6 Aldi Spices We Always Buy & 3 To Avoid

Aldi makes stocking up on spice cabinet staples a no-brainer. Most of the chain's Stonemill brand spices and seasonings retail for under three dollars a bottle, which is a total bargain for specialty mixes like everything bagel seasoning and organic smoked paprika. The familiar favorites are on shelves too, meaning that things like onion powder, garlic salt, and crushed oregano leaves should count among the best foods to buy at Aldi when your budget is trim. That makes putting together your family's favorite dishes even easier — you can take advantage of Aldi's exceptional prices for every item on your recipe card.

Certain items in the Aldi spice aisle offer more of an advantage in the kitchen than others. I wanted to be sure of which bottles were essentials and which I could easily do without, so I collected up a variety of the spices I use most from the Aldi collection and tossed in a few familiar items to see which were must-haves and which I wouldn't buy again. It may come down to a matter of taste, but if the chain's aiming for the middle ground to capture the majority of consumer dollars, there should be at least some easily recognized winners and losers on the shelves.

For savory seasonings, I made a simple roasted vegetable blend and used one selection per batch. For the sweeter spices — cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice — I added them to coffee with a little sweetener and milk rather than baking something, to keep the flavors more concentrated. Here's how it all shook out.

Stonemill lemon pepper salt-free seasoning was quite a surprising discovery: A spice blend that actually doesn't feel like it's missing anything. This isn't just blowing smoke, either. I salt pretty much everything, as much as I can get away with without making other people wonder if my taste buds have gone dead. So to find a seasoning mix that entertains my salt-loving palate without depending on actual salt to get the job done? That's a culinary miracle in my world. I added a generous sprinkling to a mix of peppers, potatoes, and portobello mushrooms and was elated to find that the combination of lemon and spices kept my taste buds busy enough to not miss the salt.

Having said that, I'm not averse to adding just a pinch of salt to this combination to give it a little more complexity than what it already has. But anyone who avoids salt for either health reasons, or because their taste doesn't tend toward the salty side of the spectrum, will be jazzed by how exciting a sodium-free shake-on can be.

How does something with jalapeño as a featured ingredient turn out to be so underwhelming? It's one of the bigger mysteries of life, but at least it clears up the question of whether or not it's a worthy purchase. In two words, it's not. Stonemill Jalapeño Everything Bagel Seasoning turns out to be lacking in fire, which makes for great wordplay but leaves you wanting at the dinner table.

It's not like there aren't plenty of components to get the party started. In addition to dehydrated jalapeño pepper, you get poppy seeds, sesame seeds, roasted garlic, toasted onion, and sea salt. Shaken all together like this, it feels like the flavors work against one another, dulling the overall sensation into something that just tastes garlicky. Garlic flavor isn't a bad thing, especially in a seasoning that includes pieces of the bulb as part of the formula. But if you can't taste the other elements — especially the jalapeño featured in the name — why even bother?

At just around $2, the price and possibilities of this seductive blend might make your mouth water when you spy it among the other spices. Do your best to deny the impulse to pick up a bottle.

Of course, having Italian seasoning at the ready when you're making homemade sauce is a must. For cooks who would rather not forage for all the different herbs and seasonings required, Aldi provides an Italian seasoning blend, premixed for ease of use while making sure the balance is dialed in. There's no guessing or questioning if you've put too much parsley and not enough oregano into your homemade combination — the food scientists at Stonemill have taken care of that for you.

This earthy blend of oregano, parsley, marjoram, savory, thyme, and rosemary (you get a lot of different herbs for your money) is pleasantly piquant without being overbearing. I added it to a mix of potatoes, portobello mushrooms, and sweet peppers roasted with a little bit of olive oil and came out with my new favorite pasta topping.

In a single jar, the essentials of Italian flavoring all show up to the table in a single shake-on — no need for me to haul out five individual herbs and spices to get the job done. Anything that makes tapping into old-world pleasure this easy is a blue ribbon winner in my cookbook. I'll even use this on top of jarred pasta sauce to double up on the flavor factor.

How different can the cinnamon used by one company be from the cinnamon used by other companies? When it comes to Aldi and its Stonemill ground cinnamon, not very different at all. The biggest distinction is how powerfully the flavor comes through. Even if the contents of different brands' bottles come from the same ingredients, there's always a possibility that a store's cinnamon fails to light a spark.

Not Aldi, though. You know you have premium cinnamon in the bottle when the aroma wafts into the air when you peel back the seal. Stonemill delivered the warm perfume that's both earthy and sweet at the same time, which told me this cinnamon and I were going to get along just fine. And speaking of fine, it was a soft powder that dissolved easily when I stirred it into a cup of black tea. Sometimes cinnamon is a little coarser and tends to resist sinking into the water. This spice incorporated into the water smoothly enough to become part of the beverage, rather than simply floating around on top.

Savory recipes like cinnamon chicken and roasted squash will welcome Aldi cinnamon just as readily as sweet creations like cinnamon rolls and spiced hot chocolate. It may just inspire you to find some easy but delicious ways to add cinnamon to dishes you haven't even thought of yet.

You can tell just by looking through the bottle that this blend has everything but the bagel all shaken together. It's like cupcake sprinkles for your savory fare, adding visual punch and promising a fun mix of earthy flavors. I only wish it could have lived up to that promise, especially since everything bagels are one of the best flavors in the bread world. I suspect homemade bagels might reject the Stonemill pink Himalayan salt version as much as I did.

