8 Items To Buy From Aldi's Produce Section And 7 To Skip

Even though the produce section at Aldi is small, it can be tough to decide which fruits and veggies are worth buying. I buy my favorite produce from Aldi weekly and prefer fruits and veggies that are fresh, clean, last well in the fridge, appeal to my kids, are easy to cook with, and have great flavor. I also look for reliability — produce that isn't bruised and tastes great every time. It's really disappointing to buy fruit that tastes amazing one week, only to buy it again the next week and discover that it's wilted and bland. Price is usually a secondary concern, but I do love to get a good deal as much as the next person. 

Fortunately, some of Aldi's best items are significantly cheaper than at other grocery stores and taste delicious every time. To offer some guidance to help you decide which items to add to your cart or skip, I made this list of recommendations based on my past purchases and what I think is worth buying.

Prices are as of the date of publication and may vary based on region. 

Aldi's Medjool dates are so tasty and cheap that buying them will justify your entire shopping trip. Of course, Medjool dates are uniquely delicious no matter where you buy them, but I've found the quality, flavor, and texture of the ones at Aldi to be consistently top-notch. I've never found a single hard, dry, or crystallized date in any of the 16-ounce packages I've purchased. Rather, every single date is big, plump, soft, and has just the right amount of chew.

Even better, they last long, so you don't have to worry about them spoiling before you manage to eat the whole package. Aldi sells this product for half of what it's sold for at stores like Kroger and Walmart. 

The peaches at Aldi are so green and never ripen completely, making them produce worth skipping. Aldi only stocks 2-pound bags of this fruit when it is in season.

In my experience, a few days on the counter in a paper bag should help peaches ripen. This didn't happen with the ones I bought at Aldi. They stayed hard until the flesh near the center of the peaches went brown and spoiled. Then the whole fruit turned mushy and inedible. I thought I'd just picked the wrong bag, but it happened to me again the next time I bought peaches. The texture transitioned straight from crunchy to rotten goo. That's unfortunate because, when properly ripe, peaches are some of the sweetest, juiciest fruits. They should not be crunchy and bland like the ones from Aldi.

Reddit users found that these peaches taste pretty bland. However, this is not an issue confined to Aldi, so perhaps your local farmers market, instead of a supermarket, is the best place to find this fruit.

Size, flavor, and quality are three reasons to buy whole carrots from Aldi's produce section. Each carrot in the 2-pound bag has a diameter between an inch and 1½ inches, making them easier to use. When carrots are thicker than this, they are hard to chop and have a larger, woodier center. Conversely, when carrots are thinner, it's harder to peel and chop them for soup or shape them into sticks for snacking. 

I've found Aldi carrots are particularly sweet — perfect for making carrot sticks that my kids love. The carrots I've purchased have lasted well in the fridge, and I've only ever found one spoiled carrot in all the bags I've taken home. 

Finally, Aldi prices this product within cents of competing grocery chains like Kroger and Walmart, so while shoppers don't necessarily save money on this item, they do get excellent quality for a competitive price.

Buying baby-cut carrots from Aldi is a waste of money because they are flavorless, have an off-putting texture, and cost about the same per ounce as whole carrots. I found them bitter and lacking the same sweetness as whole carrots. The lack of taste may be due to the way they are processed; it doesn't make them unsafe to eat, just less flavorful.

Then the texture goes wrong in one of two ways; if they aren't dry with a white outer layer, they're slimy. Redditors have noted the slime as well, causing many to buy the whole carrots instead. Aldi is just one of many grocery stores that has these issues with its baby carrots, which is why I recommend thinking twice before buying baby-cut carrots in general. They may seem like a convenient snack, especially when compared to whole ones that require more prep, but I've found my kids won't eat the baby ones. There's no point in buying something that ends up going bad in my produce drawer because no one wants to eat it.

Blueberries can be a tricky fruit: They are fragile, best in-season, and can vary a lot in flavor. Even so, Aldi does a surprisingly good job at providing consistently plump, sweet ones without too many shriveled or green berries in the pack. The store offers three types: regular, jumbo-sized, and organic. The regular berries, which are the ones I usually put in my cart, come in a pint container and are priced at about a dollar cheaper than stores like Kroger and Walmart. The difference in price is so notable that Redditors have created at least one thread dedicated to the topic.

