What items should one get at Aldi?

[HawkAttackDial911]

Probably horse. And not like a young, healthy horse.

As a young lad remember going to a horse sale with my grandfather. In the back was a large stall for all the horses a "glue farm buyer" had bought. It was full of old and meek horses nobody wanted, probably the horses used in Aldi's meat. Then there was this whitish-yellow stallion pony just going to town on as many of those horses as he could. And right then and there, that's how I decided I was going out.

 

[Nole Lou]

The thing with Aldi is trying the private label versions of their stuff and finding out which ones you like as much as the brand name. Among all their chips, cookies, cereals, etc, they have things that taste virtually just as good as the name brand (or better), at a fraction of the cost. Just off the top of my head, my family goes hard on their version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Life Cereal, fudge stripe cookies, triscuits, wheat thins, and cheeze its.

I know there are other things that they've tried once and we've never gotten again. Not every single item is up to snuff. But the thing is, when you find out what you like, it's like easily $1-2 less than the name brands each. If you've got a family and you're buying four boxes of cereal, several boxes of cookies, several bags of chips, etc...it actually adds up enough. When we were in the heydey of all our kids at home and high school age, we'd load up a couple times a month on a whole bunch of that that stuff and save real money.

Now that I'm down to one kid left at home, the lesser volume means the savings are usually not worth it to make a big separate trip regularly. Saving $1 on two boxes of cereal vs five boxes just isn't as motivating for an extra visit. However, there are a few things I still get there to load up on because I either like them the most or the savings is just so much that it's worth it. Here are my go to items I go there special to get:

Cheese spread (port wine, etc)
Specialty cheeses like scorpion pepper gouda etc
Spicy dry salami
Knockoff Laughing Cow pepper jack
Nuts (almonds and mixed nuts)
Chewing gum
Knockoff Blue Moon beer
Knockoff ICE flavored carbonated water

All stuff you can save multiple dollars per item, and buy a bunch at a time.

I'll also go there for chuck roast...in my opinion they've got the best chuck roast besides Costco for some reason. Their wings are also as good as supermarket wings, but they're not usually much cheaper, I'll get wings there if I'm not liking the selection at the grocery store for whatever reason. I'm ambivalent on the rest of their meat.

Vegetables seem to be excellently priced as well, but not as big a selection as the supermarket.

Like I said, there are things here or there across all their lines that aren't quite up to quality, but you just have to try them out to see. I remember for a fact their frozen french fries were terrible.

I'm a big fan, even if we don't shop there as much as we used to.

 

[dandh]

A buddy of mine raves about their sourdough bread.

Yes, it`s pretty good. As is their grass-fed butter and some canned goods. Produce is spotty, as fruit is never ripe enough, so I normally limit it to bananas and some fresh vegetables. Processed lunch meat like sliced turkey is ok, but I avoid the rest of the meat section. Occasionally they have some very high end stuff at decent prices, but those are special buys and not regular items.

And a special tip...they have generic girl scout cookies that are identical to several GS favorites, but far cheaper.

 

[NoleATL]

spatchcock

Huh?

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

 

[Tenacious E]

Huh?

 

[IACub]

As a young lad remember going to a horse sale with my grandfather. In the back was a large stall for all the horses a "glue farm buyer" had bought. It was full of old and meek horses nobody wanted, probably the horses used in Aldi's meat. Then there was this whitish-yellow stallion pony just going to town on as many of those horses as he could. And right then and there, that's how I decided I was going out.

So you want to go out banging old ladies? Or did you mean you wanted to be the glue horse?

 

[FAUlty Gator]

We have a relatively new Aldi. I've been in it a couple of times because they have reasonably priced whole chickens that I spatchcock, and sometimes other places are out of them. I found their lack of selection as to other items annoying, as well as not having handbaskets. People love it though, apparently. So what do you get there that is better or a much better buy than you could otherwise get at Hy-Vee, Fareway, Sam's/Costco, etc?

Their big skin on salmon flank has always been good and a reasonable price.

 

[tarheelbybirth]

Aldi sources most of their meat regionally so if you're not getting good stuff...it's your local farmers. They have no butcher dept so their overhead is near zero. The selection is very limited as well so you go there for what you can get. I'd wager most of the folks claiming otherwise wouldn't be able to ID an Aldi cut from the same cut bought at their chain grocery.

FTR, the real deals on meat are the Wednesday specials but you have to be there early.

 

[ConvenientParking]

Close haha. They have a Guatemalan beer called Monterrey which is Corona knock off for $6/sixer and a similar Beck's knock off. They don't have liquor (at least not in Iowa) so I rarely bought booze there when I was still drinking but the beers I tried were pretty good. Better than the Trader Joe's beers at the same price. If I discovered them in college (when beer still had enough alcohol to do the job), I would have been obnoxious about buying those Monterreys.