{"id":1891,"date":"2024-07-29T01:22:49","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T01:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/snarklesauce.com\/blog\/?p=1891"},"modified":"2025-06-02T13:06:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T17:06:56","slug":"aldi-frozen-ground-turkey-kirkwood-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snarklesauce.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/29\/aldi-frozen-ground-turkey-kirkwood-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Aldi Frozen Ground Turkey (Kirkwood) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Author\u2019s note: I have no affiliation with Aldi<\/a>, and I was not compensated in any way for this review.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it seems too good to be true, don’t make meatballs out of it.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I bought this frozen ground turkey from Aldi because it was $2.75. That’s the entire<\/em> reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should have known better. Mom always said, “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” I ate this turkey, but I regretted it. Here’s how it went down:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aldi’s Kirkwood Ground Turkey comes in a frozen 1-pound log. I thawed this in my refrigerator for about 24 hours. When I cut the log open, the turkey meat texture was already a little suss<\/em>. It’s kind of mushy and more like a blended dog food texture. Although the package says it “contains up to 3% retained water,” it was slushier than I expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had already decided to make meatballs from this … meat<\/em> … so I pressed onward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here’s another lovely shot of the ground turkey texture. Yes, it looked gross in person. Yes, it’s got a bunch of weird, white, stringy, gummy bits in it. Skin? Ligaments? Who knows. We probably don’t want to know. I mixed the turkey together with breadcrumbs, chopped onions, egg, Swedish meatball seasoning, and salt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After browning the meatballs in a pan, they looked pretty good, and had started to smell wonderful (from all the seasonings), so I was hopeful. I tasted one, and immediately spit it out. It’s the meat texture. Ugh. It was slimy and gooey, even after cooking through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(If you’re looking for a ground turkey review with a happier ending, here’s my review of Columbus frozen Turkey Burgers<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unwilling to waste so much food, I decided to do what I generally do for any cheap meatballs: slowly simmer their brains out in a seasoned sauce. I usually do this in a crockpot, but this time I made a creamy Swedish meatball sauce and simmered on low in the same pan for more than an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The slow simmering and super-flavorful sauce saved my meatballs. They were still not my favorite texture, but they were edible. They had a much more typical soft-but-structured meatball texture, and the gooey-ness had disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you know Swedish meatball gravy is made with Worcestershire sauce and mustard? Now you know. Yes, I ate this over rice, because I didn’t have egg noodles. The richly seasoned cream-based sauce was tasty on everything.<\/em> Even if I overcooked it a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here’s the inside of my finished meatballs. I wouldn’t rave about these, but they were OK. All the zesty flavors from the seasonings and onions infiltrated the meat completely, and ameliorated the strange meat taste. The slow simmering compressed the gummy turkey and homogenized it with the other meatball ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, as I ate these, I kept biting down on hard bits of what I’m guessing were bone shards. They weren’t crunchy or chewable \u2014 just hard and pointy. I fished some out of my mouth, and they definitely looked like bone pieces. If bone pieces can accidentally get in here, it makes me wonder what other turkey parts might have also fallen in. Not cool, Aldi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nutrition Facts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Here are the nutrition facts from the label. There are 4 servings per 1-pound log. Each serving has 220 calories, 17 grams of protein, 17 grams of fat, and 80 mg of cholesterol. There’s 8% of your daily value of iron, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s kind of a bummer to see as much<\/em> fat as protein in what is generally considered a lean, healthy meat option. In fact, turkey is generally leaner than chicken<\/a>. Not sure what went into this ground meat to make it so fatty and weird-tasting. For me, I wouldn’t consider this an especially healthy meat choice, even IF it tasted awesome. Which it did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ingredients in Frozen Ground Turkey from Aldi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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I turned the log around and around and around<\/em> \u2014 trying to find a succinct list of ingredients, and finally gave up. What I do<\/em> see from the label is that this product is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n