Blueberries are one of my younger son's favorite snacks, so I was happy to discover that Aldi stocks this fruit year-round. I've noticed that the good quality persists through the winter. In the cold months, Aldi sources this fruit all the way from South America, and yet they withstand the journey and maintain their juiciness and flavor.

Inconsistent ripeness and quality make buying a pineapple from Aldi a risk. When I imagine the ideal flavor, I think of a sweet, slightly vanilla taste offset with acidic tang — which I haven't found at Aldi yet. I've purchased a passably sweet pineapple, as well as one that spoiled before it was ripe enough to eat. There is nothing more disappointing than waiting a week for the pineapple in your fridge to ripen, only to discover that it went straight from green to spoiled.

On the other hand, Aldi sells this fruit at a competitive price that is sometimes lower than other supermarkets. So, if you can manage your disappointment and don't mind risking a couple bucks, buying a pineapple at the discount grocer might be worth it. If you do take the risk, make sure you thoroughly examine the pineapple to pick out the best one. Check the color, scent, and weight. It should look more yellow than green, especially around the base. Avoid fruit that looks brown or feels too soft to the touch. The base should smell sweet and feel heavy in your hands.

If you're at Aldi in the winter, grab a 3-pound bag of mandarin oranges. This grocery store doesn't always have a good enough price to warrant a trip just for this product, but the freshness, flavor, juiciness, and quality of the citrus make it a worthy addition to your cart. My kids love how this fruit bursts in their mouths and tastes candy-sweet. They don't have to worry about spitting out seeds either. I love that my littles can easily peel this fruit without my help. The three of us have gone through a whole bag in just one sitting.

Unfortunately, the quality of mandarin oranges doesn't stay the same year-round, and this fruit is usually tastiest in the winter, during the peak season. High heat in summer can cause damage to fruit while still in the grove, making the peel appear greener and changing the texture and flavor of the sections inside. The flavor also tends to be bitter or sour out of season. Instead of juicy and orange inside, they can have hard, inedible white areas in the wedges where the flesh has dried out. They become more challenging to peel and spoil quicker.

Aldi's snipped green beans are not worth buying because they are often wilted and sometimes have brown spots. The packaging can hide how many spoiled beans there are, but a closer look may reveal mushy beans.

When I first bought this bag of green beans, I ended up spending about ten minutes picking the bad ones out of the bag and cutting off the shriveled ends. I'd much rather buy a product I can run under the faucet and stick in a pot quickly. What's worse, the price isn't low enough to make that extra effort worth it, since you can find this veggie elsewhere for a similar price. If you have your heart set on green beans and you're already at Aldi, try the French green beans instead, like Redditors suggest. They may be marginally more expensive but are much better quality.

Aldi herbs tend to be fresh and clean, requiring little tedious rinsing before use. The price for parsley is quite cheap, while the mint and cilantro are within a few cents of the prices at other supermarkets. Aldi's generally has herbs stocked year-round, while fresh basil may only appear in the summer. Reddit users note that not all stores stock all herbs, but many people on r/aldi are elated that they don't need to visit a second store if their Aldi does carry some in stock.

Pick packages of cilantro and parsley with care, though. They are usually excellent quality, but I have occasionally found some that have been on the shelf for too long and have many yellow leaves. Whenever you see it, the basil is worth picking up. It has lovely, large, green leaves, perfect for preparing a homemade pesto with.

The price of Aldi's onions is similar to other supermarkets, but the quality is sometimes worse. Some of the onions I've purchased from it spoil quickly, while others have many unusable outer layers or a pungent green center. All of these characteristics are hard to detect at the time of purchase because the onions come in 2- or 3-pound bags, rather than loose. 

Other grocery stores sell onions both by the bag and individually. The latter is ideal for smaller households, since you can buy the exact amount you need and check its quality before buying it. However, anyone who does buy this veggie at Aldi will get a better price on white and Vidalia onions than they would at other grocery stores like Walmart and Kroger. 

Aldi's Honeycrisp and Cosmic Crisp apples are some of the tastiest apples you can get your hands on. Honeycrisps have a deliciously sweet and tart flavor, while Cosmic Crisps are even sweeter and have an amazing crunch. They last longer in the fridge, but I don't like my apples cold, so I leave them on the counter and they usually last more than a week. The quality of Aldi's Cosmic Crisps is so good that there's even a Reddit thread dedicated to the fruit. Comments on the thread point to the dependable quality of the apples. 

