This $4.49 Trader Joe’s Find Is Available for a Limited Time—My Family Will Enjoy It All Summer Long

It might seem like an odd choice for a mother-child outing, but one of my favorite ways to connect with my 12-year-old, Byrd, is by taking a trip to Trader Joe’s.

We meander through each aisle together, tossing things in our cart as we point out the newest products and stock up on all of our go-tos. On a recent trip, we spotted a new product that we knew we’d both love: Trader Joe’s new Burrata Filling, aka stracciatella.

Byrd is a lover of all Italian food—pasta, pesto, focaccia, salami, mozzarella. They can’t get enough. So, when we saw burrata filling in the cheese section at Trader Joe’s, we added two to the cart without even blinking, and I’m here to tell you, we should have bought twice as much. It’s gloriously creamy and mild, ideal for pairing with high-summer produce like tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers.

Burrata, one of Byrd’s favorite foods, is an orb of mozzarella cheese with a soft, rich filling of shreds of fresh mozzarella barely held together with cream. That filling is called stracciatella, and the brilliant folks at Trader Joe’s have packed it up in a container all by itself.

How My Family Eats Trader Joe’s Burrata Filling

You could eat it right out of that container with a spoon and be completely satisfied, but so far, our favorite way to use it has been to toast half of a baguette in olive oil and then slather the stracciatella all over it.

To that, we add cherry tomatoes (just a few more weeks until summer tomatoes are ready, and then it’s GAME ON), a few basil leaves, and a bit of olive oil and flaky salt. The stracciatella’s luxuriously creamy texture and subtly sweet flavor pairs beautifully with the tangy salted tomatoes.

Byrd ate almost an entire baguette this way in a span of about 12 hours. That wasn’t surprising, considering this snack has all the stuff they love, and they’re always hungry. What was surprising was that their six-year-old sister was equally smitten with the cheesy treat. She’s my selective eater, but even she was won over by the stracciatella’s milky, creamy goodness.

Since we knocked out our stash so quickly, we’re planning to make a TJ’s run later this week, since the cheese is only available for a limited time. This trip, we’ll be prepared with plenty of ideas: We’re excited to try the burrata filling as a pizza topping, dolloped on bowls of pasta, and under a pile of broccoli rabe with pine nuts. And yes, we’ll probably just eat some straight from the container, too.