As much as I wanted to be into this eclectic mashup, there just wasn't enough flavor in the combination to get my taste buds excited about. The texture is fantastic, but they don't call it "seasoning" because it's fun to chew on. It needs to have a garlic blast or an onion zap to get things really rolling. Unfortunately, it has nothing of the kind.

The best way to use this bottle is to incorporate a little garlic powder into the existing spices. And if you have to do that, can this really be called "everything" seasoning? I don't think so.

You had to know pumpkin pie spice was going to be on this list. It's one of the most overused space blends in the grocery store, especially when holiday season calls for a mix of seasonings you can get in a single purchase. And since Aldi prices Stonemill pumpkin pie spice at just over $2, there's no reason not to pick up a bottle or two if you're running low.

The flavor of pumpkin spice comes from four spices in particular: Cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. They're here in full force, delivering bold, warming flavors with a balance that seems slightly different to others I've tried. In Stonemill's version, cinnamon and clove stand in the foreground while ginger and nutmeg lend support from the background. I made my own pumpkin spice latte with vanilla coffee and a little brown sugar, and it was equal to any coffee house creation; that's not a brag on my barista skills, but a testament to how well composed this Aldi spice blend is.

This is a bottle that will be a permanent member of my seasonal seasoning collection, though the uses obviously extend far beyond just coffee flavoring. From adding a kick to overnight oats to turning pumpkin purée into an all-out dessert fest, this little shaker will get you ready whenever pumpkin spice season comes back around.

For anyone who may not know, cumin is the signature spice in taco seasoning, as well as an essential taste in Mediterranean dishes like hummus. On its own, it's a zesty, earthy power player that can easily overwhelm your creation if you're too heavy-handed. If you happen to be a fan of the exciting warmth that cumin provides, though, having a standalone bottle lets you augment any pre-made recipe or store-bought item that may need the volume turned up a little.

For this occasion, I used cumin all by itself in my roasted veggie mix, though ordinarily I'd blend it with garlic, onion powder, and paprika for my trademark roasting combo. All by itself, Stonemill ground cumin from Aldi became a bit of a show off, which is a great sign that you can pull back on the complicated spice mixology and let this savory superstar do the heavy lifting. And if you do choose to incorporate it into your usual blend, like I will? I suspect it will play nicely with everything else in the dish.

If you're in the market for cumin and you have a dollar or so to spend, Aldi has you covered. You'll never need packaged taco seasoning again.

Similar to Lowry's or Mrs. Dash, Stonemill original salt free seasoning tries to make food palatable without appealing to your taste for salt. The idea is to fill the bottle with an inventive variety of other flavorings, enough to keep your tongue occupied without pining for a sprinkle from the salt shaker. It's a bit like a magician pulling the tablecloth off the table without breaking the dishes: It only works when it works. And in this case, it does not.

After trying the lemon pepper salt free seasoning, I foolishly assumed that all variations would have the same perky spirit. But the only things I tasted here were celery seed and cayenne pepper, which is sort of strange, considering the ingredients label says there's mustard seed and garlic and all sorts of other great flavorings in the recipe. I gave it a second try after the first unimpressive attempt, but it turned out to be just as bland on repeat tastings.

Instead of just skipping salt, I'll be skipping this salt-free mélange. I can do better on my own.

If there's a single seasoning that can do wonders all on its own, Simply Organic smoked paprika is the one. I've used this magic dust to flavor everything from popcorn to rice and beans, and never once has it been a disappointment. The complexity offered by smoked paprika bests the regular sweet paprika, producing dimensions that don't require anything extra. I've even tried using liquid smoke with sweet paprika to capture the spirit when I run out. It's been a failure in every instance.

Believe me when I say I was stoked to pick up Aldi smoked paprika, a sensation only other cooking nerds may identify with. I was in no way disappointed by what came out of the bottle, either. It had a more sophisticated fragrance than other smoked paprikas that I've tried, with lighter floral notes mingling with the smoke and pepper. It made me think that this would be the perfect accent for homemade ketchup. The taste is also more subtle than what I'm used to in smoked paprika, though it's just as satisfying. I'm looking forward to using this as a popcorn shake on — a sentence which may have never been written by a human before.

If you're wondering what smoked paprika is and why you should use it, start by picking up a bottle from Aldi. You'll be off and running.

To get a solid idea of what Aldi spices offer, I perused the selections to see what the chain keeps in stock. It's a trim section, with just the essentials and a few snazzy specialties on hand, but the essentials are adequately covered. I picked out spices I'm already familiar with and use on a regular basis, such as cinnamon, cumin, and Italian seasoning. This gave me a point of comparison for the other spices included here. To fill in the gaps, I went after items that aren't usually on my shopping list, like everything bagel blends and salt-free seasoning mixes. This allowed me to sample novel options that had the potential to become regular purchases.

Sampling each of the savory seasonings involved creating a simple roasted vegetable dish of portobello mushrooms, tomatoes, and potatoes. I gave each seasoning its own mini-batch to keep the flavors separated. To gauge the spices that can be mixed into sweeter recipes, I stirred them into coffee and tea, which is something I do regularly in my home barista practice.