Aldi Survival Guide: How to buy cheap food that's not gross

I’ve spent a fair bit of my life (OK, all of it) being less than wealthy and I’ve heard plenty of people with the same problem complaining about their grocery bills. The obvious solution is to shop somewhere cheaper—in my case, ALDI. I haven’t tabulated exactly how much cheaper it is shopping there rather than other stores but suffice to say it’s a lot.

The objection that usually follows that advice is, “But isn’t their food awful?”

Well, some is. Yes. But most isn’t.

Lucky for you I’ve had years of experience subjecting myself to their various foods and have now compiled a list of which foods are and are not worth buying. Feel free to add your own experiences in the comments section; I’ll expand the list as new data arrive.

Please note that this is list is made completely without regard to nutrition. Plenty of the foods on here are completely unhealthy; I’m just going with what’s edible and what’s disgusting. Deciding what sort of nutrition plan to follow is a different subject entirely.

Yes:

(a short list of the best stuff—don’t assume something’s bad because it’s not listed here)

Crackers:

The Wheat Thins knockoffs are freaking amazing. I could eat a billion of them.

Dairy:
Milk, eggs, yoghurt, cheese… All of it is great quality-wise, much is offered in reduced calorie versions and it’s much cheaper than other places.

Irish cream:
I doubt I could tell the difference between this and Bailey’s. Buy it and save a few bucks.

Jalapeños (sliced, pickled in jar):
I'm really picky about my jalapeños. These meet my rigorous standards. The same applies to the sliced dill pickles (NOT the spears though... see below).

Meat:
Unless mentioned elsewhere it’s good. Lean versions available as well. The turkey breakfast sausage is particularly lovely.

Nuts:
Good variety and quality. Get the big giant bucket of mixed nuts. It’s all actual nuts and no peanuts for the same price other places charge even though theirs is 50% peanuts (peanuts are way cheaper than almonds, cashews, etc.).

Pizzas (frozen, personal-size):
I used to love the full-size ones but had one after eating Jack’s for a while and decided they were crap (see below). Your mileage may vary. The personal pan pizzas, however, are freaking delicious.

Pizzas (refrigerated/”take-and-bake”):
Sodium-heavy and horribly unhealthy in general, but they taste great and you’re already fat so it’s not like you care anyway.

Produce:
Unless listed elsewhere on the ‘Maybe’ or ‘NO’ lists, go for it. Tomatoes and oranges may take a day to ripen. Most items keep well as long as they’re refrigerated.

Everything else not specifically listed on the ‘Maybe’ and ‘NO’ lists:
Probably good—I’m not going to list every single item in the store. There may be a couple of items I just haven’t tried to find out they suck, but odds are everything else is fine.

Maybe:

Avocados and Mangoes:
The quality’s fine, but they take five days (seriously—that’s not an exaggeration) to ripen after you buy them. If you know you’ll need an avocado five days from now, go for it.

Energy Drinks:
All energy drinks taste vile but these are below average. They don’t have as much kick as name brands such as Rockstar either. However, they’re about half the price of the name brands so they’ll do.

Kale:
Big ol’ bag of it for two bucks, but check the expiration date. It’s probably tomorrow.

Onions/Potatoes:
My only gripe here is that you can’t buy these individually; you have to get a whole bag. The bags are cheap enough that even if you throw the last few out you’ve probably come out ahead, but I still don’t like finding stanky rotten potatoes in my pantry.

Spices/Seasonings:
These suffer from serious clumping issues but are HALF the price of the fancypants brands so I'm willing to deal with it.

Tenderloin (pork or turkey, various flavours):
Delicious fresh out of the oven, but they undergo some sort of horrible metamorphosis when refrigerated as leftovers and will smell like a foot when reheated. Eat it all immediately after first cooking or forget it.

Turkey (ground, frozen in rolls):
Texture is a little wonky. “Grainy” is probably the best descriptor. Fine in chili, spaghetti, etc. but don’t make burgers out of it. Get the refrigerated stuff for that.

NO!

Bananas:
When you leave the store, they’ll be green. When you get home they’ll be brown. You have exactly one hour to eat them before they go bad. Good luck.

Beef Stew (canned):
Tastes as bad as it looks.

Beer:
They’ve got multiple varieties meant to taste like Heineken or Corona or whatever—which they do to some degree—but they all taste disturbingly similar. Every variety of beer has an ‘ALDI-ness’ to it that makes it taste like nothing more than a slightly different shade of the others, so don’t waste time and money trying more than one. You may like it—it’s decent beer—but it falls in the ‘NO’ category because far better name brand beers can be had for the same price.

Berries (black/straw/blue/rasp):
Usually sour. Will go bad within a day if they aren’t already bad when you buy them.

Chicken (flavoured hot wings, frozen):
All fat, no meat. Note that this only applies to the boxed kind that comes pre-prepared. The frozen, uncooked kind in the bag is fine.

Coffee:
Blech. No. Not even the “gourmet” stuff.

Pickles (spears):
Why can't anyone make good pickle spears? Mt. Olive brand spears are great; every other brand seems to be crap. Same applies to ALDI. Like every other brand, the sliced pickles are good but the spears taste funky and are texturally unpleasant. Maybe I'm just too pickly... er... picky.

Pizzas (frozen, full-size):
It should be noted thatI used to eat these all the time and loved them. Maybe I just got sick of them. At any rate, avoid the bacon cheeseburger ones. The sauce is actually ketchup, which sounds OK in theory but tastes like garbage.