13 Walmart Great Value Products You Should Always Buy

Food prices continue to rise, and the push to find cheaper food is very real for much of the country. It would be nice if that food also tasted good and were a decent substitute for whatever brands someone usually buys. Walmart has several company brands ranging from personal-care stalwart Equate to produce/deli/bakery label Marketside. Great Value, however, is likely the company's most visible store brand. It's also one of the top store brands in the country, with 72.7% of consumers purchasing a Great Value product in 2024, according to MetricsCart. And as frequent Walmart shoppers will tell you, Great Value products are often just as good as their name-brand counterparts, if not better.

Store brands are known for being name brands with different packaging; however, retailers like Walmart are still able to make modifications to recipes for store-brand items. For example, Walmart recently announced a push to eliminate synthetic dyes and several preservatives, sweeteners, and other additives in its products by 2027, which likely won't carry over into the products they're based on.

Obviously, "just as good" and "better" are highly subjective, and what others like to buy might not be your cup of tea. But if you've never ventured into Walmart or have somehow only bought name brands while there, these Great Value products, plus a whole lot more, are worth trying. We've got limited space here, though, so let's look at 13 Walmart Great Value products you should keep on your radar.

Great Value offers four varieties of frozen meatballs, and all are very good. They're fully cooked, so they're quick to warm up, especially if you're limited to using a microwave. You also get a good amount of protein per serving; six meatballs get you 13 grams of protein (more if you get the Premium Angus variety). And if you want to avoid beef specifically, the turkey version is tasty, too. But the standout is the Homestyle version, my personal favorite, which currently comes in the blue bag. There's something about the combination of taste and tenderness in these meatballs that just hits the spot. Again, that's subjective, but if you're going to try only one, maybe try these first.

A note about cooking these in the microwave, because that's the fastest way to get these on the table: If you want to cook more than one serving, stick with microwaving only one to two servings at a time (that's six to 12 meatballs). The more you make, the longer you have to cook the whole bunch to ensure they all warm up to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. That increases the chances of some of the meatballs drying out, so do your best not to overcrowd the plate.

Like a lot of other stores, Walmart produces its own version of Nutella, helpfully labeled only as hazelnut spread. This is a winner on two counts. The most obvious is price, with a 13-ounce jar of the Great Value version going for almost $2 less than the original name brand at the time of writing. If you're shopping with a tight budget, Great Value is the way to go here.

The other winning aspect is taste. I don't know who produces the spread for Walmart, but this version spreads smoothly and tastes wonderfully full of chocolate and hazelnut, something that competing brands often don't have. Some online reviews in 2025 mention the spread being runny, but those could be an issue with a particular batch, as there hasn't been any negative commentary on texture since then. Look online, and you'll find people claiming the Great Value version is even better than Nutella itself. Be warned ahead of time: This spread is easy to go through in a couple of days if you're not careful. It's tasty and makes for a quick and easy sweet treat when spread on a tortilla or a slice of bread.

The Great Value versions of SpaghettiOs and SpaghettiOs Canned Pasta With Meatballs are perfectly acceptable substitutes. Most of the time, they're a little cheaper than Campbell's original versions by about 20 to 30 cents, although sales on the Campbell's versions may make them temporarily cheaper. If you're looking to cut costs, buy whichever brand happens to be the least expensive that day. Those few cents add up if you're buying a bunch of cans at a time.

As for flavor, the Great Value Spaghetti Rings in Tomato Sauce actually tastes a little better to me. Campbell's version is a little more tangy, which you might like more. Overall, they both taste great; I've just noticed that tiny difference. If you look at reviews online, you'll find others who seem to prefer the Great Value version, too. The Great Value Pasta Rings With Meatballs tastes about the same to me as Campbell's version, and I usually go with Great Value just for the more affordable price. The one-star reviews on Walmart's site seem to focus on not receiving the number of cans the person ordered, picky kids not wanting them, or on a bizarre batch of the pasta rings from 2024 that apparently had no meatballs, but no one seems to knock the overall taste and product quality. The meatballs are never going to taste like homemade, but they work, considering this is canned convenience food that works in a pinch.

Great Value has a lot of ice cream products, but we'll focus on the pints and 1.5-quart versions here. Some of the other Great Value ice cream products aren't my favorites (the chocolate coating on the vanilla ice cream bars seemed oddly chewy when I last had one), but the pints and 1.5-quart flavors, made by Wells Dairy, are really good. This is supermarket ice cream, sure, but the flavors and texture are delicious and satisfying. Everyone's going to have their favorite flavors that may differ from mine. But if you're trying these for the first time, I suggest the Cookies & Cream and Peanut Butter Cup, which are amazing and well-balanced in terms of mix-ins. Mint Chip, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and Strawberry are also super tasty, and the Vanilla Bean is the perfect base for your choice of mix-ins and toppings. 

