3 Best And 3 Worst Frozen Burgers To Buy At Aldi

Summer is here, and it's time to grill those burgers with your closest friends and family. You can just grab some hamburgers, buns, and any toppings at your local Aldi, a fan-favorite store with over 2,500 locations throughout the U.S. – you might have one closer to you than you might think. The food retailer has plenty of kitchen staples and foods that fly off the shelves, but not every item can be a hit. We already know that the grocery store has a range of best and worst food options to pick from, and its selection of burgers is no different. Some are delicious and juicy, while others are extremely salty and spongy.

The chain has quite a few burger options to allow customers to find something that suits their needs — there are varying ingredients, fat content, sizes, and weights. I wanted to test as many as I could get my hands on to distinguish the good from the bad. I judged them based on taste, texture, and ingredients, and followed each burger's cooking instructions to get the best results. Let's find out which ones you should add to your shopping list and which ones you should just cross off.

This Cattlemen's Ranch burger package comes with 2 pounds of fully loaded burgers — six patties, each weighing ⅓ pound, which is the case for all the Cattlemen's Ranch burgers that I will mention later. This is just black Angus ground beef, which is as simple as simple gets. You'll get six burgers, allowing you to grill one or two burgers as needed (or the whole pack). These cook up nice and thick, but they are small in diameter (they shrank quite a bit after cooking), making it a great choice for a hamburger bun or even a butter brioche one, where you don't want your burger to spill out over the edge.

The flavor is beefy without anything to distract from it. I added a touch of salt and pepper, and it was delicious. I also made a cheeseburger, and this offered a salty, creamy addition, perfect for backyard barbecues or kids. The texture of these Unseasoned Black Angus Beef Burger Patties is a vast improvement over the other Cattlemen's Ranch options I will talk about later. They're firm and not at all spongy; you can likely make them more juicy by cooking for a shorter period of time. These frozen patties make a tasty beef burger, allowing you to customize it to your liking.

The Cattlemen's Ranch Texas BBQ burger ingredients list is long and packed with things like cheddar cheese, onions, roasted poblano peppers, and even smoke flavor. You can smell the smoky, savory quality right before you're about to take a bite. When you sink your teeth in, there's an overly salty taste from the cheese and Worcestershire sauce that has you reaching for a glass of water.

I don't pick up the poblano, and how could I when there is a laundry list of ingredients? I like the idea of having an all-in-one prepared burger, but this flavor combination isn't something I would seek out. There's too much going on, and the interior texture of the burger is spongy and wet, not to be confused with juicy. The texture (and that saltiness) lingers on your tongue as you take a bite. While the flavor and texture are certainly memorable, it's not in a good way. Out of all the hamburgers I tried, these were the most offensive. Avoid them and opt for something you can jazz up yourself.

If you're looking for a unique meat blend, then you can't go wrong with the Durham Ranch Ground Bison and Wagyu Beef Patties. This comes with two half-pound patties made of bison and Wagyu beef. Because they were so thick and stuck together, I thawed them in the fridge overnight, which helps avoid a common burger mistake of simply letting it thaw at room temperature.

Bison is the first ingredient, so it's hard to say what the ratio of bison to Wagyu beef is. The package describes the beef as being "at least 50% full-blooded Wagyu," which means one parent is 100% Wagyu (or some other equivalent, like both parents being 50% Wagyu). But again, we don't know how much Wagyu is actually in the burger. Wagyu meat tends to be buttery, fatty, and tender. On the other hand, one thing to know about bison is that it's a leaner meat – surprisingly leaner than fish or chicken. This meat mixture creates an intriguing flavor profile and texture.

The beautifully round, thick patties have a chewy quality because of the bison, but the Wagyu rounds it out with a touch of fatty richness. I added a sprinkle of salt to further enhance the flavor; otherwise, there's nothing besides the two meats. The bison and beef patty can be upgraded further with a sprinkle of pepper or melted cheese for a rich mouthfeel and salty profile. This is a great option when you want to switch up your basic all-beef BBQ.

