Terri Peters
I look forward to Thanksgiving dinner all year long, no matter where it comes from or how it's prepared.
In recent years, I've cooked a full Turkey Day spread using only Ina Garten recipes and saved time in the kitchen by ordering our Thanksgiving meal from chains like Costco and Cracker Barrel.
One thing I've learned: As long as essentials like turkey, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese are on the table, my family is happy.
That's why Aldi's recent announcement about its shopping list for a $40 Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people caught my eye.
My family usually spends well over $100 to feed seven to 10, so I was curious if lowering our costs by more than half would mean sacrificing any of the deliciousness we've come to expect from the holiday meal.
So, a few weekends before Thanksgiving, I headed to my closest Aldi to test the menu (and shopping experience) out for myself.
Here's what it was like to shop for, prep, and cook Aldi's budget-friendly Thanksgiving menu.
I downloaded the 21-item shopping list on my phone and headed to Aldi.
Terri Peters
Aldi's Thanksgiving shopping list is pretty simple with 21 different ingredients, including a whole Jennie-O turkey (14 pounds), evaporated milk, two boxes of shells and cheese, canned pumpkin, premade pie crust, miniature marshmallows, a 10-pound bag of russet potatoes, a 3-pound bag of yellow onions, cranberries, and a few other items.
These ingredients should give shoppers what they need to make turkey, rolls, cranberry sauce, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet-potato casserole, green-bean casserole, stuffing, carrots, and pumpkin pie for 10 people.
According to Aldi, prices on these items will be lowered through December 24, making it easy to shop for a holiday meal through all of the coming fall and winter holidays.
Each item on the list was marked with an easy-to-spot symbol.
Terri Peters
The items weren't placed together in one central spot in the store. Rather, I found the ingredients on the shelves in their usual sections.
It wasn't difficult to find them, though, thanks to the red graphic on each price sign that said, "more savings more feasting."
I was able to find everything on the list, minus one very important item.
Terri Peters
In the Aldi app, turkeys appeared for 77 cents per pound, making a 14-pound turkey about $11. However, we found every item on the list except the bird.
During our trip, a store employee informed us that turkeys were out of stock and that the store get more in the coming weeks.
We also tried ordering the turkey from two other nearby Aldi stores. However, both times our Instacart shopper was unable to find them in stock.
Instead, to complete our meal, we purchased a $20 fresh turkey breast from Publix. A frozen bird would've been cheaper, but our attempts to find an Aldi turkey put us behind schedule, so we didn't have time to thaw it.
At nearly $15 per pound, it was way more expensive than the ones advertised at Aldi.
Still, our other ingredients totaled $28.20 at Aldi, meaning that had the turkey been in stock, it'd have been possible to score the entire list for $40.
For some recipes, I turned to the packaging on my ingredients.
Terri Peters
There's no list of recipes for Aldi's Thanksgiving meal. Instead, it's up to the home cook to determine the best way to put the ingredients to use.
This wasn't hard for me to do since I've been cooking Thanksgiving dinner for years.
To make green-bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, I followed recipes printed on the packaging of Aldi's products.
The cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie needed sugar, which wasn't on my shopping list. Luckily, I had enough on hand.
For the mac and cheese, I simply followed the instructions on the boxes. No butter or milk was required.
To prepare other dishes, I used my knowledge as a home cook or followed online recipes.
Terri Peters
I mashed my potatoes with butter and milk I already had in my refrigerator, and followed an online recipe for a simple sweet-potato casserole.
My husband and I put the carrots, celery, and onions to use in the boxed stuffing by sautéing diced veggies in a pan, then adding them to the mix. We also prepared it with chicken broth instead of water to boost the flavor.
For our turkey breast, my husband cooked it the same way he does every year, placing some butter and Aldi's poultry seasoning under its skin and roasting it in the oven.
We also put some of the aromatic veggies we purchased to good use, placing onions and celery beneath the bird for extra flavor.
Later, we strained the roasting juices and added them to our packets of gravy mix to make it taste more homemade.
Although it wasn't a big deal to me, I did have to use a few ingredients I already had on hand.
Terri Peters
Ultimately, we used a few ingredients that weren't on Aldi's master shopping list, meaning I had to take things like eggs, milk, and sugar from my own refrigerator and pantry.
Since I keep these things on hand, it was no big deal, but needing to buy them would've added a few dollars to my total amount.
The meal was simple to cook and didn't take us long to prepare.
Terri Peters
Something that struck me about Aldi's Thanksgiving meal was its simplicity.
Normally, my husband and I spend hours looking up and executing recipes that will elevate each dish.
However, the few ingredients and simple recipes meant we spent way less time in the kitchen. We didn't have to do as much chopping and prepping, such as grating cheddar for mac and cheese or frying bacon for green-bean casserole.
I'd say we spent around three hours in the kitchen compared to putting in an eight-hour cooking shift in past years.
It had everything my family could want out of a Thanksgiving dinner.
Terri Peters
I'd call our final meal pretty successful.
Everyone at my table commented that it had everything we'd expect from a Thanksgiving dinner: creamy mashed potatoes, marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes, buttered rolls, moist turkey, and savory green-bean casserole, to name a few.
The meal felt like more than enough to feed 10 people. My family of four ate leftovers for dinner the following two nights, but still ended up throwing some away.
That said, we weren't blown away by the mac and cheese.
Terri Peters
As we ate, I asked my family a question: If you had an extra $10 in your budget, which side dish would you upgrade? Our unanimous answer was the mac and cheese.
Since Aldi's version was just its boxed shells and cheese, it lacked the creamy, baked-in flavors that my normal homemade holiday mac and cheese typically has.
If we had extra money in our budget, I'd purchase elbow macaroni, make a roux, splurge on gruyere cheese, and give the dish a major overhaul.
This is a great option for anyone looking to save money or simplify their holiday meal this year.
Terri Peters
All in all, I'd absolutely make Aldi's $40 Thanksgiving meal again.
I loved the ease of the cooking process and found that with all of my must-have flavors on the plate, I was just as happy eating this affordable Thanksgiving meal as I had been eating more elaborate ones of years past.
Minus a few staples I had on hand, the list felt spot on for what we needed to cook a full meal. As a bonus, we ended up with a half-bag of potatoes, plus a few onions, carrots, and celery stalks left over, which I used for other meals throughout the week.
The only thing I'd do differently is to ensure that turkeys were in stock before I shopped for the rest of the ingredients.
Unfortunately, needing to go elsewhere for a pricier turkey resulted in us having to buy a smaller one to stay on budget, so we had way less leftover turkey than we'd have liked.
That's truly the only real downside of an otherwise amazing meal.
When reached for comment, an Aldi spokesperson told me the chain has seen "increased demand" for turkeys since announcing the promotion, "which briefly affected supply in select stores."
"Our teams are working hard to ensure a full restock of turkeys across the country this week," the spokesperson added.
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