Other flavors that you can try include a second variety of vanilla, plus more creative options like Root Beer & Vanilla Float and Unicorn Sparkle. Most of the flavors are available in both pints and 1.5-quart containers. A few are also available in gallon buckets. However, two flavors, Coffee and Birthday Cake, are only available in the pint size. 

Great Value Cage-Free Hard-Boiled Eggs are excellent for people who can't cook due to a disability, don't like to cook, don't have access to traditional kitchen facilities, need to keep something quick to eat in a work fridge, or, like me, are super-duper sensitive to the smell of boiling eggs, no matter the strategy I use for avoiding those odors. These taste good, and they don't smell when you open the package, which is amazing because other brands sometimes do.

These eggs are among the ultimate convenience foods. Open the package, rinse them off, and eat. They aren't slimy, but there can be a little moisture in the package. The yolks have almost always been completely yellow when I've bought these, with no grayish-green in sight. Pricewise, they're slightly cheaper than Great Day Farms' six-pack of eggs. 

A few things worth noting. Not every Walmart location sells them, and if you don't eat a lot of hard-boiled eggs, you may find it difficult to finish six of them by their "best before" date. If hard-boiled eggs are a staple of your diet, however, these are a good choice. (I'm desperately trying to avoid "great value" puns.) Also, if you have to follow a FODMAP diet, note that there are online comments about pre-cooked hard-boiled eggs causing issues.

Walmart offers both pH-balanced and alkaline electrolyte water (note that Walmart describes the alkaline version as just having added electrolytes, rather than those being a main feature). Think Smartwater, but store brand. I tend not to go out of my way to buy alkaline water and can't speak to that product's taste or quality, but the pH-balanced version tastes very good and is much more affordable than Smartwater. If you want an electrolyte drink that's unflavored, not filled with sugar or sweeteners, and is just water and minerals, this is a comparatively affordable buy. As of writing, it's $7.42 for a six-pack of 33.8-fluid ounce bottles. That might not sound cheap, but if you need to buy it, it's not a horrible number when you see Smartwater's normal price of $11.18 for the same amount. 

Great Value is the most affordable non-alkaline electrolyte water I've found, and it's great for anyone who may need to increase their electrolyte intake. If you've been looking for additional electrolyte sources for whatever reason, Great Value's electrolyte water is worth trying.

Walmart has different frozen vegetable combinations, including some stir-fry mixes for those days when you don't want to spend time chopping up six different vegetables for one meal. One version, and the best in my opinion, is the Sugar Snap Pea Stir-Fry mix. This has seven (eight if you count red and yellow peppers separately) different vegetables in a 20-ounce bag for under $3 as of October 2025. That's a good price for such a wide variety of vegetables. How the vegetables turn out will depend on your cooking technique, but in general, a quick stir-fry won't usually make them mushy.

The reason I want to point you toward this specific mix, though, is that it doesn't contain baby corn or cauliflower. For some reason, the baby corn in a lot of frozen stir-fry mixes tends to be tasteless and tough. You'll find others who think it's a controversial addition to frozen stir-fry vegetable mixes, too. As for cauliflower, I haven't been a fan since a classmate once bit into a floret to find a family of bugs staring at her. Mixes that have cauliflower sometimes seem to have too much of the vegetable. I'm apparently not the only one who tries to avoid it; look online, and you'll see that many other people do not like the taste of cauliflower at all. If you don't like either vegetable, the Sugar Snap Pea mix is the one to buy.

Despite my aversion to cauliflower, I like broccoli. Particularly the stems, which don't get caught in my teeth like those floret buds do. Both Great Value and Birds Eye have answered the call from those of us who like broccoli stems and produced bags of frozen broccoli "cuts," which have a well-balanced mix of small stem pieces and small florets. Drop these in soups, stir-fries, or whatever you have that calls for vegetables (and keep them from getting soggy). They're cheap and convenient, and Great Value's version is slightly cheaper than Birds Eye, when that version isn't on sale.

A lot of people are under the impression that broccoli floret buds are more nutritious than the stems, but that's not the case. The stems and buds do have some slight differences; for example, the buds can have more B vitamins. But the stems aren't devoid of all nutrition and work with the florets to give your body a range of beneficial nutrients. The stems may be particularly good sources for compounds that have potentially protective qualities. The exterior and ends of broccoli stems can be tough sometimes, but the cuts are usually small enough to avoid being tough themselves.

