Dollar Tree vs. Aldi Cooking Challenge

Today we are going to test two grocery stores, it's Aldi versus Dollar Tree listen, I don't know how money works, but I know food costs too much, so let's see if the expensive things are really worth it. In flavor, we will make two versions of burgers and fries, one cooked with ingredients from Aldi and one cooked with ingredients from Dollar Tree. Then a judge will come and taste them blind to see if they can figure out which cook is which. they're shopping at Aldian Dollar Tree, let's see what they got, look at this huge amount of ingredients, we have all our stuff to make the burger melt and the garlic fries here from Dollar Tree no, yeah, Dollar Tree has this bun, I, Dollar Tree has Nature's perfect, thick-sliced ​​white bread is a great bread.

Wow, we have all our Dollar Tree ingredients here. We get all our ingredients from Aldi here. I had never set foot in an Aldi until about 2 years ago when they finally moved to La Aldi. It's a German grocery store that we recently found out there's a discount on Al's port tip, but it's a German grocery store that they were known for being like a smaller scale Costco, they removed a lot of the frills. I remember going in there. for the first time and there's like giant bags of cereal lying on the floor and I'm like, "If they were supposed to be there, I just grab them and their cashier sits down, which cashiers should be allowed to sit, that should be very The cashiers normal ones should be sitting everywhere and then they don't have bags either and you have to pay like a nickel for a shopping cart I don't know if I'm honest Aldi scares me seeing the prices here we spent $42. total at Aldi and we spent $. 27 total at Dollar Tree, however when you look at the price of the dish, Aldi is $857, Dollar Tree is $7.35, not a huge difference here but there are some key differences in the ingredients, the beef patties , the beef.

Hearts I would say it's just beef, right, that's fair, you know, you, this is all me, baby, this is like it's all anyway, uh, we got beef. .Beef hearts, textured vegetable protein with water, we have some soy flour, soy protein concentrate, so let's go. To be a lot of fillers in this, but it might also taste good, you have sodium inosinate and guate here, which is also known as meat extract, so it will have a nice meaty flavor and then you look here from Aldi and this just Discount Pure Black Angus Beef and there is only one ingredient and it is just Black Angus Beef.

I will highlight that many people have used Black Angus as a marketing term. Black Angus is simply the most common breed of cow in America, so that's cool. the burgers are alar 56% more expensive than the Dollar Tree burgers at Dollar Tree they're only 63 cents per burger at Aldi $142 and then we're going to make a burger sauce to go with that um all the Dollar Tree condiments tended to be more expensive, especially the mustard was over 200% more expensive in price per ounce because they have brand name mustard at Dollar Tree for some reason, but to me the French are like the absolute gold standard of yellow mustard.

What I grew up seeing was like my rich friend's house as a kid but stuff like this is a lot more expensive, whereas at Aldi you just get the big old horn bottle, this is even thinner plastic so you go to be saving money on things like that when you can buy larger quantities in bulk um, we have cheese somehow Vita must have the connection with Dollar Tree. I love Vita. I also love craftsmanship when it comes to these individual American cheese slices, so we're going to make some garlic fries. We are going to use the prepackaged potato chips.

I grew up with bagged chips. I love them. You can customize them however you want. You can even add them to a hash for breakfast. if you want, but looking at them, I mean they're basically the same product, but we're going to dress them up, we're going to make garlic fries, which is something I grew up eating in California all the time you go. At a fair they bought French fries with garlic, they are delicious, we will use jarc, which I know many chefs say not to use garlic. I say use garlic. It's heat treated so it won't be as good. fresh, you can, it's dripping, look at the Dollar Tree garlic and it's a little bit browner, which means it probably won't be as fresh, it was probably treated with more heat and it's packed in water, so it looks pretty fresh, but we I'm going to put that with some herbs on the fries, it'll be close, but I keep eyeing that Dollar Tree bread over there that might be the gold standard white bread here.

I'm excited to see what comes out. Cooking is a great day, it's a great day because we're making orange mayonnaise and that's all I want to eat, that's my favorite food in the whole world, if I eat it, I drink it with a boba straw, I would definitely do it here , we have all the things from Dollar Tree and then here we have all the things from Aldi. The funny thing about all this content is that Dollar Tree, this is all branded material, so we're using French's Mustard, we're using Hunt's Ketchup. Actually, really like the hunts, I think they do a good job and then they make Mayo if you look at the differences in Mayo art, Mayo has always been suspiciously white to me, right, it's crazy and it tastes white, it tastes whiter. white and if you say that Mayo tastes white.

