10 Aldi Items You Need For Your Champagne Brunch

While Anthony Bourdain might have refused to eat brunch food, chances are you and your friends and family have no such qualms. And the next time you host, you might want to jazz up the event by calling it a Champagne brunch — you see, just adding the bubbly moniker immediately makes it feel fancier. However, you (and your guests) might have Champagne tastes on a beer budget, as the saying goes. That's okay; German grocery store chain Aldi has high-quality, low-cost products that are ideal for this mid-morning or early afternoon meal.

Whether you're looking for sweets, savories, or even bottles of sparkling wine, Aldi has everything you need to make your guests feel oh-so-chic and leave oh-so-full and happy. All of the items listed here are part of Aldi's core grocery line, so there's no need to wait for a certain time of year to pick them up (as you might for quick-selling and limited-time Aldi Finds), though prices may vary based on your geographical location.

While Aldi rarely sells real Champagne (which can only be called such if it comes from the Champagne region of France), it does have a nice selection of sparkling wines. This includes Belletti's Prosecco Sparkling Wine, sold in a 750 milliliter bottle for just $11.09. Encourage guests to mix it with orange or pineapple juice for mimosas — keeping in mind the Champagne to guest ratio you need for your next mimosa brunch — or simply raise a toast with the highly drinkable bubbly stuff all on its own.

Croissants are the perfect baked good for a Champagne brunch because they're French — and they're quite versatile, too. Your guests will enjoy Aldi's Bake Shop Large and Mini Croissants (clocking in at 10.5 and 10 ounces, respectively, and setting you back just $3.29 per container), because they're lovely to eat on their own, but slice them open horizontally, and you have the ideal sandwich bread. For a fun brunch dessert, you can even use croissants as an ice cream sandwich base.

The L'Oven Fresh Pains au Chocolat, which sells in bags of eight for $4.65, comes individually wrapped, so before the party starts, you might want to break them out of their pouches and place them in a basket lined with a tea towel. If anyone questions you about them, you can say you got them from a very chic European bakery (only a slight embellishment).

The Bake Shop Lemon and Banana Nut Loaf Cakes are everything a loaf cake should be: moist, flavorful, and affordable (you get an eight-piece, 14-ounce container for just $4.29). While these sweets are great on their own, you could also dress them up a bit for company with a quick homemade icing drizzled on top.

The nice thing about Aldi's Bake Shop Raspberry Strip, Cheese Strip, and Strawberry Cheese Danishes for a Champagne brunch — aside from how much you get in a container (almost a pound) and how little they'll cost you ($3.85) — is that, thanks to the double lines of filling, you can cut them in half lengthwise, and then make up-and-down cuts as small as you want. Everyone still gets a good taste of everything, which helps the Danishes stretch for a crowd.

Moving out of sweets and into savory territory, no brunch is complete without bacon, and we think the Appleton Farms Thick Cut Bacon, which sells in 16-ounce packages for $4.75, is a terrific option. Pro tip: If you want to evenly cook bacon in the oven — which we recommend when preparing bacon for a group — set your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and make sure to rotate your trays halfway through baking.

We couldn't decide between Aldi's Original and Maple Breakfast Sausage Links, since both have their own unique flavor profile. For just $2.39, you get a 12-ounce tray. Choose the Original if you're serving purely savory sausages, or opt for Maple if you want to give your guests a delightful blend of sweet and salty.

Aldi has a fantastic salmon selection in stores, but we think its Specially Selected Cold Smoked Atlantic Salmon, sold in 3-ounce packages for $4.29, is the best choice for Champagne brunches. That's because it's pre-sliced into thin pieces, so you can set it out on a fish-focused charcuterie board (also known as a seacuterie board), or fold it accordion-style near bagels and cream cheese and let your guests build their own stack.

Speaking of charcuterie boards, Aldi's adorable Great Gherkins Kosher Baby Whole Dill Pickles, sold in 16-ounce jars for $1.89, would look so cute as part of a grouping with other small pickled products (like olives or pearl onions). Arrange the bowls on a large tray, and add meats, cheeses, and crackers — all of which you can get from Aldi, too — around them for a gorg brunch offering.

Man cannot survive on Champagne alone, and if your guests don't mind the sound of the blender coming from the kitchen, you ought to offer to mix up Aldi's Barissimo Latte & Frappe Mix Packets, which come in two flavors: Mocha Cookie Crumble and Caramel Crunch. The sweet mixes, which come three to a box and cost $5.49, are indulgent enough to make your guests think they're at a Starbucks, while the total cost for ingredients (the mix and milk) is less than most single handcrafted beverages at the coffeeshop chain.