Aldi Foods That Taste Better Than Your Homemade Favorites

You know you can count on Aldi for keeping your shopping money in check, but you may not realize that many items can also help keep your kitchen work to a minimum. By stocking store-specific products that Aldi die-hards deem better than homemade, this chain gives you a leg up when mealtime rolls around and you just can't muster the oomph required to get your chef's hat on. Why not shop for replacements that can easily stand in for your favorite dishes instead? It's among the unique features Aldi offers, and it's become a known phenomenon among shoppers. You'll have time to relax while still serving your friends and family top-notch fare that you can easily pass off as your own. Just make sure you stash the packaging before anyone enters the kitchen.

So which Aldi items do shoppers find to be quality enough to surpass the homemade versions? It's a rich banquet of possibilities, everything from soup to cake to pizza, all designed to maximize your time and money without lowering your standard for delicious dining. Take a spin through some of the top options for Aldi items that taste better than homemade and prepare to augment your shopping list with some premium picks you'll be happy (and relieved) to have on hand.

Sure, you could go to the trouble of boiling a bag of potatoes to make potato salad for your next neighborhood cookout. You could slice veggies, combine dressing, gather seasonings, and hope you've got the balance just right. Or you could slip over to Aldi and pick up a tub of Steakhouse Potato Salad that's going to top your best effort at whipping up homemade without requiring elbow grease and brow sweat. There's something soothing about knowing you can end up with a side dish that wows your diners (and you, too) with just a trip to the store rather than an afternoon of unnecessary work.

What makes this potato salad such an Aldi find? The fact that it's under $4 per pound is a great starting point. Gathering the ingredients for a batch can run you more than that for the potatoes alone. Aldi's Steakhouse version includes smoke flavor thanks to real bacon, herbs that add freshness, firm potatoes that remove the guesswork from cooking your own, and a sense of restaurant-level creativity. It's best to leave this better-than-homemade specialty to the real experts and give yourself a break.

When soup season sails back around and you're looking for a bowl of something warm and savory to knock off the chill, skip the multi-ingredient stockpot version you're used to cooking up and try Deutsche Kuche German Bean Soup from Aldi instead. This bodacious can captures the spirit of European soup shop coziness and costs far less in funds and labor than even your easiest heritage soup recipe. It's a pantry-filler that's nicely priced at around $3 per can, and it delivers a bowl of comfort that hits the spot.

Shoppers who shared the word on the Aldi Aisle of Shame Facebook page pass recommendations for this can and other soups by Deutsche Kuche in the comments section. Some diners recommend adding smoked ham to ramp up the flavor even more and enjoying it with cornbread for a more well-rounded soup experience. If making your own cornbread isn't on the menu either, you could grab a grab a loaf of sourdough, toast it up, and settle in for two Aldi items that best your homemade versions, especially in the area of easy availability.

I would ditch my homemade version for any variant of this tasty mash. I'm usually pretty suspicious of store-bought hummus, mostly because making it at home is so quick and easy. Why wouldn't I just grab chickpeas, garlic, olive oil, tahini, and salt and make my own whenever I'm ready to dip? Considering the list of ingredients I just rattled off, it's likely I wouldn't have something on hand when my hummus hunger hits. But with Park Street Deli Hummus chilling in the fridge, everything is already in place. It's smooth, it's tasty, and best of all, it's ready to go as soon as I snap off the lid. Homemade takes a can opener, a food processor, and a spatula; by the time I figure out where all of those are, my appetite for hummus is pretty much squelched.

One of the greatest joys in knowing Park Street Deli makes higher-than-homemade hummus is the range of flavors offered. I've tried classic, garlic, and roasted red pepper, and there's no way I could replicate these savory sensations. But there are also vegan dessert hummus flavors like carrot cake and chocolate cherry cheesecake that add sweet dimensions to chickpeas that would take a more skilled chef to even dream up, let alone conjure in a home kitchen. It makes me happy to know Aldi has its food creatives coming up with these tasty dips so I don't have to. Not that I would anyway, but still.

