The $3.89 ALDI Find I’m Buying All Summer Long

Sometimes, when I have a party, I can’t manage to make all the dishes from scratch, clean the house, and decorate—even if my husband and son are doing their part to help get everything ready.

Prepared foods make entertaining easier, but many don’t taste homemade. Fortunately, I often find solutions to this problem at ALDI, and I recently stumbled upon one such solution that would be the perfect side dish for summer barbecues and potlucks: Smokey BBQ Baked Beans with Bacon.

Why I Love ALDI’s Smokey Baked Beans with Bacon

I found the 16-ounce container of Smokey Baked Beans with Bacon while strolling by the deli section, and purchased it for only $3.89. The bacon-studded beans are smothered in lots of sweet, sweet barbecue sauce. When you open up a package, you get a whiff of smoke, and the aroma and flavor are only enhanced after you warm them up. 

I reheated these beans in the microwave, but if I were to serve them at a party, I would warm them up in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes at 350°F. My husband, who loves baked beans, would have eaten them straight from the serving bowl until I chided him that he needed to share them with the two other people he lives with. 

The beans are tender, dotted with chunks of delicious bacon, and an absolutely perfect summer side. I think they’d go perfectly with burgers, brats, and barbecued meats.  If you have to bring a dish to a picnic or party, you can put them in your own dish, top them with some fresh chives or parsley, and no one would know that they weren’t homemade. 

Now, they’re on the sweeter side of baked beans, but I think that means they’d contrast nicely with other ALDI refrigerated sides, like the Steakhouse Potato Salad or Cole Slaw. Since baked beans are my favorite side with barbecue, I would add them, along with a bagged salad, to Park Street Deli’s Barbecue Pulled Pork, and have dinner done in the time it takes to warm everything up. 

I also think that these beans would be an easy way to add a sweet and smoky dimension to chili. I would just toss the whole container into a crockpot with ground beef, diced onions, tomatoes, and spices. In any case, I envision serving them a lot this summer. 

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