This Aldi Product Made Me Hate A BBQ Classic I Usually Love

Like many shoppers, I'm always on the hunt for affordable and convenient meal options. After a long day at work, the last thing I want to do is spend time over a stove, chopping vegetables, and doing other laborious kitchen tasks to make a meal that's about the same as one I could buy from a store. That's precisely why I turned to Aldi's Park Street Deli Fully Cooked Pork Burnt Ends in BBQ Sauce. Pork burnt ends take several hours to prepare, so the appeal of a sub-$7 microwavable tray is undeniable.

Another undeniable thing? This meaty entree isn't worth your time or money. Normally, I love burnt ends because they're sweet, succulent, and rife with pork flavor. You could have told me these were beef, chicken, or pork, and I would have believed you. The meat is sparse, and it seems like most of the 1-pound tray is composed of overly sweet, overly smoky sauce. Liquid smoke needs to be used sparsely, and Aldi just smothered any bit of natural pork flavor with it. I felt like I was excavating for pieces of meat in my tray since most of the large pieces were half inedible gristle and half dry pork. At this point, I shouldn't be surprised; most of the Aldi meals I've tried are poor — including one meal kit you'll never catch me buying again — but this one is especially bad.

Customer feedback about this product seems mixed, though I'm inclined to agree with many of the negative sentiments. On one Reddit thread, one commenter noted that the actual meal looked nothing like the photo printed on the package. Other folks noted that the concept is fundamentally flawed. "As a longtime resident of the Kansas City area, it's a little weird to call them 'burnt ends,' but the concept of chunks of pork belly drowned in BBQ sauce is seldom a bad idea," one Redditor wrote. (Kansas City houses plenty of spots known for burnt ends.) Others clearly pointed to Aldi's adaptation as the issue. "Just tried these and am giving most to my dog. Half of the 'ends' were nothing but putrid fat. Yack. No go for me," said another Redditor.

Based on the social media feedback about this meal, it seems like the best way to make it more appetizing is to cook it in the oven rather than the microwave. Obviously, this takes away from the microwaveable appeal of this dish — which is part of the only reason to buy it, if I'm being honest. Other Reddit users have tried disguising its flavor by stuffing it into sweet potatoes, serving them with grits, or using them for a homemade version of the McRib. I recommend checking out Aldi's other microwavable meals instead, or visiting a great hole-in-the-wall barbecue spot near you, to save yourself the disappointment of a subpar Aldi meal.