I tried a Bake Shop Triple Chocolate Crème Cake recently without wild expectations for a premium dessert moment, but wow, was my mind ever blown by just a single bite. How does a non-refrigerated chocolate cake sitting in the Aldi baked goods section deliver such powerful flavor, moist sponge, and rich glaze? More importantly, once you've discovered that such a cake exists and doesn't cost more than about $5, why would you ever go to the trouble of whipping up your usual handcrafted sweet treats? Swing by Aldi and grab one of these treasures instead and you'll be all set in a swift minute.

How much better than homemade is this incredible creation? It's like the most moist, gooiest, most chocolatey cake you could ever hope to be capable of, but without having to question whether your oven will heat properly or if you'll accidentally take your bake out before the center is perfectly done. Aldi bakers have it all taken care of. All you have to do is plate it, slice it, and serve it and the world of decadent desserts opens up before you. Is it obvious that I love this cake, even if it violates my plants-only dining pledge? It's my new bargain go-to cake for special occasions for which I'm too busy or lazy to bake. It's also one of Aldi's best baked goods, bar none.

Premade meatballs are a dime — or several dollars, actually — a dozen in the freezer section, but not every bag rises to the occasion or justifies the expense. With Aldi Mild Italian Style Pork Meatballs however, you can trust that the spaghetti they top or the grinders they fill are going to taste like you gave them your home chef touch, thanks to a thoughtful recipe from one of the grocery world's most creative chains and its dedication to store-label superiority. Being a non-meat-eater, these are a must for my family on spaghetti night, when I can be satisfied with pasta and sauce, but the kids need something heartier to fill their bellies.

You can pick up a 1-pound package for under $4, ready for a heat-and-eat moment when you've just zoomed in from the office and don't feel like molding your own pork or beef spheres. They're also gluten-free, which saves specialty eaters the trouble of figuring out how to bind homemade meatballs without using the standard breadcrumbs in the recipe. This also means you can feed a variety of diners while sidestepping the need for creating more than one batch to cater to the dietary needs of everyone at the table. It almost makes home-cooked meatballs seem silly in comparison, doesn't it?

Not only are Aldi Pretzel Bites better than my homemade pretzels, they're also superior to restaurant quality, according to Aldi fans on Facebook. Yes, they're tasty and well-textured. But equally important is that they require no knowledge of how yeast works to make bread rise, no kneading-rolling-snipping to find their bite-size shape, and no dip in a baking soda bath before baking to get ready for their big debut. They provide the kind of soft pretzel sumptuousness that your handcrafted version isn't guaranteed to deliver. Why take a chance like that with your snacking practices?

Another benefit of going Aldi-bought instead of home-baked: These bites come with their own cheese dip, a super score for the busy home cook who doesn't need another task added to their to-do list. Though all it takes to heat them properly are a few quick minutes in a microwave (or a standard oven, if you're into that kind of thing), Aldi shoppers have cooked them up in an air fryer with impressive results. Imagine having a box or two in your freezer waiting for party time or the Sunday game. Making soft pretzel bites from scratch seems kind of silly with options like this on hand.

Fresh, ready-to-go dough (for $1.35) you can use for other bread items? It's a no-brainer for me and others who grapple with the craft of homemade dough. I haven't fully conquered the knead-and-rise method for handcrafted pizza dough yet, despite following several recipes. So finding out Mama Cozzi's Ready to Bake Dough is a sneaky fill-in for fresh dough that doesn't disappoint gives me breathing room. Now I can enjoy homemade pizza (or pretzels, or breadsticks, or garlic knots ... the list goes on) without having to become a dough master — or believing I have become one, only to find out too late that my dough is a no-go.

