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Can't get your hands on Trader Joe's cauliflower rice? Try these options

People are still freaking out about cauliflower rice, but the bagged options are growing. And, is Trader Joe's rationing cauliflower rice?
/ Source: TODAY

When we first spotted Trader Joe's riced cauliflower a while back, we knew it was going to be big — a TODAY Food editor even witnessed two shoppers fighting over a bag.

Fast-forward a year or so, and the product is still flying off shelves — so much so that some stores are still reportedly loosely enforcing two-bag limits per customer — but Trader Joe's is no longer the only place to get the hot product, either.

Fresh cauliflower rice at Trader Joe's
Cauliflower rice is available at Trader Joe's in the produce aisle as well as the frozen. Tracy Saelinger/TODAY

Riced cauliflower — made by pulsing cauliflower in a food processor until it has the texture of rice — has caught on big-time in recent years as a low-carb rice substitute.

Multiple Reddit threads out there are dedicated to the popular Trader Joe's product—one even says that a local Trader Joe's employee reported that the riced cauliflower is now the third best selling item in the store.

A staffer at a Trader Joe's in New Jersey told TODAY Food that the two-bag limit "had been lifted," though there's now a two-box limit on the newer frozen cauliflower pizza crust. (Officially, Trader Joe's does not allow limits on purchases, though customers in the New York City area are used to seeing max-purchase signs — one Reddit commenter wrote that until limits on the product were made, it sold out by 10 a.m. each day.)

Trader Joe's frozen cauliflower rice
Bags of the frozen riced cauliflower can stay in your freezer for months on end, which tempts people to stock up on them by the armful.Tracy Saelinger/TODAY

It's so popular, the rice industry is even getting more than a little nervous about it, with allusions that it may start challenging producers' ability to use the word "rice" on packaging.

Originally, if you wanted to cook with cauliflower rice, you had to make your own, using a box grater or food processor, but once it took off with the Paleo and clean-eating crowds, manufacturers started selling bagged, pre-prepped versions of it, which, at $2 to $3 a bag, are less labor-intensive and often more cost-effective than making your own.

Don't freak out if you don't live near a Trader Joe's, though: It is no longer the only place you can get bagged cauliflower rice.

Green Giant has a whole line of riced veggies, including a "riced cauliflower medley" in addition to a riced cauliflower-and-broccoli combo, a riced cauliflower-and-sweet potato combo, and plain-old riced cauliflower.

Whole Foods also has its own 365 brand of riced cauliflower, and some Costco store carry the Farm Day Organic line of cauliflower "crumbles."

So no need to buy a spare deep freezer for veggie hoarding: Just keep an eye open in any freezer aisle. But if you see those pizza crusts, snap up an extra one of those.