Aldi Artichoke & Cheese Strudel (Deutsche Küche) Review
Snazzy with a chance of artichokes.
I almost didn’t buy this.
I was standing in Aldi, with a cart full of “German Week” products, and wondering if I should bother with another mystery frozen item. Somehow, the scales of fate tipped in the favor of this Artichoke & Cheese Strudel, and it came home with me.
I’m glad it did. This is a surprisingly “nice” pastry, for the price. It cooked up quickly and easily, and emerged from the oven looking super-duper snazzy. The crust is tender, flakey, and just the right combo of crisp and soft.
However, I can’t seem to locate much evidence of “artichokes” or “cheese,” exactly. I did find some shy little potato lumps. And, with some diligence, I excavated a sprinkling of small, nearly colorless fragments of soft artichoke bits. But, just enough to make me wistful.
Happily, there’s a lovely béchamel cream sauce, which I assume is also where the “cheese” must be hidden. But yeah. I would describe this as a “potato and cream” strudel more than an “artichoke and cheese” strudel. Just sayin’.
Anyway. You get one long, flat, raw, frozen strudel in a long, flat, narrow box.
Oddly, the lonely strudel is not wrapped or sealed in any way. It just slides out of the box unwrapped, but miraculously unscathed by the ravages of trans-national shipment and multiple freezer locations. Fascinating.
It’s an almost shockingly flat pastry when raw, but it puffs up after baking.
That’s right. Gaze upon its baked splendor. So snazzy!
I’m wildly impressed by how attractive these pastries look after baking. This doesn’t look like budget frozen food — it looks like something artisanal and hand-made. Plus, it’s so dang cronchy and fresh, right outta the oven! Mmmm.
I’m less impressed by how the filling looks. If you compare this to the photo on the front of the box, there is little resemblance. The artichoke bits are few and far between. Mostly there is just colorless white goo.
Fortunately, that white goo is quite tasty. According to the box, it’s béchamel sauce — a French cream and flour gravy. I believe it. It tastes creamy and savory with the slightest innuendo of garlic and pepper. The submerged potato lumps and precious artichoke shards are tender, and soak up the velvety flavors nicely.
I baked my pastry in my air fryer toaster oven. Because the strudel was so long, and the heating elements in my toaster oven weren’t that long, part of my strudel cooked a bit more than the other part. Still good. It came out crispy and puffy and beautifully browned.
Ingredients in Deutsche Küche Artichoke & Cheese Strudel
Here are the ingredients from the label:
- Wheat flour
- Water
- Vegetable shortening (palm fat, sunflower oil, water, mono- and diglycerides, citric acid)
- Béchamel sauce (water, milk protein, dry whole milk, food starch-modified, vegetable fat [coconut oil], salt)
- Artichoke
- Potatoes
- Cheese (milk, salt, cheese culture, enzyme, calcium chloride)
- Contains 2% or less of: Wheat fiber, Sunflower oil, Food starch-modified, Salt, Skim milk, Garlic powder, Pepper
The ingredients are less scary than I expected — no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives — although the béchamel sauce sounds a bit more processed than I’d prefer. Like most of you, I’d much rather have a butter pastry than a “vegetable shortening” variety, but at least there is no trans fat in this product. It seems strange that “cheese” is not identified more specifically, but I guess budget-food-beggars can’t be choosers. Alas.
Nutrition Facts in Aldi Artichoke & Cheese Strudel
The strudel is more nutritious than I expected, with 5 grams of fiber per serving, and 7 grams of protein. There’s a lot of fat (23 grams), but I’m generally “team fat,” so I don’t mind this.
A serving size is supposed to be half a strudel, but in this instance, I actually ate a lot less than that as a snack. I think you could cut this into 4 to 6 pieces for serving as finger food at a brunch or luncheon.
Cooking Instructions
The cooking instructions gave me anxiety. The label says to cook at 395 degrees, which is oddly specific. I ended up using my countertop toaster oven, which only has a crude dial to select a temperature of 350, 400, 450, etc., and thus a precise 395 degrees was impossible. I don’t think it mattered in the end — mine baked just fine at 400 degrees. Not sure why Aldi wouldn’t just say 400, unless they get perverse joy from imagining our anxious American faces scrunching up in agony as we try to comply with an exact 395 degrees. Why not 394 or even 392? Why, Aldi? Why.
I lined my pan with aluminum foil before baking. I also ended up flipping my pastry over and cooking the bottom a bit more, to get it truly toasty. If I had this to do over, I’d also use non-stick spray (or parchment paper), because my pastry stuck slightly to the aluminum foil. Beware.
Price and Shelf-life
This is made in Italy, although it is a German food item. Go figure. Mine expires roughly a year from the date of purchase, so it has a long freezer-life. I paid $3.99 for the single 10.6 ounce strudel, which is an OK price. I’d buy this again for a fancy brunch or tea party, where I want to impress my guests on a budget.
More Reviews of Aldi Products You Might Like (or Hate)
Check out these other reviews of Aldi frozen stuff I’ve recently written:
- Aldi Mushroom Schupfnudeln (Deutsche Küche)
- Aldi Fruits of the Forest Strudel (Deutsche Küche)
- Aldi Bienenstich Indulgent Cakes (Deutsche Küche)
- Aldi Donauwelle Indulgent Cakes (Deutsche Küche)
Author’s note: I have no affiliation with Aldi, and I wasn’t compensated in any way for this review.
