The $2 Aldi Grocery I’m Stocking in My Pantry All Fall Long

At the core of Aldi’s budget-saving strategy is the commitment to shelve mostly store-brand (or private-label) products, leaving minimal space for big name brands. I’ve tasted hundreds of Aldi’s products over the years and can vouch for their quality. One item that is just as good as, if not better than, the national brands is the Specially Selected Kalamata Pitted Olives. 

Aldi’s Specially Selected brand of food products rarely lets me down. Some of the staples that I keep stocked at all times are the extra virgin olive oil, Greek honey vanilla yogurt, premium marinara sauce, and Kalamata olives. The Specially Selected Kalamata Pitted Olives are packed in brine, so the 12.35-ounce jar contains six ounces of olives. That’s plenty of olives for snacking and for adding to recipes. 

These Kalamata olives are pitted, which makes dinner time just a little bit easier. I don’t have to meticulously remove the pits from every olive before adding them to my dish, so I feel more free to add them whenever a meal needs a burst of savory, salty flavor. At Aldi, a single jar costs just $1.99, while the same size one costs double at other grocery stores near me in the Tampa, Florida, area.

Snacking on olives right out of the jar is an easy way to satisfy the desire for a salty bite, but they’re also an essential part of many delicious meals. You’ll see Kalamata olives listed among the ingredients in many Greek recipes, like Greek salad (or Horiatiki) and sheet pan Greek chicken. 

It’s essential to pasta Puttanesca, where the olives are combined with anchovies and capers to add savory, briny flavor to the sauce. Pasta salads seem incomplete at summer barbecues and on fall game days without a handful of Kalamata olives stirred right in. They even find a place on homemade pizzas, when paired with cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and red onion.

Find it in stores: Specially Selected Kalamata Olives, $1.99 for 12.35 ounces

What Aldi pantry staples are you stocking up on this fall? Tell us about it in the comments below.