Bacon and cheddar are a marvelous combination that you'll see in anything from breakfast sandwiches to soups, so we know it works. But it isn't a hit in the black Angus Cattlemen's Ranch Bacon Cheddar Beef Burger Patties. It's not that the flavors are disagreeable; it just isn't executed well.

Let's begin with the flavor. The first thing I noticed about the patty is its saltiness. The cheddar cheese and cream offer a creaminess that permeates each bite, and there's a light smokiness from the bacon's smoke flavoring. But the bacon is nearly invisible. After opening the beef patty, I found one small piece, about the same size as one individual bacon bit. When enjoying a bacon cheddar burger, I want to see, taste, and hear the bacon crunch as I bite into it. This burger doesn't offer any of those sensory experiences.

The texture has a rubbery, squishy quality that's just not something I associate with a good hamburger. You have to gnaw at it to get a piece. This patty missed the mark and left me wanting more flavor and less salt.

If you want a no-fuss, no muss burger, then the All Natural 75/25 ground beef patties are the one for you. These are economical because you get 12 pure beef patties, making it the best of the bunch if you're serving a large family or guests (or if you just want to stock up on burgers for the summer). I followed the instructions, which mentioned adding a little bit of salt and pepper. Because of the fat content, these fried up quite nicely. This is useful because you can cook other food in the leftover fat, such as mushrooms, fries, or even toast your hamburger bun — I cooked the French green beans in it, and it provided added flavor to the veg. 

These were my favorite patties out of everything I tried because they remained juicy and flavorful and didn't overwhelm the senses like some others on this list. Unlike the Cattlemen's Ranch Unseasoned Black Angus Beef Burger Patties, these didn't lose a lot of volume after cooking. The plain, 100% beef patties are a great addition to your freezer for summertime barbecues, because you can enhance them with added seasoning — like cooking them in chopped onions, adding garlic aioli, Swiss cheese, or some other intriguing yet epic burger topping. These are thin but wide in diameter (the widest out of all the burgers I had) and satisfying. If you prefer a leaner version, Aldi also has the 85/15 ground beef patties.

Like the Texas BBQ burgers mentioned above, the Cattlemen's Ranch Swiss Cheese and Mushroom Beef Patties have a lengthy list of ingredients, a stark contrast from some of the other ones that are pure beef. I love a mushroom and Swiss cheese burger, but I prefer to load the ingredients on top of the patty; it allows more of the flavors to come through, as this burger doesn't have much mushroom. After all, how much mushroom can you put inside a burger anyway? The Swiss, however, is evident because you can see it in the burger, giving the patty bursts of creamy flavor.

The oval-shaped patties have a heavily salty flavor, which you can thank the cheese and Worcestershire sauce for. It's got a whiff of umami mushroom flavor, but not enough to call it a Swiss cheese and mushroom burger. Again, this flavored Cattlemen's Ranch burger has a strange and unappealing spongy, rubbery texture. While I prefer the mushroom Swiss element more than the other two flavored options, I am still more inclined to purchase a 100% beef burger from Aldi and then top it with my own cheese and some deeply flavorful, freshly sautéed mushrooms.

As I started researching online, I noticed that my two closest Aldi stores had different hamburger options. If you venture to different Aldi stores in your area, you may be able to locate more than I was able to find. A couple of items were out of stock before I could try them, such as the 85/15 ground beef patties and the Cattlemen's Ranch Smashed Burgers. And then a couple of others were out of stock after I purchased them. If you're seeking out a specific burger, don't give up hope; it seems Aldi restocks them regularly, but you can always ask once you're there.

To establish which burgers to buy and which to avoid, I focused on the flavor, texture, and ingredients of the burger. I favored ones that allowed the beef to shine through and didn't have a bunch of ingredients that diverted the focus from the meat. I preferred a juicy burger over the spongy, rubbery versions that didn't quite feel like a hamburger. I cooked each according to the package's instructions; I made one plain burger and then one with cheese to taste them in different contexts.