All of my days and my career are dedicated to good food, which mainly consists of produce! I have probably gone to the grocery store more than anyone this past year, and have searched far and wide for the best tasting produce. Below, I am sharing my favorites, or as I like to call it: The Produce Nerd’s Best of 2021 Produce Awards!
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine and no one is paying me to say any of this.
Best Produce Finds of 2021
Drumroll please…
Best Apples
Cosmic Crisp Apples, grown in Washington State. Sourced from Walmart in Southern California and Kroger in Georgia.
- Cosmic Crisp apples are a cross of the Enterprise and Honeycrisp apples
- Color: red skin, white flesh
- Firm and juicy
- Similar in taste to Honeycrisp, but they are sweeter
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Best Apriums
Velvet Collection Apriums from Kingsburg Orchards in Kingsburg, CA. Sourced from Walmart and Costco in Southern California.
- Color: violet skin, cream colored flesh
- Melts in your mouth
- It is a mix between a plum and apricot
- There are a few different cultivars that make up the Velvet Collection
Best Carrots
Rainbow Carrots from Lakeside Organic Gardens in Watsonville, CA. Sourced from Clark’s Nutrition & Natural Foods Market in Loma Linda, CA.
- Colors: mixes of orange, yellow, white, red and purple
- Totally different taste compared to the traditional orange carrots
- Best enjoyed roasted/steamed in the oven
- Kid approved! My kids would eat these cooked as if they were candy!
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Best Cauliflower
Cauliflower Bites with Sea Salt from Rhythm Superfoods in Austin, TX. Sourced from Costco in Southern California and Georgia.
- Packaged cauliflower that has been what I would describe as air fried (although I have not been able to replicate it in my air fryer!)
- Ingredients: organic cauliflower, organic high oleic sunflower and/or safflower oil, sea salt, organic maltodextrin
- After the cooking process, they have more of a yellow-brown color, compared to the white fresh version
- Best bang for your buck is to buy these at Costco
Best Citrus
Tango Mandarins from Galpin Family Farms in Reedley, CA. Sourced from the Hollywood and Pasadena Farmers Markets.
- Size: The size of any other mandarin you could find (e.g., Cuties, Halos, etc.)
- They are mainly seedless, but you might find a few seeds here and there
- Easy to peel
- Best tasting mandarins I have had to date
Best Kiwis
Golden Kiwis from Zesprifruit, which is based out of New Zealand but has growers in multiple countries. Sourced from Costco, Walmart and Ralph’s in Southern California and Costco in Georgia.
- Color: golden/yellow flesh, brown skin (not fuzzy/hairy)
- Texture: the same as a green kiwi
- Flavor: very different from a green kiwi, to me it has more of a lime kick to it
- These kiwis are exclusive to the Zesprifruit company
Best Mangoes
Ataulfo (Honey) Mangoes from Freska Produce, which is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, but the mangoes are grown in Mexico. Sourced from Costco in Southern California.
- A totally different texture, compared to all of the other common mangoes on the market. The common fibrous part of the mango does not exist in these mangoes.
- Individualized packaging at Costco, which dramatically improves the ripe quality compared to the individualized mangoes sold elsewhere. (The excess use of plastic is a discussion for another day!)
- These are bigger than the ones I have found distributed by another company in Georgia.
Best Melons
Sugar Kiss Melons by Dulcinea, which is headquarted in Los Angeles, CA. Sourced from Gelson’s in Southern California and Publix in Georgia.
- They look just like a cantaloupe, but they are so sweet and so good!
- There is more netting on the exterior than with a traditional cantaloupe. They also distinguish them by selling them individually in netting.
- I tried these both as whole fruit that I cut at home and fresh-cut from the store, and both were fantastic on a repeat basis.
Best Peaches
Rich Magic Peaches from HMC Farms in Kingsburg, CA. Sourced from a visit to their facility!
- These were the sweetest peaches I have had in years!
- Both of my kids ate them whole with that sweet sugar dripping down their chin!
- They gave me an entire large box, and by using my ripening and refrigeration method, not one of the peaches went bad before eating them.
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Best Strawberries
Strawberries from Saechao Strawberry Farm in Ukiah, California. Sourced from their fruit stand.
- These strawberries are so good! I had multiple people tell me about the Gaviota strawberries in Southern California, but those were too sweet when I tried them. These strawberries were the perfect mix of what a strawberry should taste like.
- Between the three of us, my kids and I ate an entire box of strawberries in two days.
- These strawberries can be found at a small stand off the main highway (101) in Northern California, between Hopland and Ukiah.
If you haven’t tried any of these yet, I highly encourage you to do so! And, if there’s something really fantastic that I missed or didn’t get to try this year, please send me your recommendations to see if they make the list for next year!
Sorry to contradict you, but the best mangoes I have ever tasted are the ones from Wong Farms. All imported mangoes must be boiled or irradiated; either process erodes the mangoes flavor and texture.
As Wong Farms is in California, they are not required to process their mangoes.
I did get the opportunity to try an assortment of their mangoes during a visit to their farm this year, and they were great! I think if I had had more of a repeat exposure to familiarize myself with the new flavors more, they could have made the list. The mangoes that made this list were in my kitchen the entire time they were available last year!