4 Best Aldi Prepared Foods To Buy And 4 To Avoid

It feels like life is busier than ever. Thanks to rising costs for everything from food to utilities to health insurance, you're potentially working more than ever to pay for the necessities in your life. That's where you might turn to Aldi foods that cost $1 or less, or convenience foods that are already prepped to help you take a load off — which in turn allows you to quickly heat something up, nourish yourself and your family, without spending that extra (non-existent) time in the kitchen. To help you out, I selected a handful of prepared refrigerated foods I found at Aldi to test out whether they are worth purchasing — and those that aren't.

I'm recommending items that have a good balance of flavors, a pleasant texture, provide what was advertised, and, if I think it's something people would generally like. If it suffered from any major issues, it was deemed a skip. By the end of this list, you'll have at least a few Aldi items that you may want to add to your grocery list when you need a simple meal or snack. I ate everything as is, but you can always jazz things up to make them seem more homemade.

I've never seen these Park Street Deli quiches, and they piqued my interest. I bought the cheddar and broccoli one, but I also saw a ham and Swiss cheese version. These are 23 ounces apiece and have approachable flavors that appeal to consumers. I frequently make quiches at home and often use pre-made pie crust. So, while this particular dish is somewhat easy to achieve at home, it's still nice to have a pre-made product to serve the family. 

I like the thinness and scalloped edge of the Aldi version. It's still rich and feels a little more elevated than other egg-based dishes, like casseroles. I made it in the microwave according to the directions, but I would suggest following the oven baking instructions for a crispier crust, which would further enhance the overall experience. Even so, it was still eggy, buttery, and flavorful after microwaving. This would be fun to purchase for a party or if you're having family over for brunch.

When you don't want the mess of dealing with raw chicken, you might have thought about grabbing the Park Street Deli Artichoke Stuffed Chicken Breast. You'll get 16 ounces of product, including boneless, skinless chicken breast stuffed with artichoke, spinach, mozzarella, Parmesan, caramelized onions, and other seasonings and ingredients. Although it's fully cooked, the package suggests removing the chicken from the container, slicing it, then heating it in the microwave for 3 minutes. Although this is easy enough, it's the most involved food of anything on this list. 

Not only that, but as you can see, this chicken is not stuffed at all. Every morsel of the artichoke "stuffing" remains outside the chicken, resulting in a goo-like condiment. This turned out to be more of a chicken with sauce rather than a stuffed chicken, which would have been an interesting product. The flavor and texture were fine, if not slightly bland, but it's not at all what it claims to be. So I would just skip next time. This meat fared poorly in a previous Tasting Table ranking of Aldi prepared meats, too, landing 10th place out of 11 options. It had a similar appearance there, so this isn't a one-time issue.

Let me begin by expressing that this is not the best chicken salad I have had in my lifetime, but I like it for its interesting flavor and convenience. Cranberry almond seems fall-adjacent to me, but I was willing to give this Aldi find a try when I saw it in store not during the autumn season. The Park Street Deli Cranberry Almond Chicken Salad comes in a 16-ounce container filled to the brim with chicken salad, including ingredients like mayonnaise, mustard seed, celery, almonds, sugar, vinegar, and, of course, chicken and sweetened dried cranberries. 

It is a very creamy, mayo-heavy chicken salad with everything chopped into small pieces. This makes it extremely easy to spread on a crusty slice of bread. The cranberries add a mostly sweet, mildly tart, and slightly chewy texture to the fragile shredded chicken. I quite like the pieces of celery, which add a welcome crisp texture and slightly refreshing aspect to the rich bite, even though they're small. I wouldn't get this often, but now that I've tried it, I'd be happy to get it again for certain circumstances: for a quick meal, while entertaining a friend or two, etc. If your Aldi has the Park Street Deli Classic Chicken Salad, that's a worthy contender too. It came in second place in a ranking of eight store-bought chicken salads, just after Whole Foods.

What's with the spinach and artichoke items from Aldi? I've purchased some iteration of Aldi stuffed mushrooms before, because they're convenient enough to cook as your veggie side for a meal. Simply bake it in the oven, and you're ready to go. The mushrooms are supposed to pair the iconic duo of spinach and artichoke with cheese to create a richly filled fungi; however, it simply tastes like a pile of cheese. 

There might be microscopic pieces of spinach (you'll see them in the photo if you really squint your eyes and focus), but they're so small they're literally the size of an ant. As you can imagine, this size doesn't impart (if any) much flavor. These taste good (it's cheese and mushrooms, after all), and I like how easy they are to pop in the oven, but they don't provide the advertised notes. For that reason, I deem this an avoidable item. Buying cheese-stuffed mushrooms isn't as interesting as spinach and artichoke ones.

