All Your Questions About Aldi's Priano Brand Answered

There are two types of people: those who shop at Aldi, and those who don't. Aldi has a kind of cult following and plenty of die-hard fans — and with good reason. What casual shoppers and nonshoppers might not know is that Aldi has quite a lot of house brands that are pretty great. If you've avoided the German discount grocery store because you can't get "normal" brands there, you should consider that some of your pantry staples could actually be improved by buying Aldi's own brands. Priano is Aldi's go-to brand for all your Italian inspired dishes, but what exactly is the brand selling?

We've done a deep dive of Aldi's Priano brand and what it offers, and you may be surprised by how much in your pantry could be converted to Priano products. Would you actually want to switch to Priano, though? We've looked into the ingredients, buyer reviews, and more, to help you decide. By the end of our deep dive, all your Priano related questions will be answered, including if it's worth trying the brand out on your next Aldi venture.

The real question here is: Where won't you find the Priano brand in Aldi? While you'll typically only find Barilla in the dry spaghetti section at mainstream stores, Priano is in more sections than not at Aldi. Yes, you'll see the Priano brand dominating the dry pasta section, with bags of spaghetti, farfalle, and more plus your favorite pasta sauces. However, you'll also find the brand scattered throughout the store in surprising ways.

You'll be presented with Priano near the entrance of Aldi in the refrigerated packaged food section. Manicotti pasta as well as other heat-and-eat stuffed pastas can be found here. Further into the refrigerated section, you'll find packaged cold cuts and cheese that fall under the brand.

Head over to the frozen section for even more Priano; you'll find the brand dispersed throughout. Check against the wall as well at the freestanding freezers for various Priano products. There's frozen pasta meals, as well as other popular Italian dishes for quick and easy meal ideas.

When it comes to Aldi brand items, the location of origin can be a mixed bag. Aldi sources from both the U.S. and from various countries outside of it. When coming from abroad, Aldi products state which country they are coming from right on the label. Many are from European and Asian countries like China and Germany. With that being said, some Priano products are marked with a seal stating they are imported directly from Italy. This gives the pasta brand some Italian zest and authenticity.

While this "imported from Italy" seal can be easily found on the front of the label, other products that fall under the Priano brand do not have this distinction. We noticed two seals found on various Priano products: "inspired by Italy" and "imported from Italy." While similar, these seals mean two very different things. Those marked as being "inspired by Italy" are likely to originate from other countries, while those "imported from Italy" will come from there. A good chunk of the Priano brand's offerings come from the motherland of Italy, but not all.

All of Aldi's brands have a bit of an edge over a lot of other brands circulating around bigger grocery stores. As an overall practice, Aldi does not produce products that have artificial dyes or added MSG. This has been standard practice at Aldi for the last decade and as an Aldi brand, you can expect this same ingredient exemption from Priano products.

As for what is actually in the products, though, Priano has another step up from a lot of other pasta brands. While whole wheat is lauded as a beneficial grain, Priano's dry pasta is made from durum wheat. This fiber rich grain is perfect for pasta, because of its elasticity. As for all the other ingredients, most Priano products are refreshingly straightforward. Not many ingredients for the basic products, and the label reads as well as you could expect processed food to read. You'll naturally find longer ingredient lists on the frozen and refrigerated meals, but you still won't see a huge list of unrecognizable chemical names that other brands may have.

Aldi is essentially a discount store. The grocery chain keeps a barebones staff and cuts costs with unique business practices that set them apart while bringing savings to the consumer. Additionally, pasta in general makes for an affordable meal. Considering these two common notions, we could safely assume that Priano is an affordable brand. Even so, we don't have to assume anything here! Aldi doesn't list prices online, but we visited one of the locations to compare prices ourself.

At the heart of it, we found Priano to be in line with other pasta brands. The dry pasta variations of the brand specifically are comparable to other brands like Barilla in price, though Priano typically will come out a tad more expensive. We are talking pennies on the ounce, though, here. When you consider the lack of additives and overall quality, though, the affordability of Priano increases.