I mean it tastes very white, you know what I mean, but since Mayo has eggs, it shouldn't be so white and somehow this is um, we'll see how it all shakes out. I want to try them individually, although I want to Look what we're rocking, this is the off-brand mustard that was really, really cheap and tastes like mustard, man. I don't know, can you taste the differences in the mustard? This is French mustard again, the gold standard. yes French mustard is better the way they make it, they do a good job, okay, okay, okay, okay Ketchup Aldi here generic brand very sweet, very, very sweet, hunting is also sweet, although the winner hunts mayonnaise, this is the best day, it tastes so white, how do they make it? get the white flavor in there, that's a better man, this is a much better mayonnaise, okay we should start throwing things out, we have pickles here, pickles at Dollar Tree called Breen Ridge Farms and that's a great brand of pickles, surpassed only for vasic. if you're buying pickles there's someone called vasic that makes them, yeah you'll want to buy them from vasic, you're like they're from a country, they're from a country that needed to pickle things, you know what I mean.

If they call you vasic, that's where all this comes from, you know, you know, people always say: why do you know? Okay, so I grew up with Ashkanazi Jewish food that's very Eastern European and everyone's like, why are there so many beets? and the pickles, it's like pickles last forever and beets are one of the only vegetables that physically grow in the snow, okay, give me about 10 minutes to cut these pickles, the pickles look very different, the pickles Dollar Tree Breen Ridge Farms, uh, they look. like they've been pickled longer because you can see it's like they're pickled and it actually has a greener inside, where this is a whiter inside.

Try it, pet, pickle, peeve, my pickle, peeve, my pickle, peeve, it's when they're not crunchy. enough and I don't know if it's a heat issue or how long they've been sitting out it could be a cucumber issue they're not crunchy enough they're soft I don't like soft pickles this pickle this pickle looks hard you know it when you look in a pickle and you just say the pickle is hard, it was a hard pickle, that's what I want fantastic, yeah, winter pickles. Have you been keeping score? Aldi pickles and mayonnaise significantly better. Dollar Tree ketchup and mustard significantly better.

I love that we have given it. To me, a format to be uh, yeah, completely crazy, okay, well, we're just going to throw in all the stuff and things, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, we'll put the three condiments that you like in there, we're going to throw that onion powder for that. a little bit of flavor black pepper like black pepper paprika because paprika a little bit of sugar just to round it off just to round it off and vinegar I always missed the clear ones I miss the clear ones because I think there's nothing there, what if I had? an incredibly convenient and aesthetically pleasing container to put my salt at home and now you can do it with the legendary Kitchen Salt.

Well, it says season your damn food on it as a little reminder that you should season all your damn food, huh, but honestly, if you want to do it. your kitchen set just have this on the counter, that's what I do at home, all chefs do it at home. You need salt. Just grab a big handful and throw it in your stuff. I love salt. Wells, you need to get. yourself a salt, well if you don't have one, go to Mytical.com to get it all. Other things: white mayonnaise. God, did they put white food coloring in it?

That's what people don't know. There is white food that just does. things are whiter and it's weird I don't understand how it works I don't understand how it works more mut in French how do you say mustard in German mustard something like that I think vinegar is clear so I don't see it well let's put it on the record that you keep these bowls the same side. I like the way the one looks better, the one at the Dollar Tree. You know what it is. It's French mustard. I swear to god. French mustard has more turmeric.

Turmeric is what normally What gives mustard its color? If you see a very fancy mustard that has a pale color, you probably don't put turmeric in it. Mmm, oh, this one is so much better, oh, crazy, the one from Dollar Tree. I think it doesn't have the strength of that mustard because it's making a lot of that flavor even though it got this incredibly white mayonnaise, if anything, it gave it a better color palette. um Dollar Tree took the lead from the beginning, but we'll see how it really pleases on the burger itself. Julia's been trying to make me learn the choreography to Beonce's country song for Tik Tok and I refuse, that's my limit in the relationship, we're frying fries here, we have frozen fries from Aldi, they look pretty pale, uh, These look good, they're not 't or Ida, but they look good cut wrinkled.

It's ethical, but I'm doing this for you, not me, so we're making the garlic here look so fresh and good from Aldi, the jarli over there pretty dark, but before we get into this, let's just let things drop. in the deep fryer, what is the safest way? I don't know, just do it there, throw those fries in and the fryer, make sure none of them overlap, obviously you can bake these fries, but boy it doesn't do anything. make you feel alive like just dropping some already fried fries straight into the fryer, any good fries are fried twice, ask the Belgians, am I right?

Honestly, this is a really good way to cook French fries, fry them, and freeze them. Fry them again, that's exactly what we're doing. I think it will take a little longer, but we will take them out when they are golden brown. Put them in there and mix them with all of our seasonings. Check back. in a second, okay, the Aldi crisps are ready, they look good, they're getting crispy, you're going to have them, you don't want to like them, you want to drain them a little bit, but you do want some of the oil to sort out.