You can find the bulk of Aldi's and Mama Cozzi's pizza pies in the freezer aisle, but there is a small selection in the refrigerated section. My Aldi had slim pickings compared to the options I saw online, so I grabbed the only one it had in stock: Mama Cozzi's Pizza Kitchen Pepperoni Mozzarella Flatbread. This creation features both sliced and diced pepperoni bits, mozzarella cheese, and sauce. Typically, a flatbread pizza is somewhat thick, sometimes with a puffed-up outer edge that serves as the crust. But, sometimes, they're ultra-thin, and this Aldi item lands in that camp. 

Even after baking in the oven, it still had a slightly floppy appearance. I'm not sure if it would get thick if you leave it in for several more minutes, but I was going for the convenience factor and did it exactly as directed for around 11 minutes (the directions suggest 9 to 11 minutes, actually). There's a hint of acidity with the tomato, a wonderfully dairy creaminess from the mozzarella pearls and shredded cheese, and a nice fattiness of pepperoni. If you plated it in front of me, I wouldn't know it came from Aldi; I might think it was another elevated grocery store brand pizza. I'd happily get this again and serve it to others, so I think many customers could enjoy this, too.

One criterion I was looking for was that the dish had to be good enough to eat on its own. You're free to enhance anything however you want at home, but that's not what I was scrutinizing for this specific article, and with that in mind, this Park Street Deli dish really lacks depth and underdelivers. First of all, it's primarily noodles, even though it's advertised as a meal kit. This is not a meal. This is noodles with sauce and beef bits. 

The photo shows nice, large chunks of meat, but that's not what you get — the biggest I saw was around the size of a dime, and there's not much meat in the entire thing either. The sauce is flavorful with a punch of umami and a touch of heat to round it out, so it's the best part of the dish. Overall, there's not much of a stir fry or beef element. The description on the Aldi website calls it a "hearty meal," and while you might be physically satiated from the sheer amount of noodles, it would not be satisfying as is. Therefore, I wouldn't get this Stir Fry Noodles with Mongolian-Style Beef Meal Kit again, and it simply can't compare to an easy homemade slow cooker version.

I love a burnt end, so I figured it might be worth purchasing them pre-made from Aldi. This Park Street Deli product comes with 16 ounces of fully cooked, seasoned, and seared pork morsels, slathered in smoky barbecue sauce. I was a little skeptical about these, but they turned out amazing. The pork's texture is succulent and easy to bite into. I didn't find any chewy tendon bits at all. Plus, you save the effort of cooking your own meat, which can take hours depending on the meat/cut that you get. 

I just spent six hours cooking brisket, so it's fresh on my mind, but homemade burnt pork ends can take over four hours. The sauce is sweet, slightly tangy, and smoky, so it doesn't feel one-note. There's an appropriate amount of sauce for the beef tips, so you can break up your piece and mop it up in more sauce. I've always been curious about this product, and now that I've tried it, I would gladly get it again, serve it to my family, and recommend it to you, of course. This was my favorite item that I tried.

I'll be honest — I was not expecting much from these prepped egg rolls. Typically, I like to get them from a local Chinese restaurant, in whatever flavor or version they may have. The pork egg rolls were sold out at my Aldi (I must've come on a busy day), so I picked up the chicken ones instead. It comes with 13.5 ounces of food made with white meat chicken, cabbage, carrot, and onion, all tucked nicely in the egg roll wrapper. I heated them in the microwave per the instructions, and waited a couple of minutes before taking a bite. 

I took an initial nibble, and it was still piping hot and tasted like dry chicken and not much else. The worst part is the chewy, not crisp or firm, egg roll wrapper. Normally, this is one of the best parts, offering a welcome textural contrast, but you don't get that in this Aldi dish, particularly if you microwave it. Tip: microwaving pre-cooked egg rolls is not recommend by experts, either. This can potentially be rectified if you cook them in the oven, but microwaving shouldn't even be an option if it gives such a lackluster product.

I defined prepared food as a dish that was already made and located in the refrigerated section. It should require little to no preparation — perhaps just a quick chop, brief bake, or nuke in the oven, if that. I picked up everything from my nearest Aldi and prepped them as directed (if any preparation was needed). I judged items based on the depth of flavor, consistency, whether they delivered what they said they would, and whether they're something I think the average consumer would like for a quick meal or side dish. 

Given that these are all prepared foods, they are meant to be low-effort. Therefore, for convenience, I microwaved everything that had microwave instructions and baked the two items that required baking (flatbread pizza and mushrooms). I was looking for items that had great flavor and texture, but still delivered on accessibility. Items that I deemed skip-worthy struggled with flavor, strange textures, or had other general problems.