What to Buy at Aldi: My 30 Frugal Favorites

Wonder what to buy at Aldi to save money on your grocery bill? Here are my 30 favorite things to buy at Aldi to help me keep a low grocery budget.

I’m a huge Aldi fan and am constantly telling people about how they can save so much money on groceries by shopping there!  I mean seriously…you can easily save 25% off what you’d pay at a regular grocery store!

Today I’m finally getting around to sharing with you my favorite items to buy at Aldi.  I’ve had quite a few of you wonder what I regularly buy there, especially when you find out that we have a $225/mo. grocery budget.

Well, here’s my list of the best things to buy at Aldi! The truth is though, that almost everything that Aldi sells is great quality and will beat the price of what you’d pay anywhere else.  But of course, we all have favorites, right?  So that’s what I’m sharing with you.

And if you aren’t already an Aldi shopper, hopefully, this will convince you to give it a try and save big!  🙂

Related: Aldi Meal Plan: 7 Dinners for Under $50 for a Family of Five 

What to Buy at Aldi: My Favorites

1.  Spices
You aren’t going to find every spice or herb that you need at Aldi, but they do carry pretty much all the most common ones.  And you can’t beat the price!  So much cheaper than most brands!

2.  Mayonnaise
I used to be a mayo brand snob and would only buy Kraft.  But the Aldi mayonnaise tastes so similar that I’ve switched to exclusively using it!

3.  Ketchup and Mustard
I love Aldi’s organic ketchup!  It doesn’t contain any high fructose corn syrup like most ketchup brands and has an excellent flavor.  I always grab mustard at Aldi too!

Check out my Cheeseburger Casserole– it’s one of our favorite recipes that uses both ketchup and mustard!

4.  Ranch Dressing
We eat a lot of homemade Mexican Salad Dressing around here, but the children still love using Ranch sometimes and I also have a few recipes that call for Ranch dressing as well, so we still buy a decent amount of Aldi Ranch dressing.

5.  Salsa
We love Newman’s Own salsa, but when I can’t get a good deal on it, we use Aldi’s brand.  It’s quite tasty and the price is great!

Favorite recipes that use salsa: Creamy Crockpot Mexican Chicken, 5 Minute Refried Bean Dip and Salsa Ranch Chicken Wraps.

6.  Corn & Tortilla Chips
In my opinion, Aldi’s corn chips taste just as good as any name brand…and of course, they’re half the price too, which makes them taste even better!  😉

I also like to get tortilla chips at Aldi.  They have both rounds and restaurant style.

7.  Potato Chips
We’re big fans of kettle cooked potato chips and the Aldi brand ones are so good!  And of course, you can’t beat that price!

8.  Crackers
Aldi’s Saltines and Graham Crackers are just as good as their more expensive name brand counterparts!  In fact, I think the Saltines taste better than any other brand that I’ve had.

Related kitchen hack:  My favorite mess-free way to crush crackers to make graham cracker crumbs!

More of the best things to get at Aldi

9.  Heavy Whipping Cream
You seriously can’t beat the price of this!  I love using it to make Homemade Whipped Cream and thanks to Aldi’s pricing, it makes it about the same price or cheaper than Cool Whip (and of course way healthier!).

10.  Sour Cream
We’re big sour cream fans and use a lot of it!  I personally think the taste of Aldi sour cream is better than several popular name brands.  And of course, the price is amazing too!

11.  Cream Cheese
I never buy any other brand of cream cheese because Aldi’s is just that good and better priced than anywhere else!  I even use it to make my Decadent Frosted Chocolate Chip Cheesecake and it turns out great.

12.  Cottage Cheese
Again, great quality and way lower priced than anywhere else!  And it’s so incredibly delicious in my 5 Minute Mandarin Orange Jello Salad.

13.  Butter
I’m a butter lover.  Yum!  And Aldi almost always has the best price on butter.

The price varies a bit, and often it’s closer to $3, but when it drops to $2.29 like it is now, I stock up and freeze a bunch to hopefully hold me through till their next good price drop.

14.  Milk
I buy milk at Aldi as much as possible, not just because of the great low price but also because their milk is free of artificial growth hormones, something I try to avoid.

They also have a great price on almond milk if you prefer that.

