The Best Canned Food at Dollar Tree

What Dollar Tree lacks in fresh food, it makes up for tenfold in the canned food department. It’s their bread and butter (because they don’t actually have butter) and we’re here to thank them for the bountiful harvest they’ve given us. These are some of the best items I spotted in the Dollar Tree canned food aisle on a recent visit, so you can stock your pantry and stretch your budget.

Chef Boyardee Beefaroni

Last time we went shopping for the best Dollar Tree canned food, we picked up Spaghetti-Os with Meatballs, aka Sporked’s second favorite canned pasta, but this time I spotted their third fave—nothing wrong with the bronze! If it’s been a while since you’ve had Beefaroni, you should give it a shot. It’s beefy and the sauce is sweet in a highly nostalgic way. The team taste tested every canned Chef Boyardee entree they could find, and this was the best of them. Maybe that’s not saying a lot, but hey, for a buck twenty-five, you could do worse!

Read the full ranking of the best canned pasta

Hormel Chicken Tamales in Chili Sauce

You can get actual chicken tamales in a can—what a time to be alive! While they won’t be as good as the ones you get from a tamale vendor (or frozen tamales, most likely), they’ll still do just fine in a pinch! The true beauty of Dollar Tree is that you never know what you’ll find when you walk through those (automatic) doors and this Dollar Tree canned food find just proves there’s real wonder to be discovered. Isn’t that beautiful?

Read the full ranking of the best avocado salsa

Pace Medium Nacho Cheese Sauce

This is exactly what I thought of when I first laid eyes on King’s Hawaiian Sweet Pretzel Bites during my last visit to Costco. The exact thing you need to go alongside a honking tub of pretzel bites is a vat of nacho cheese sauce to dip them in! I started daydreaming about sitting my butt in front of the TV while binging a season of Survivor and just going to town on this combo the second I saw cheese sauce in a can at Dollar Tree.

Read our ranking of the best nacho cheese

Brunswick Ranch Tuna Kits

Okay, I know we’re rounding up the best canned food at Dollar Tree, and that makes this one’s a bit of a cheat. Nom, the crackers that come with this tuna salad kit do not come in a can, but the tuna does, so let’s just go with it. It’s got everything you need: a tinned ranch tuna salad, crackers to put it on, and a teensy spoon to get it from point A to point B. You can be Instagram ready straight from Dollar tree!

Read our ranking of the best canned tuna

Mother’s Maid Cherry Pie Filling

While I think cherry pie is more of a summer pie, fall is undoubtedly pie season. Those who favor cherry over apple pie or pumpkin pie still deserve to enjoy the festivities! And thanks to Dollar Tree, they can. While Dollar Tree may not have pie crust or many ingredients to help you create a suitable substitute, they have a banging deal on pie filling. A comparable can at my grocery store is well over two times the price of this can at Dollar Tree. It’s worth grabbing Mother’s Maid while you’re at Dollar Tree and looking for our favorite pie crusts at your local grocery store to go with it.

Read our ranking of the best cherry pie filling

Southgate Beef Stew

It’s starting to get chilly outside, so do you know what else you need from the Dollar Tree canned food aisle? That’s right, a hearty beef stew! As the temps drop, this is a good, rib-sticking meal to have in the pantry. It’ll essentially serve as a molten substance to heat your body up from the inside. Beef stew is perfect for the job! Dollar Tree may not have winter coats that’ll keep you from freezing but you can buy cans of beef stew by the dozen, so I think it evens out.

Read the full ranking of the best canned beef stew

Island Choice Diced Fruit Cocktail

You can do a lot with a can of fruit salad. You can add it to a Jell-O mold. You can mix it with flour and sugar to make a very easy (but very delicious) dessert. Or throw a whole can of fruit cocktail into your kid’s lunch box—okay don’t really do that, but I think you could easily put it in a Stasher or small Tupperware and send ’em with it that way. Stock up on school supplies and fun toys for your kids at Dollar Tree while you get a few cans of diced fruit.

Read the ranking of the best fruit cocktail