Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Aldi Chorizo

I'm not a chorizo connoisseur. I've had it exactly once before this time, and that was sausage manufactured by the Johnsonville company, who are known for the brats and Italian sausages rather than their chorizo. So I cannot really compare this product to other chorizo, particularly authentic chorizo, I can only judge how I enjoyed it.

I saw this in the cooler at Aldi when I stopped to pick up some milk and cereal. We were having tacos for dinner, so I thought I would mix some chorizo in with the beef. The label on the package said "Hot", so I expected it would help spice my tacos up a little. It came in two plastic tubes, a little over a foot long each. It's so red, I thought it was smoked or something, like a kielbasa (which I knew is not how chorizo is supposed to come, but I bought it anyway).

When I opened it, I discovered the plastic tubes, and the rich, fine grained, red paste which they contain. I was cooking a pound of ground beef for my tacos, so I squeezed out half of one tube (about 4 ounces) in the frying pan with the beef and some chopped onion and mashed it all together. When I started cooking it, it filled my pan with a wonderful, spicy, red grease and the vapor coming off of it was intense. I knew that I had made a good choice.

The tacos (which were seasoned with an envelope of taco seasoning from Aldi also) were possibly the best I've made. The Aldi taco shells, by the way, are decent, but every time I've bought them there have been at least 2 broken shells out of the 12.

This morning, I had the other half of that first tube still in the fridge, and I've heard that chorizo is awesome with eggs. I put about 2 ounces in the pan, some chopped onions, fried it, then added a couple of eggs on top and some cheese on top of that. No salt or pepper. It was delicious.

I'm going to have to think of other ways to use this stuff. I love it. It's awesome.

6 comments:

  1. Word. I use this stuff. It is EXCELLENT.

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  2. I think that stuff is so great. I always forget how spicy the chorizo is. It packs some great heat. I love using it on my eggs. I also recently made some stuffed mushrooms with chorizo and eggs. There are a lot of possibilities!

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  3. Chorizo that isn't red probably isn't chorizo. The texture on the Aldi's chorizo was wrong, but the smell and seasoning are not. I was not disappointed and for the price - that is all one could possible rate this one. Good stuff.

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  4. I really love Aldi's chorizo. I usually buy the hot flavor. On my last two trips there, they only had the mild ones. I'm happy to report, though, the mild are spicy as well.

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  5. Unfortunately, they have told us they no longer carry their chorizo anymore. I wish I knew where I could find this chorizo. I love any chorizo that does not contain lymph nodes..

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    Replies
    1. That is not true, Aldi does carry it still.

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