If you have to buy flour tortillas, buy Great Value's version. The advantage is purely financial; the Great Value versions are much cheaper than brands like Mission. Your store may have tortillas from regional companies with low prices, and you can compare unit prices in that case. However, if you're looking for a way to cut your grocery bill and prefer brands like Mission, Great Value is the right brand to buy.

The company's tortillas are soft and pliable, and it even makes a 20-count pack of fajita-size tortillas, just like Mission. If you're on a keto or low-carb diet, or like eating those tortillas for their ample fiber content, Great Value's Medium Flour Tortillas a worth a look. These are the ones labeled as "6g net carbs," and they have 13 grams of fiber per tortilla. That's not as much as Mission Carb Balance, which has 17 grams, but Great Value's version is $1.46 cheaper. Unfortunately, not all of the stores sell this version, so check the website ahead of time and look at different locations near you.

Speaking of buying purely for price, Great Value Bite-Size Tortilla Chips would be worth buying even if they didn't taste so good. An 18-oz. bag of the chips from Great Value is $2.67 at my local store, while a 17-oz. bag of Tostitos is $5.94. If you need to cut costs but still want chips for salsa, this is an opportunity to really shave money off your bill. That's a difference of $3.27! And you get slightly more with Great Value's version.

Price aside... these chips are a win. Cheap, filling, truly bite-size, crispy, salty, I mean, you'll snack on these whether you have salsa with them or not. Look, Tostitos are classic. They're delicious. But they do currently cost substantially more than Great Value. The Great Value chips, like Tostitos, are great for crumbling over salads and soup, too, if you don't want to buy a separate bag of toppings. Note that some of the reviews on Walmart's website speak of broken chips, and some thought the chips were too salty. However, if those aren't deal-breakers for you, your budget will be happy you bought the Great Value brand.

Instant white rice is enormously helpful. It cooks fast, true to its name; try throwing some in a cup of instant broth or add some to watery stews to soak up excess liquid at the end of the cooking time. It's a good addition to backup emergency food supplies because, if things are truly bad and you just need calories, you can soak instant white rice in water without cooking, and it will still eventually soften up. (The same can't be said for instant brown rice, unfortunately.) Just remember to store the rice properly to avoid attracting pests.

Walmart's Great Value Instant White Rice is just about as good as Minute Rice. In the past, I've gotten some boxes of Great Value where a lot of the rice grains were broken. I've never had that issue with Minute Rice. I haven't gotten boxes like that in a while, though, so it could have just been limited to a few batches. However, price is really where Great Value wins. Compare the large 42-ounce version of each brand, and you'll see Great Value is priced a couple of dollars cheaper than its name-brand counterpart.

Great Value canned beans are perfectly decent and taste fine. The chickpeas/garbanzos, red kidney beans, and black beans all have good texture. They've sadly gone up in price over the past few years, but they're still cheaper than brands like Goya, Bush, and S&W. You'll want to buy Great Value's version for the financial savings.

A 15.5-oz. can of Great Value garbanzo beans, for example, is currently $1 where I live. A 16-oz. can of Bush's garbanzos is $1.42. Prices do seem to vary regionally on these; for example, I checked a store in Austin, Texas, and found that Great Value's version was 92 cents, while Bush's was $1.14. So, the savings may vary widely, but you're still going to find some savings by buying the Great Value version. And then you have variations like no salt added/low sodium, organic, or flavored varieties, which will change what you pay. For the most part, though, if you want plain canned beans, Great Value usually has the better price.

Finally, we've got Great Value Complete Pancake & Waffle Mix, Buttermilk Flavor. This is a financial winner that also tastes very good. A 32-ounce box costs $1.98 where I live, while Hungry Jack's version is $2.88, and Pearl Milling Company's version can be as much as $3.44. If you go through a lot of pancake mix like I do, those prices make a difference. Great Value also has an "Extra Fluffy" non-buttermilk version, but I have to admit that the flavor (which is more than edible) just doesn't beat buttermilk pancakes.

Buttermilk really does make a pancake or waffle better; it gives them a fuller flavor while also improving texture. The Great Value version isn't too sweet and cooks quickly, although if your pans have hot spots, those will affect how evenly cooked your batches turn out. Honestly, I can't really tell the difference between Great Value's version and Pearl Milling's version. Both taste very good to me, and one just happens to be much cheaper than the other.