When it comes to seasonal products, Trader Joe’s favors the “throw a whole pot of spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” method of product development. ALDI—the older, wiser, and more cautious of the adopted grocery-chain siblings—takes the exact opposite approach.
Rather than release a line of fifty gazillion Thanksgiving specialty items each year, ALDI offers a laser-targeted selection of seasonal inventory at super low prices for the budget-minded Thanksgiving host. You won’t find pre-made butternut squash gratin or turkey and stuffing en croute (and, perhaps, thank God for that) but you will find every ingredient you need to make those things, with budget to spare.
Strongly Recommended: Produce, Raw Ingredients, and Baking Supplies
If nothing else, you should buy your Thanksgiving produce at ALDI. A ten-pound bag of russet potatoes costs just $1.69—something my store sells year-round—but if you find russets too basic, ALDI also carries sweet potatoes, Yukon golds, red potatoes, and even little bags of assorted fingerlings for similarly low prices. Carrots, celery, onions, assorted gourds, and fresh herbs are all dirt-cheap too. If you like, you can even buy your turkey there: Butterballs cost $1.19 a pound, and a fancy organic bird will set you back $2.89 per pound. But my favorite score is fresh cranberries for ninety-nine cents a pound—even Trader Joe’s usually charges twice, if not three times, that amount.
ALDI is also a great place to stock up on basic baking necessities. Cream, eggs, butter, sugar, and flour are always cheap, but this time of year they bring out the good stuff. Canned pumpkin and pecans are more affordable here than anywhere else, and if you’re into pre-made pie fillings, I spotted at least four varieties to choose from.
The only downside to buying all your Thanksgiving dinner ingredients at ALDI is selection, which varies from store to store and therefore may not encompass all of your needs. However, I think it’s the perfect first stop; you can always supplement as needed with items from other, spendier stores.
Recommended (if Applicable): Snacks and Wine
If your family is all about the pre-dinner graze, ALDI’s got you covered. Pick up a selection of fancy cheeses, then cruise the seasonal aisles for chutneys, jams, fruit butters, and specialty crackers to construct the cheese plate of your dreams. Alternatively, if your gathering is more of a crudités-and-dip crowd, grab some raw veggies, sour cream, and powdered ranch or French onion dip mix. Since cheese and snack selections vary wildly I can’t make specific recommendations, but whatever your store stocks is sure to be wonderful and affordable.
Depending on your Thanksgiving Day stress levels, nursing a glass of wine or five while cooking could be just the ticket; I know it is for me. Pennsylvania has bogus liquor laws, so I can’t waltz into ALDI and buy wine, but if you can, please do. I’m working on a full review of several bottles I bought in DC last month, and preliminary results suggest that ALDI wine—particularly the Winking Owl boxed white blend ($10.89 for 3 liters)—is hella drinkable. And really, isn’t a high drinkability-to-price ratio the number one criterion for Thanksgiving wine?
Meh: Cookware
Last-minute, “oh shit, I need a roasting pan?!” cookware purchases can be a huge Thanksgiving money-sink. If there are some gaps in your collection and you’re on a budget, ALDI sells some stuff that’s worth checking out. I bought three items from the Crofton brand: a set of two fancy-looking ceramic casserole dishes ($12.99), a silicone pastry brush ($1.19), and a three-tiered oven rack expander ($7.99).
The baking dishes and pastry brush are more or less what I wanted—photogenic dishwasher-safe bakeware and a tool to distribute egg washes that isn’t my finger, respectively. Sadly, I have bad news about the oven rack, which is that it’s pointless. It only fit in my oven if I adjusted one rack to the very bottom and removed the second one entirely, so any vertical space I gained was immediately canceled out by the horizontal space I lost. The width of the shelves also leaves something to be desired, namely, enough space for a standard 9” wide dish to scoot all the way back. If your oven is taller than mine, you might have better luck, but I don’t recommend it.
Tread Carefully: Prepared Food
With the exception of canned cranberry sauce—which I couldn’t find!—pre-made or instant Thanksgiving food is always a crapshoot. My boyfriend and I are mild-to-moderate trash monsters and love bagged stuffing, so we tested some ALDI offerings in the name of informed journalism. Here’s what we tried: Chef’s Cupboard brand bagged stuffings in herb and cornbread flavors ($1.99 per 14-ounce bag), Chef’s Cupboard French fried onions ($1.89 per 6-ounce can), Stonemill brand powdered turkey gravy mix ($0.39 per packet), Simply Nature brand free-range, low-sodium organic chicken broth ($1.49 per 32-ounce box), and a Village Bakery brand pecan pie ($4.99); I skipped the pre-made pumpkin, because even I consider such to be a waste of money.
I enjoyed the stuffing, which was comforting, familiar, and pleasantly salty. The simple instructions were obviously written by someone who loves butter, because they called for two tablespoons per cup of stuffing mix. (hell yeah), plus some onions and celery. I cooked the crap out of the veg to avoid any unwanted crunch, stirred in the stuffing and the recommended amount of chicken broth, and baked at 400ºF for about 20 minutes to crisp it up on top. We inhaled both varieties, but I preferred the cornbread; the bagged stuffing connoisseur I’ve chosen to spend my life with preferred the herb, and he wants you to know that Pepperidge Farms stuffing is still his favorite. Honestly, with more vegetables—I’m thinking caramelized onions, fennel, and mushrooms—and homemade stock, this stuff would be downright delicious.
The powdered gravy was literally just salty lube for the stuffing, and the pie was sweet but bland, with a spongy crust that coated our mouths with Crisco film—in other words, exactly what I expected from powdered gravy and mass-produced pecan pie. What I didn’t expect was two standout items that represented the very best and the very worst of their kind I’ve ever tasted.
Let’s have some good news first: the Chef’s Cupboard French fried onions are, hand to God, better than French’s. They’re more onion-y and crispier than the original, for about half the price. I put these on top of the cornbread stuffing, and I’d do it again. I’ve hidden the remainder of the can from my boyfriend so we still have some next week.
Now for the bad news. Canned stock always sucks compared to homemade, but Simply Nature free-range, organic, low sodium chicken broth is truly godawful. I bought it to use in the stuffing and was puzzled by what came out of the spout—the color and viscosity suggested leftover pasta water, not chicken broth. I tasted a spoonful out of curiosity, and I really wish I hadn’t. It was as if a homeopath had been left in charge of making chicken broth that day; I could hardly taste anything, and what I did taste was unpleasant, like unsalted low-grade bouillon. Hardest of passes.
If your yearly shopping ritual is incomplete without festive decorations and pumpkin-spice stunt foods of wildly inconsistent quality, look elsewhere; Lord knows Trader Joe’s has you well-covered on both fronts. For the rest of us, though, ALDI is truly where it’s at. Walking into ALDI a week before Thanksgiving felt exactly like walking into ALDI on any other day, making it—to me, at least—the perfect Thanksgiving shopping experience.