The best Aldi products are delicious, affordable, and you can only get them at Aldi. That’s part of what’s cool about the increasingly ubiquitous discount grocer: Almost all of what they carry is proprietary, so everything costs less and every time you go you’re sure to find something fun you just wouldn’t find anywhere else. We tried a lot of Aldi products this year. We taste tested all of their cheeses, breakfast cereals, pasta sauces, chocolates, and ice creams. Suffice it to say, we’ve gotten used to keeping a quarter in our pockets in case we need to make an Aldi run. It wasn’t easy to narrow it down to the two best Aldi products we tried this year, but we did come up with two items we’ve continued talking about and buying for our own kitchens. These are the two best Aldi products we tasted in 2023.
Runner-Up
Sundae Shoppe White Chocolate Caramel Ultimate Cones
When we taste tested sundae cones, we were blown away by these Sundae Shoppe caramel-white chocolate cones. The caramel is gooey and plentiful, but our favorite part is that the white chocolate ice cream actually tastes like white chocolate rather than glorified vanilla ice cream. This is such a decadent frozen treat. If you find these at your local Aldi, buy a box asap.
I personally taste tested 16 jars of Aldi pasta sauce, and even though I suffered from a bit of pasta sauce fatigue, I lost my mind for this red pesto. It’s not like any pesto you’ve had before. Rather than pine nuts and basil, this is made with sundried tomatoes and cashews (plus a couple of hard, nutty cheeses). What you get is a sauce that’s bright and sweet and packed with umami. Yes, you can mix this into a big bowl of spaghetti, but it will also make a great sandwich spread. This is a permanent fixture in my fridge door now.
Gwynedd Stuart, Sporked’s managing editor, is an L.A.-based writer and editor who spends way, way too much time at the grocery store. She’s never met an Old El Paso taco or mozzarella stick she didn’t like.
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!