When we look at the refrigerated and packaged pasta, Priano typically comes out the winner in low price. For example, the sausage ravioli from Rana you can find at your local Publix comes out to about 53 cents an ounce. You can grab Priano's sausage ravioli for around 33 cents an ounce. Priano's frozen products are reasonably priced as well. The fried veal cutlets are around $10 for 9 servings, which is almost half the price of Provimi brand's comparable offering.

Walking down the pasta aisle can be daunting, considering how many types of pasta are available. It's not too different at Aldi, because there are quite a few variations of Priano in the dry pasta section as well. You'll find the regular suspects, like spaghetti, penne, and linguine bagged on the shelf. You could also spy bags of rigatoni, conchiglie, and casarecce hiding among the pastas as well. Since supplies vary slightly from Aldi to Aldi, your choices may be minimized or maximized depending on which location you visit.

Priano will be on the shelves in some capacity, though, and all the dry pasta variations are bronze cut. Bronze cut pasta is a fancy way of saying the pasta is textured. The pasta goes through perforated bronze plates when it's being cut, which creates a rougher texture on the outside of the pasta. Pasta that is bronze cut is widely considered to be higher quality than those that are not. The texture is believed to hold sauce better, resulting in overall higher quality dishes.

Beside the many bronze cut pasta options in the dry pasta aisle, you'll find a series of Priano risotto. There are three options here: mushroom, roasted garlic, or four cheese risotto. All the dry pastas and risottos have the "Imported from Italy" seal.

It only makes sense that an Italian pasta brand would offer a vast list of sauce types to create the perfect pasta dish. Whether you are just looking for a sauce or planning to pair the sauce with another Priano product, you'll find the sauces in the dry pasta section. If you're used to buying sauce in the dried goods aisle, you'll recognize the 24 ounce glass jars of red sauce that scatter the shelves. Priano's come in marinara, four cheese, and tomato basil variations.

Of course, it isn't just red sauce that dominates Italian inspired pasta dishes. Alfredo has a special place in our hearts as well, and Priano delivers a few variations of the white sauce as well. Plain Alfredo is an option, as well as roasted garlic Alfredo and four cheese Alfredo sauce. These white sauces come in slightly smaller glass jars at 16 ounces.

Found nearby are even smaller glass jars of sauce, but these 6.7 ounce jars of pesto pack a ton of flavor inside. The classic basil pesto alla Genovese is available, as well as rosso pesto, made with sun dried tomatoes. The two pestos are the only Priano sauces that have the red "Imported from Italy" seal on their jars.

If you're looking for a quick meal that you don't have to defrost or wait an extended cook time, Priano has a number of pastas that just require a quick boil. You'll find a range of raviolis in the refrigerated section, just as you step inside your local Aldi. Right beside the take-and-bake pizzas, you'll find ready-to-cook pastas. Cheese tortellini and ravioli, sausage ravioli, mushroom ravioli, cheese manicotti, herb chicken tortellini, and tri colored tortellini are all variations you can find here. Depending on your Aldi, you may even be able to find crab or lobster ravioli. If you have your heart set on adding some greens to your pasta meal, spinach and cheese ravioli or manicotti may be the way to go.

The ready-to-cook pastas found along the wall of Aldi are perishable, but the grocery store has a more long term, shelf stable option as well. If you head over to the dry goods section where the bagged dry pasta is, you'll find vacuum sealed filled pasta from Priano. These stuffed tortellinis and raviolis are shelf stable for at least a few months, making them a great option for backup meals. Aldi carries cheese tortellini, spinach and ricotta ravioli, and mushroom tortellini in the dry pasta aisle. Pro tip: cook these pasta directly in the sauce rather than boiling water. You can also bread and fry these to make toasted ravioli!

Priano is Aldi's Italy-centric house brand. While there are not many foods that scream "Italian" more than pasta and sauce, there are quite a few other products available from the brand. Keep some basic Italian dinners on hand by heading over to the freezer section in Aldi and looking for the tiny Italian flag under the Priano name. Italian meatballs are available, as well as fried veal cutlets. You can also find a few frozen pasta variations at certain Aldi locations, like beer cheese or plain cheese ravioli and stuffed shells.

