was somewhat of a shocker, even to us. That's because this snack came highly recommended by reviewers on Target's website (where it has five out of five stars). We had high hopes for it, but we'll never repurchase Good & Gather Sweet Cajun Trail Mix.

This snack comes in an 11-ounce bag for under $5 a pop, and it features spicy peanuts, butter toffee peanuts, roasted salted corn kernels, and a couple of types of sesame sticks. One Target reviewer wrote, "This Cajun trail mix is what I dream about. Okay, not really. But I do love this trail mix. I buy it for every trip I take and really could eat the whole bag in one go. I love the mixture of the sweet and spicy."

That's some high praise, but our taste tester came to a much different conclusion. What she didn't like about the Good & Gather Sweet Cajun Trail Mix is right in the name: "Sweet." There was no heat to be found, nor was there any smokiness for complexity. "The flavor was sickly sweet, making each bite nearly unbearable," she said. Really, the only positive quality was the crispy texture of the Good & Gather Sweet Cajun Trail Mix, but the saccharine taste is what ultimately sank the snack all the way to the bottom of the list of best Target Good & Gather snacks.

If you're willing to go the DIY route, you can always assemble your own trail mix. But the key in this case is the Cajun seasoning. One tried-and-true store-bought product is the McCormick Cajun seasoning blend; even Five Guys uses this familiar brand for dusting its fries rather than making its own proprietary blend. The trick to adhering the spices to your homemade trail mix is adding a bit of oil before you bake it all together for a bit, as the spices won't stick to the other components of your mix otherwise.

And if you enjoy a slightly sweeter trail mix, you can add sugar as you please, but we suggest not being as heavy-handed as the Good & Gather version. Sweet trail mix fans are probably safer with a trail mix recipe including dried fruit, nuts, and chocolate, anyway. Plus, if this Cajun seasoning isn't hot enough for you, it's easy to add a pinch of cayenne pepper or hot smoked paprika to it — introducing flavors the Good & Gather Sweet Cajun Trail Mix sorely lacks.