Both Honeycrisps and Cosmic Crisps come in 2-pound bags. The Honeycrisps are also sold by weight, so you can pick the amount and specific apples you want. The Cosmic Crisps are marginally more expensive than the Honeycrisps. But no matter which of the two apple varieties you purchase, the price will likely be lower than at other chains. At some grocery stores you can also buy these apples in a bag or individually, but the latter is usually more expensive.

The other apple varieties at Aldi just don't taste as good as Cosmic Crisps and Honeycrisps. They have a worse texture, and sometimes less dependable quality.

There are often several other types of apples you can get at Aldi, in addition to the aforementioned picks, including Gala, Pink Lady, McIntosh, Granny Smith, and Red Delicious. While some of these varieties are cheap, like Gala and Red Delicious, the flavor can be blander and the texture grainier. I've also noticed that these varieties lack the same quality control as the Cosmic Crisps; don't be surprised to find a bruised or rotten apple in a 3-pound bag of the other varieties.

Apple slices are a favorite bedtime snack at my house, and I've noticed that when I buy Cosmic Crisps, the apples disappear because my kids love them so much. I have not had nearly as good of luck with other varieties.

Not all grapefruits are created equal, and the ones at Aldi are superior. They are sweet, incredibly juicy, and won't spoil quickly. In fact, there's so much liquid in them that it's easy to make your own juice just by squeezing them in your hand. You will be hard-pressed to find an Aldi grapefruit that has dried out or has an unpleasant bitter or sour taste.

Usually, one of my biggest problems with grapefruit is having to cut it in half, cut around each triangle of fruit, and scoop out the juicy, sweet part. It's usually so much easier to pour a bowl of blueberries or grab a whole apple to bite into. While I still have to make this effort for the grapefruits from Aldi, the flavor has been so reliably good that I feel like it's worth the extra effort.

These grapefruits are also cheaper than at many other grocery stores. They come in 5-pound bags and can sit on your kitchen counter for two weeks without spoiling, so you have plenty of time to eat all of them. They last even longer in the fridge.

Despite having a lower price than many other stores, the bananas at Aldi aren't the best you can buy. They are often too green to eat for the first few days after purchase. In fact, one Reddit thread jokes about the announcing a "proprietary shade of green exclusively for [its] bananas." I've had the same experience as many Redditors; sometimes I buy green bananas, and they don't ripen correctly. They just go straight from hard and green to brown and mushy.

Full disclosure: Even though I prefer to get my bananas from other stores, I often buy them at Aldi anyway simply because I'm already there and because my kids absolutely love strawberry-banana smoothies. Though, on some instances, I have had to throw them out. So if you usually shop at more than one grocery store, pick up your bananas at the one that's not Aldi. If you like to get everything in one place like I do, try to buy the yellowest bananas you can.

Aldi's baby bella mushrooms are high quality, delicious, and sell for a much lower price than at other grocery stores –about a dollar cheaper per 8-ounce pack. Mushrooms should be fresh, be a uniform size, and mostly clean. I've found that the packs of mushrooms at Aldi fulfill those requirements. The baby bellas taste amazing when roasted in the oven for around 20 minutes and  require little prep — just a quick brush with a paper towel and a light spray of olive oil. 

A pack of baby bellas is one of my favorite lunches. It's filling and costs around $2. The only bad thing is that these mushrooms are fragile and spoil quickly, so if you buy them, use them within about five days.

The recommendations in this article were based on several factors: my personal experience shopping at Aldi, input from family about what they like from this grocery store, Reddit posts, and price research from grocery store websites. For the past two years, I've bought my groceries at Aldi every week and have personally tried all of the products listed in this article multiple times.

People on Reddit are quick to point out that the quality of produce at Aldi varies widely from store to store and depends on how efficient workers are at clearing out items that are past their prime. Most people seem to agree that it's important to carefully check produce before putting it in your cart. So even though I recommend an item based on its quality or flavor, you still might want to look it over before buying it to ensure its freshness. Finally, I researched price by looking up similar products sold by other stores, like Walmart and Kroger.