Bloom that garlic, so let's get these out, why does my left hand always come here? I don't know, I don't know what to do because in basketball, you grow someone, you have the left hand, you grow the cross when we're

cooking

no one tells you what anyway we're going to take that we're going to sprinkle it with a little garlic powder another time put the garlic powder in the hot oil yes sir we're going to take some green Flex here's the green Flex makes your stuff taste good we all know that and then we're going to take this garlic and we're just going to throw that garlic in there come on Let's take some salt, where is the salt I need? season my damn food I need to season my damn food put a little extra salt on it even though the fries are already salted they look incredibly amazing I mean they look like the garlic fries you would buy at the county fair.

I don't know if that's an experience where other people have garlic fries at the County Fair, but California Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world in California, they have a Garlic Festival every year. You can get garlic ice cream. You guys have never been to the Giloy Garlic Fest. I've been to the Giloy Garlic Fest, I've got you guys, yeah I know V had come, I know he of course V's been G try like oo that's the brownest jarli like that, it's not garlic approved by Gilroy. I take like a little more oil than around, damn.

I am very excited about this meal. We have the H oil fries and they look much better. Those fries are already pretty golden brown going into the frying, they're even more golden brown coming out. You see that some stayed on the palette and then others. Many of them like to have a little extra Browning because of their inconsistency at the factory. I don't even care who wins. I just want jam with some garlic fries. Let's make some burgers. Helloheart and textured vegetable protein. Burger with my old friend, we meet. I like it again I think it's good listen Beart it's good you go to a Peruvian place you have anticuchos right where all the fans of my aunt Coos stand up Aunt cooo Hive here we go I don't know I think they're good these guys are big and old Handsome, I'll say That this is obviously made in a factory, you can tell because it has weird little pockmarks on it and is perfectly cut in a circle.

It's also made in a factory, but has pre-made settings to try to make it look handmade. Look at this, the dimples on this are from a dad making it by hand on a barbecue, without washing his hands between each gulp of uh Sun. Coors Light put together, um, whatever, so let's start by toasting some bread, we're making a burger melt, one of my favorite sandwiches, yeah, it's definitely a sandwich, it's not a burger, uh, let's take a little margarine. that bun just make it nice and toasty, toasting the bun will not only add a little flavor but it will actually keep out all the juices from the burger and all that.

I changed the margarine knives or not the butter knives. or margarine knives now I just want to eat that Marge, yeah, Sizzle Sizzle. Inh, I breathed and inhaled margarine fumes and it tasted like movie theater popcorn. That's, oh, it's still happening, oh God, I'm drinking it, I'm absorbing it like them. absorb spices in racus I just saw a dune and I loved it oh man but they really left meat on the bone by not showing uh Austin Butler and Leah seu uh now we're just going to lower some oil, we're I'm going to start burning these Bergs which are just raw meat, so I'll touch on the uh, we don't know if it's raw, we've determined that we don't know if it's raw or cooked, but we know there's already a lot. of salt and textured soy protein in there, so we're just going to bring these browns down and then we're going to put these bad boys in, these aren't seasoned, we're going to hit it with a little bit of salt.

We are

cooking

them in Frozen, just mash them on a burner. If you look at the bread, although we have the gold standard white bread there, not only is it much thicker but it seems much denser, but in a good way, in a way that would really hold up a burger, they are definitely using a lot of conditioners here. mass, which gives it this almost artificial lightness and gives it a lot of Rise because there are supplemental proteins in there, so I think this could collapse. under the weight of these gigantic burgers, we'll find out that this is it if you look at the Dollar Tree burgers again, they have all that textured plant protein and the hard stuff that's in there actually crisps up really well thanks to those fillings that take out some of that fat and then those kind of chips like the grain inside, so it looks fun.

Cooking these Frozen burgers isn't the way I would do it per se, but they look like they're finished, you've got some solid Browning on them, so I don't know, they've puffed up a little bit. I tried to squash them a little and that just doesn't work at all. I don't know the science behind why. It's very stretchy, but it is, so we're just going to add a little bit of cheese. We're taking the good Vita right here. I don't like to add the cheese too soon because American cheese doesn't need help melting. It will melt from the end and Heat will explode there, then we have the handcrafted singles.

