Cured meats are an age-old tradition that has shaped many cuisines, especially throughout Europe. Salami, an Italian salt-cured and fermented sausage, is one of the most popular cured meats worldwide for its vibrant, robust flavor and satisfyingly firm, meaty chew. You can find many different brands of salami at most grocery stores, and we sampled nine salami brands to find the ones worth buying. In the end, we determined Trader Joe’s Salame di Parma mild salami was the brand you should leave on store shelves.
It was our least favorite salami according to ranking criteria like texture, flavor, and thickness. The Salame di Parma was a thinner salami with slices you could easily incorporate into a sandwich. And while it was by no means inedible, this salami wasn’t memorable either. Perhaps being labeled as “mild salami” sealed its fate as a mediocre-tasting option. It had a salty and meaty flavor with a good amount of fatty richness, but there was no complexity beyond that. Salami is known for including aromatic seasonings like garlic, black pepper, fennel, and even bell peppers.
While we picked up on these nuanced flavors with many of our top salami choices, we couldn’t distinguish anything more than meat and salt with Trader Joe’s Salame di Parma. Again, the thin, pliable slices will work if you’re piling it into a sandwich with other flavorful meats, cheeses, and garnishes like this Italian sub recipe. But we wouldn’t recommend enjoying it on its own or on a charcuterie board.
Better Salami options at Trader Joe’s and beyond
Trader Joe’s Salame di Parma will get the job done on a sandwich, but it does the bare minimum flavor-wise. We sampled and ranked other Trader Joe’s deli meats and found other salami offerings that we liked much better. For example, we ranked its Applewood Smoked Salami as one of our favorite types of salami for its complex trifecta of savory, salty, and smoky flavors. Even if you don’t want a Trader Joe’s brand, you don’t have to leave the store to find one of our favorite salami brands, Columbus Calabrese Salame. In fact, Columbus Calabrese Salame came in behind Columbus Peppered Salame on our ranking of Trader Joe’s deli meats because it had a unique peppery coating with a slight crunch that contrasted its meaty, chewy, fatty meat perfectly.
A great salami should be more than just a sandwich meat. It’s a popular addition to any charcuterie board to pair with different types of cheese, from a smoky Gouda to a nutty manchego or even a sharp cheddar. Add them to salads with balls of buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, pepperoncini, and kalamata olives. They’d also be a great protein-filled upgrade for this Greek tortellini salad or this veggie antipasti Italian pasta salad. Fry the salami to crisp it up before adding it to a fluffy egg frittata. Slices of salami would also be a flavorful swap for pepperoni on pizza.
