When I started eating gluten-free in November, it wasn’t because I wanted to. Even though I realize that gluten isn’t technically good for any of us, you can rest assured that had I not developed an allergy to wheat or gluten (I’ve never actually been tested to be sure, all I know is that when I stopped eating wheat, I stopped feeling as if there were bugs crawling all over my body, so – YAY, I’m sticking with no wheat.) I’d still be stuffing my face with gluten-filled donuts, pasta, onion rings, bread, and all that other stuff. But alas, I’m going to have to be g-free for life, apparently. Since Jonah is also on a gluten-free diet, I’m always on the hunt for good gluten-free snacks and recipe ingredients. I make all of our family dinners gluten-free, although the big kids still eat gluten-filled toast for breakfast, PB sandwiches for lunch, and crackers for snack.
I’ve been shopping at ALDI a couple of times a month for awhile now, so I was interested to see what gluten-free items they had to offer. When I inquired, they told me they didn’t have an official list of gluten-free products. So, I told them I’d like to investigate for myself, and they were all, “Well, that’s awfully nice of you, here’s a $25 gift certificate to help you out with that.” (Which I thought was awfully nice of them.) So while they are not officially sponsoring this post, they did contribute to it in that way. $25 can go a long way at ALDI, but I did spend much more than that on my gluten-free items plus my regular weekly groceries for the fam.
I took off to ALDI sans kiddos one day so I could take my time going through the store reading labels. I found quite a few products beyond the obvious (fruits, vegetables, cheese, etc.) that do not contain gluten. One of my favorites is the Fit & Active Fat free chicken broth. I use chicken broth to cook a lot (and no, I don’t want to make my own, thankyouverymuch) and many brands of chicken broth contain wheat for some reason which is VERY ANNOYING. I even got burned by a brand once that was supposed to be gluten-free, but I had an immediate reaction to it. Hmm…anyways, ALDI’s Fit & Active is priced very nice at $1.49 for the carton and I’ve used it many times and it’s gluten-free! Woot woot! So is their Chef’s Cupboard brand chicken broth AND beef broth. Bonus! I also was pleased that their Priano Alfredo sauce is gluten-free, because that’s another thing you have to watch for gluten in.
After my ALDI trip, I came up with a list of gluten-free items. It is by NO means even close to a complete list, but there are some things (like boxed mashed potatoes, for instance) that I thought might contain gluten that don’t. Woot! Here’s what I came up with:
Chef’s Cupboard Roasted Garlic, Four Cheese, & traditional instant Mashed Potatoes
Priano creamy alfredo sauce
Reggano pasta sauce (all varieties)
Casa Mamita refried beans (traditional and fat-free)
Fit & Active Brown Instant Rice
Chef’s Cupboard Chicken broth & Beef broth
Chef’s Cupboard Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato soup
Dakota’s Homestyle Baked Beans
Millville Rice Squares & Corn Squares cereal
Clancy’s Sweet Potato Chips
Fit & Active All-Natural Fruit Strips (all flavors)
Fit & Active fat-free Chicken Broth
Southern Grove all-natural dried cherries (Jonah LOVES these) (they have other dried fruits as well but some are packaged in facilities that also process items containing wheat)
Clancy’s Tortilla Chips
Little Salad Bar Hummus (all varieties)
Other things that I don’t want to leave off but are pretty obvious: canned fruits and vegetables, coffee, yogurt, cheese, un-seasoned meats, eggs…you know what I mean. But two notes about these items: 1) I have seen some flavored yogurts at other stores that do contain wheat – generally if they have a mix-in fruit or other kind of topping – so just watch out for that and 2) ALDI’s Beaumont coffee “fair trade” dark roast variety is AMAZINGLY good and only $3.99! =) You gotsta GET SOME. It’s right up there with our favorite brand, Gevalia.
Well, these are the results of my ALDI scavenger hunt for gluten-free items! Did I miss anything obvious, my g-free friends? If you’re a g-free ALDI shopper, I hope this helped you out! Thanks to ALDI for the $25 gift certificate. It went a long way because of their great prices.