Reddit is filled with testimony from home bakers who used to make their own dough but discovered Mama Cozzi's prepackaged version, and others who gush about the price point, which hovers around $1 or slightly above. That's quite a deal for dough. Other Redditors comment that they use it multiple times a month and make creations like sausage rolls in addition to traditional pizzas. If there's a high-value homemade pizza secret worth sharing with fellow cooks, it's definitely the notion that Aldi dough can be substituted for your handcrafted version without issue — and without compromising your shopping funds.

You may be able to toss all the elements for salsa into a blender and blitz up a brightly-flavored dip for your pool party or taco night fixings, but it can be a lengthy list of vegetables, flavorings, and seasonings that need to be gathered. The process gets even more complicated if you have to roast the tomatoes or peppers, or pre-chop the onions so they don't leave huge, inedible chunks in the finished mix. Why not scoop up a carton of fresh salsa from Park Street Deli and get straight to the good times instead?

This is genuinely the best non-restaurant salsa I've ever had. One taste made me question why I'd ever go back to a homemade salsa recipe again when this wonderful stuff exists. Like jarred salsa, it's available in a range of flavors and heats, which makes it an even more tempting buy. It's fun and chunky too, showing off all its tasty ingredients for everyone to see. Imagine having an all-Aldi salsa bar with a variety of chips, crackers, and crisps that invite your friends and family to dig in, and all you had to do was remove the lids? Now that's smart food prep.

Not only is even the finest strawberry rhubarb pie recipe a tricky treat to pull off thanks to the delicate balance of sweet and tart involved, it's also a difficult feat to find fresh rhubarb in all parts of the U.S. when you're craving the blend of tastes and textures hiding under the crust. Aldi brand The Village PieMaker fills the gap with a strawberry rhubarb pie that aficionados dub a solid stand-in that gets the job done in better-than-homemade fashion.

One Redditor stated that his wife, a seasoned strawberry rhubarb pie maker, approved of this Aldi purchase — great praise coming from a baker who knows what's what in the world of handcrafted pastries. Another called this "the most amazing pie I've ever tasted" and fessed up to eating two in two days, though with a little help from their daughter — then returned and bought three more! If an Aldi pie can inspire that sort of enthusiastic response, you may never need to get out your rolling pin again.

A classic pie crust is little more than flour, butter, sugar, and salt, and yet there are so many ways for the formula to go askew. Even when it goes right, it ends up feeling like a load of toil for a pastry that's just meant to hold the good stuff in place while you eat it. Thank goodness Aldi knows the struggle and stocks Bake House Creations Pie Crusts to give you a better-than-homemade pie base that comes without second-guessing the freshness of your ingredients or your talents as a pastry creator.

These crusts are ready to go out of the package, raring to settle into a pan and be topped with fruit, cream, or even chicken and veggies for a potpie sort-of deal. And if you like slicing your crust into cinnamon twists or making mini-pies or empanadas, you'll have those under control as well. One Facebook user helpfully points out that there are parchment sheets included to make handling even easier. And a skilled baker on Reddit showed off their handiwork with the crust, and the results are bakery-level. So sure, you have to do some home baking to complete your seriously delicious pie recipes themselves. But isn't it comforting to know you can jump right into the fun stuff instead of having to start your crust from scratch? As a pie maker myself, I say firmly and gladly: of course it is.

Aldi shoppers are all too happy to let the internet know how much better than homemade their favorite items are. I researched items that made an impact with these die-hard patrons and chose the ones that seemed to be unequivocal superiors to homemade versions. Some were even considered better than restaurant versions, which was added clout that helped narrow my search and lock in my choices.

Along with the products loved by Redditors and Facebook users, I've had personal experience with several Aldi items that easily top what I'm capable of making. For these choices, I tracked back through my shopping history to isolate the items that I'd rather make an Aldi run for than haul out the ingredients and tools to conjure up in my kitchen. Combining the two collections, I arrived at a roundup that covered a variety of main dishes, sides, snacks, and desserts that make more sense as Aldi purchases than homemade dishes, thanks to thoughtful recipes and attention to detail offered by the producers behind the labels.