Aldi Fans Are Loving These Spicy Pepper Pastes

If you are a home chef, you're probably always looking for creative ways to add a little extra zing to your homemade recipes, and Aldi has something that may just kick your flavor up a notch. Aldi's Stonemill pepper pastes are hot and spicy, and they work similarly to dry spices. They can be mixed into recipes, added to marinades, or used as a topping or condiment in a variety of meals from scrambled eggs to tacos, and everything in between.

These pastes are a hit with Aldi shoppers and have been generating a bit of buzz online, with at least one excited shopper posting about them to the r/Aldi subreddit. "Picked these up at Aldi the other day. Anyone tried them yet?" read the caption of the posted photo of the Carolina Reaper and Yellow Habanero flavors. 

Quite a few shoppers offered up positive reviews of these flavorful pepper pastes, but many warned that they add a pretty strong kick of heat to recipes. One user warned "just use a drop until you figure out what your comfort zone is," and yet another exclaimed "Too hot for me! But I bet they are good if you like things real spicy."

Not everyone agrees that these stir-in pastes are as spicy as they should be. One Reddit user claims, "They had nice flavors and added some heat but as someone who really enjoys spicy food, the amount I needed to get to my desired level wasn't worth the cost." 

For those wondering about the infamous Carolina Reaper, a pepper known to have sent someone to the ER, one Redditor shares "The Reaper paste is not hot at all, lots of nice flavor, though." Some users disagree, stating "Carolina Reaper is actually hot (but not as hot as the actual pepper)" and "My husband has a VERY high spice tolerance, and the carolina reaper taste was almost too much for him."

There are a few reasons why some people might feel like their mouth is burning with a small dab of these pepper pastes, while others find the heat to be relatively mild. Spicy food expert and chef, Bill Phillips, shares with Thrillist that people who have been eating spicy foods for years might have built up a strong tolerance allowing them to better handle high amounts of heat. Additionally, some more thrill-seeking personalities might simply be more inclined to seek the rush of eating extra-spicy foods. 

Heat factor aside, many on the Reddit thread agreed that these Aldi pepper pastes are a great way to add extra flavor to a wide variety of dishes.