Best things to buy at Aldi

15.  Shredded Parmesan Cheese
You seriously can’t beat the price of this cheese!  And the quality has always been great.

16.  Eggs
I’m sure a lot of you are gasping at that egg price and thinking that it isn’t a good price at all.  But that’s the reality of living in Pennsylvania.

There’s a state minimum for how cheap eggs and milk can be and this really is the best price around!  Barring a rare amazing sale at one of our local grocery stores, Aldi is the cheapest place that I’ve found to buy eggs.

17.  Canola Oil
Occasionally I can get the big gallon jugs of oil on an incredible sale at ShopRite for a better price than Aldi, but 95% of the time, this is the oil I buy.

I also recently heard that their coconut oil is really good but I haven’t needed to buy more since then.  I want to give it a try soon though!

18.  Real Vanilla
I only buy real vanilla and so far, Aldi has been the cheapest place to find it.

I’ve found that with real vanilla I can often use just half the amount of vanilla called for and still get the same amount of flavor as what I did when I used vanilla extract.  This isn’t always true, but as a general rule, it seems to work.

19.  Chocolate Chips
My go-to spot for milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips.  And they even recently started carrying the mini semi-sweet chips too!

One of my favorite chocolate chip recipes are these chewy Blonde Brownies.  So good!  They’re like a chocolate cookie but in bar form.

20. Sugar, Brown Sugar, Confectioner’s Sugar
My main store for all of my sugar except raw, which I can get cheaper at a bulk food store close to where my in-law’s live.  (I stock up when we go!) 

Sometimes store brand sugar and brown sugar can be a bit hard and sort of chunky, but I’ve never had issues with the Aldi brand.

21. Bean (canned and dry)
I love Aldi beans!  I mostly buy the canned ones since it’s actually cheaper to buy them that way than to cook up my own from the dry beans.

But I’ve used their dry beans some too (mostly to make homemade refried beans) and they’ve always been great.

22.  Jasmine Rice
Aldi’s price on Jasmine Rice is great!  And it’s so handy being able to get it in a large bag that reseals easily.

23.  Canned Salmon
Aldi is a great place to get inexpensive seafood!  Their prices beat anywhere else every time.  We love their canned salmon and I occasionally buy canned tuna or frozen tilapia there a well.

24.  Tortillas
I used to have problems with Aldi brand tortillas being a little tough and hard to “wrap” things.  But more recently they seem to be softer again like they were when I first started shopping at Aldi.

25.  Hamburger/Hot Dog Rolls
Again, cheaper than you’ll find anywhere else and they’re always soft and delicious!

26.  Frozen Veggies
I can’t believe this, but I only recently thought to give Aldi’s frozen produce a try.  And I’ve been so impressed!

It’s cheaper than what I can typically find other brands on sale (Aldi’s bags are 16 oz, most other brands are smaller than that) and the taste and quality are better than other brands too, in my opinion.

And I tend to be picky about frozen veggies, probably because I have frozen a lot of homegrown produce myself in the past, including green beans, and am used to good quality frozen veggies.

27.  Fresh Produce
Now I’ll admit, sometimes the quality of the fresh produce at some Aldi locations isn’t that great.  But some of the stores that I’ve shopped at have consistently had good quality fruits and veggies.  I don’t know what makes the difference.

But you can’t really beat the Aldi prices- especially if you watch their sales!  I get the majority of my fresh produce there.

28.  Salad Mix
I often buy heads of delicious leaf lettuce at ShopRite for $1.99/lb. but sometimes I want something different or the quality of lettuce at ShopRite is not that great that week and then I’ll buy Aldi’s salad mix.

I love it and it stays fresh longer than some other brands that I’ve tried in the past.  And for about half the price of anywhere else?  Well, you can’t really go wrong!

29.  Trash Bags
We’re cheapies when it comes to trash bags.  Our theory is that it’s going to get thrown out anyway, so why spend a lot of money on it?  We’ve had great experiences with Aldi trash bags though, so maybe that’s why I don’t mind off-brand bags.

30.  Tissues
We go through so many tissues!  Perhaps it has something to do with having 4 kids in the house?

I sometimes can find the Kleenex or Puffs brands cheaper with a sale and coupon somewhere else, but Aldi is where I get our main supply.  As far as quality, they’re definitely comparable to the regular Kleenex or Puffs.

What are your favorite things to buy at Aldi?  Let me know in the comments!

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