5 Groceries I ONLY Buy at Aldi

Whenever I meet someone new, I like to ask them to name their favorite grocery store. I feel like you can learn a lot about someone based on their answer! (Side note: I’m fun to bring to parties! Bring me to parties!) My favorite? Aldi! Which you could have probably guessed if you’ve read any of my stories for Kitchn. I love the prices, the quality, the weekly surprises that come in the form of Aldi Finds, and the no-frills, all-business presentation.

I do still end up shopping at other grocery stores, because I can’t always reliably count on Aldi to have all the things on my list (like certain herbs, for example). I mostly go to Aldi to poke around and see what’s new. Also, there are a few things that I will only ever buy at Aldi. Nowhere else. What’s on that list? Let’s take a look!

My fellow Kitchn editors turned me onto the Pink Lady Apple flavor of Health-Ade Kombucha and now I have to have a few bottles in my fridge at all times. (We love it so much around here, it’s made our list of Kitchn Essentials two years in a row!) My other grocery store sells them for $3.59 per bottle, while Aldi is able to offer them for $2.95. I’ll take that 64-cent savings any day of the week. I should note that, while Aldi is much smaller than regular grocery stores, my location still always carries two flavors of kombucha from Health-Ade and a few flavors from one or two other brands.

I have gone so far as to say that the Specially Selected German Roasted Coffee is the best $5 you could possibly spend at Aldi. (Technically, it’s $4.99 per bag.) My dinner guests never believe me when I tell them they’re drinking coffee from Aldi — they all think it’s some speciality brand with a giant price tag that I ordered online. I will say that these bags tend to sell out, so I buy them whenever I see them.

A few years ago, I helped coordinate a giant taste test for Kitchn, in which we tried nearly every salad kit in America. There were lots of overall winners, but for me there was one clear standout: the Little Salad Bar Southwest Chopped Salad Kit at Aldi. All these years later, it’s actually the only salad kit I regularly buy. I’ll use it as a quick side salad, turn it into a filling lunch by adding an avocado, or make it a dinner with some chicken or ground beef and taco seasoning. It’s $2.49 and it’s cheesy, crunchy, and always fresh.

I first came across this frozen bag of breaded chicken breasts when the internet started buzzing about a copycat Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, which you could make using Aldi ingredients. This chicken is the star of the show and it glows so brightly that it also has a dedicated Facebook group. I always keep RBC (short for Red Bag Chicken!) in my freezer and I use these flavorful, crispy chicken breasts for salads, sandwiches, wraps, and even a quick chicken Parm situation. What I like about these, aside from the price, is that I’ve yet to encounter a single “bouncy” bite. (You know what I’m talking about.)

Read more: The Frozen Aldi Ingredient That’s So Good, It Has Its Own Facebook Group

The chocolate at Aldi is a Thing — specifically, the private-label brand of Moser Roth, which has won countless awards. These bars, which are made up of five smaller, individually wrapped bars, come in a few varieties (milk, dark sea salt, mint, milk truffle crunch, etc.) and are just $1.99 each! You can’t go wrong, but definitely try the 85 percent cocoa option if you’re making s’mores. Did I mention the price? Again, just $1.99 per bar!

Do you have anything that you only buy at Aldi? Tell us in the comments below!