I love handcrafted singles for what they are. I usually don't love them for burgers because they melt too. fast and they get a little wet. I would use something like a deli Deluxe, but for the purposes of this it's going to work, we're going to sandwich them in Boom pull so it drains a little bit of that grease like a good fry cook and then this had cheese on it so I can put it in there yeah , actually let's let it sit there because I don't want all that grease to be absorbed into the bun, so let's make that burger, oh. there's so much fat and then let's put it on a plate, look can I drink, anyone can drink this fat, it's good for you, it helps your BLA, oh that's delicious, check back in a second, the burgers They're ready. we've got our burger sauce here, I'm going to do it, it's still coming up, it's still coming up, but it's not locking up or coming loose, which I do find interesting, so we're going to put some of that burger sauce on that's going to create sort of a of membrane right there as a prophylactic and then we're going to put the burger right on top spread that sauce from edge to edge here's the thing with the Patty MK When the burgers don't fit perfectly to the size of the bun I go to compensate them a little and then just let's put it right there, beautiful and grab the mythical kitchen apron ideal for cleaning your hands when you can't find a towel, go to mythical.com to find more burger sauce. there and crown him the prince I was promised hell, yeah, I immediately know which burger I'd prefer and it's this one right here.

I don't think you need good quality beef to make a good burger, that's my best bet. I think you need Whatever this is and I'm absolutely in, but it doesn't matter what I believe, it matters what our judge thinks. Hey, speaking of which, let's start judging Jordan M from spark.com. Welcome back to the mythical kitchen. Thanks for inviting me. You are ISM professional and always astute. I'm surprised, thank you, of course, before you, we have two plates of garlic fries and a melted burger, no onions because you couldn't find onions, one is from Dollar Tree and the other is from Aldi, okay, it will be your job .

Discover the witches and also tell us which one you like the most. Wow, he's very excited. I'm no Aldi expert so let's see if I can get this one. Would you like me to do the ceremonial cut in half? the Pat please okay someone turn on the music no that's it yes actually that's the same thing yes here comes the bread this bun is very moist thank you I tried my best two cheeseburgers , the cheese is quite melted, which is good, it tells you it's fake and I. I love that very spicy. Why two burgers instead of just one?

Yes, it's delicious. It doesn't taste cheap. The only thing that gives me an initial clue. Looks like real garlic in these fries. This does not. Yes, the garlic in this is worse than the. garlic in this, that's my initial clue, okay, I'm going to make burger by burger and then fry to fry, okay, I'm feeling good at this point, oh, do both pickles, you're double fist and pickles, how can you not can you feel this pickle? It looks more pickled than this very salty pickle less salty and also not as good interesting you and I maybe have different pickling ethics here tell me about yours well I just want everything I want from a pickle I just want it to be hard right?

I just want a hard pickle I want a good crunch I want a nice, refreshing bite for me some pickles are too pickled or too heat treated I agree that they get a little soft so I enjoy the hardness of that pickle you think it's too soft it's too much soft a pickle to me interesting I think a lot of pickles can be too soft I don't think they are too soft Acceptable, I think this one is Dollar Tree because it's cheaper and this one is Aldi I think it baffles me that this Patty's is weird and this one isn't , but the quality of the meat tastes better, it's medium, it's okay, the quality of the meat tastes better and the garlic looks like real garlic and Miss Pickle is a good idea.

I don't feel so confident This one, as I do with many others, both taste delicious. I would gladly eat them again. Which prefer? I think maybe this one because the quality of the meat is a little better and the cheese melts, but I would eat this one too. Jordan on the left side we have the Dollar Tree burger on the right Allie, the first time you make a mistake, that doesn't make you, we were literally like I've never made a mistake on one of these W's, you got excited, you got excited. uh no, but that's really awesome, you've had these same burgers before on nachos, these are the ones mixed with heart and textured vegetable protein D sodium inosinate D sodium guate is delicious I know, I agree, the heart It's good antios, you love antios of course, the best, and then here we have it from Aldi.

Now it's all beef, so you chose to cook it a little bit rawer and we cooked it in Frozen, so if I'm honest, you're frozen, what are you? um and then here it's interesting because the fries, you can see, they're a little bit more pale over here a little more golden here they came out of the bag that way and we fried them at the same temperature as the garlic over here, I thought it was Va to be better, but I agree with you, it tastes worse, this one looked like Browner, yeah wow, I'm really baffled by this one.

I'm hungry, so I'll continue eating both. I'm so jealous of watching you eat. and here, from Aldi, it's $857, here $7.35, so the price difference is a little negligible, negligible, yeah, too, better bread around here, look, this is much better bread, this bread is like this, look at it, yes, this, this held up and this one like more, okay, more rigid, isn't it good? This is great, but also the total receipt from Aldi is $42. Dollar Tree $27. You're buying a lot more in bulk, okay, that's a big difference. Okay, I guess it depends. Whether you have a family or not, comment below if you have a family, wage war against Bland cooking and start seasoning your damn food with the mythical kitchen saltwell available now at mythic.com.