Kirkwood Breaded Chicken Breast Patties (Aldi)

A stock image of Kirkwood Breaded Chicken Breast Patties, from Aldi
To whom it may concern: Bring back the boxed version of these!

I wanted a cheap dinner the other night, so we headed over to Aldi. I was planning on grabbing the four-pack “of questionable quality” chicken patties in a box, only to discover they didn’t offer them anymore. That’s a shame, I thought, considering they were only $2. Then, my eyes caught a bag of chicken patties that were slightly more expensive ($3.49), but turned out to be the most inexpensive ones they offered. I settled on getting those, figuring I would probably get fewer patties for the buck, with with slightly higher quality.

As it turns out, these are pretty much the exact same chicken patties as the previously boxed kind, at least in terms of appearance. While at first, I was slightly disappointed (I had assumed I would be getting fewer pieces of better-quality chicken instead), working out the math in my head helped to calm me down: I counted nine patties in this bag, for $3.49. The original boxes had four for $1.99. So this way, you get more for less, which made me a happy camper!

I somehow forgot to grab lettuce or tomato, so I ate these on a bun with Aldi-brand dressing as my only condiment. That revealed the first problem: They were slightly smaller than the average hamburger bun; in other words, these things are pretty small. Even worse than that, I don’t think they are as good as the boxed kind, which at least tasted like they had a lot of spices in them; I would have compared those to the chicken sandwiches at the world's most popular fast food joint. These just remind me of something you would get at a school cafeteria; they are virtually tasteless on their own, and make the mistake of putting the emphasis of flavor on the questionable meat, which doesn’t much taste like chicken. A little seasoning or other flavor additions would really go a long way to making these a little more appetizing.

If you need a counterpoint, they are really inexpensive; a family of four could probably get a couple nights’ mileage out of them. And if you dress them up with some lettuce and tomato, or get creative with them, then you could probably take the flavor up a notch. But straight out of the bag, these are just lackluster patties that taste approximately of chicken; as such, there’s really not much here to enjoy, and even less to get excited about. Bring back the boxed kind!

Overall: 4/10. There is some excellent value to be had here, as I got nine patties in my bag for $3.49...but how can something provide value when you don’t want to eat it? The original versions of these patties used to be sold in four-pack boxes. While those were far from anything gourmet, a little mayo and a bun would at least provide a passable snack; dressing them up with lettuce and tomato took them up a notch to “fast food quality”. In order to provide more for a lesser price point, it seems that all forms of seasoning and taste were removed from this bagged version, instead leaving you with a virtually tasteless sphere of chicken-textured sadness. I used to get the boxed version a few times a year; I last bought a bag of this kind over a year ago and have never purchased them since (as you can tell, this review has been sitting in the backlog for quite some time...) Not even worth it, no matter the price, though to be fair some lettuce and tomato (or your favorite veggies of choice) could probably make them slightly more edible.