The deli boasts Priano brand meat and cheese platters with sliced prosciutto, salami, and a range of tasty cheeses. Aldi is also graced with harder to find and seasonal items from Priano, like heart shaped pastas, pumpkin filled ravioli, and turkey cranberry with bacon ravioli. You may be able to spot items like sfogliatelle glassate, which is a sweet puff pastry dessert that will transport you straight to Italy. Italian almond cookies and a panettone have been seen around the holidays as well.

The Priano brand covers a whole lot of bases for being beholden to one grocery store, but there are some products that stand out from the crowd. The biggest Priano winner and a must-buy for pasta eaters and lovers of Italian cuisine is the refrigerated ravioli, either the sausage or mushroom variation. The product won Product of the Year in 2024 in the pasta category, and has some pretty great feedback from Aldi lovers as well.

You're not really giving Priano a shot until you try their bronze cut pasta, though. There are so many different cuts of pasta that fall under the brand's dry bronze cut line that it's hard to narrow it down. Luckily, the pasta is affordable, and it doesn't cost much to fill your pantry with a bunch of different types of pasta. Once you've got a dozen or so bags of Italian sourced pasta in your pantry, check out our guide to the different pasta shapes and how to use each one. Priano bronze cut, imported from Italy, pasta are Aldi necessities for long time shoppers, so take your cue from the experts.

We've raved about how many Italian inspired products the Priano brand has brought to Aldi, but can it all really be that good? Taste is subjective, and for some, these Priano products are just not holding up to the otherwise quality brand name.

When we scoured the internet for trash talk on Priano, the only item to majorly ping our radar was the mistake of an Alfredo sauce. While some customers thought the consistency was just right for their tastes, others referred to the sauce as "garbage" and "genuinely gross." One Reddit user likened the alfredo sauce to a poorly constructed clam chowder.

While not bad products, the refrigerated pastas from Priano can be easy to mess up and take a bit of tender love and care when cooking. Heat these babies up too quickly and you no longer have ravioli, but a pot full of mushy pasta and bits of filling floating everywhere. The packages tend to hold moisture as well, making them mold faster at times. If you purchase any of the perishable tortellini or ravioli, be sure you will be cooking it in the next few days and you can be present during the short cooking process.

Priano does not have a monopoly on Italian food and pasta at Aldi. There are other house brands found at this budget grocery store for customers to have a choice in what brand they purchase. Reggano is one such brand, and while there are some pasta cuts not found in Priano, most of the variations overlap quite a bit and some Aldi locations do seem to carry an extended range of Priano pasta shapes. One of Aldi's biggest house brands Specialty also has some pasta and sauce options to add to its catalog of products.

The main difference, and where Priano really shines, is the bronze cut element of its making. Neither other brand has this perforated texture, and both aforementioned brands are similar in price. When considering the cost, though, Priano products are affordable across the board. Priano sauce is incredibly affordable and typically lower than the competition, coming in at around 7 cents an ounce. The pasta itself can be a touch higher than other brands, but it more than makes up for it in quality. The short answer to whether Priano holds its own against other Aldi pasta brands is yes, and we'd recommend it over the others as well.

Simply put, yes! The majority of Priano products have great feedback concerning taste and quality, with a more than reasonable price tag. Priano genuinely seems to be an upgrade from your mainstream Barilla pasta boxes. When deep diving into Priano, we actually tried the cheese manicotti and tomato basil pasta sauce. We created a very basic dish with the two products, and it was more than satisfactory. As far as easy, flavorful, and affordable meals go, Priano is a winner with plenty of value.

Even if you try a Priano product and end up not liking it, the twice is nice guarantee makes trying out the Italian brand a no lose situation. Quite a lot of Aldi products –– including everything under the Priano brand –– is covered by the twice is nice guarantee. This policy states that you will receive a replacement and your money back if you are dissatisfied with your purchase. Basically, you get two products free if you are at all disappointed, no questions asked. That's a win in our books.