Specially Selected Piadina
EDITOR’S NOTE: This review is from 2024. Aldi is selling identical piadina the week of November 19th, 2025 for $2.49 for 4.6 ounces.
Aldi is selling a handful of Italian foods this week as limited-time specials. The selection includes stromboli, gelato flights, and roasted Mediterranean veggies.
I also found an Italian food I wasn’t as familiar with in the freezer case: piadina. It’s an Italian flatbread similar to a Mexican-style tortilla, but piadina also contains lard or olive oil. You fill it with various things such as cheese, meats, veggies, and so on.
The Aldi piadina are actual products of Italy. They came with a choice of two different fillings — Roasted Vegetable or Caprese. The Roasted Vegetable features stone baked piadina filled with roasted vegetables, mascarpone sauce, cheeses, and oregano. The Caprese features stone baked piadina filled with cheeses, pesto sauce, and seasoned semi-dried tomatoes.
I bought one of each and brought them home, ready to sample some Italian cuisine.
Specially Selected Piadina is an Aldi Find. That means it’s only in stores for a short time, and after it sells out, it’s gone unless Aldi decides to bring it back later. Aldi doesn’t offer online ordering for products that are sold out at your local store.
These cost $2.79 for a 4.6-ounce package in 2024. As of 2025, they’re $2.49 for 4.6 ounces, or about 54 cents per ounce. Each package contains one serving.
If you’re looking out for allergens, both varieties contain wheat, milk, and soy. The Caprese version also contains egg.
The ingredients lists for both piadina varieties look pretty good, with few to no unrecognizable or highly processed ingredients. They contain things like wheat flour, mozzarella cheese, and extra virgin olive oil. The Roasted Vegetable Piadina also includes mascarpone cheese, bell peppers, zucchini, eggplant, onion, and pecorino romano cheese. The Caprese Piadina includes tomatoes, basil, and ricotta cheese.
The Roasted Vegetable Piadina has 340 calories, 17 grams of total fat (22% DV), 6 grams of saturated fat (30% DV), 490 mg of sodium (21% DV), 38 grams of total carbohydrates (14% DV), 2 grams of dietary fiber (7% DV), 1 gram of total sugars, no added sugars, and 11 grams of protein.
The Caprese Piadina has 420 calories, 20 grams of total fat (26% DV), 6 grams of saturated fat (30% DV), 540 mg of sodium (23% DV), 48 grams of total carbohydrates (17% DV), 2 grams of dietary fiber (7% DV), no sugars, and 16 grams of protein.
The boxes have directions for cooking these in a conventional oven, a microwave, or an air fryer. The box mentions the instructions are for cooking one product at a time.
To bake, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove the wrapper from the piadina and place the frozen piadina on the center rack in the oven. Bake for 17-22 minutes, ensuring the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. Carefully remove the piadina from the oven.
To microwave, remove the piadina from the wrapper and place the frozen piadina on a microwave-safe plate. Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Allow the piadina to stand for 1 minute in the microwave prior to serving.
To air fry, remove the piadina from the wrapper. Place the frozen piadina in the air fryer tray and cook at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Allow to cool before serving.
I decided to cook one of these in my air fryer and one in the microwave. Based on my experience, I do not recommend microwave cooking, or, if you do use the microwave, reduce the cooking time and/or wrap the piadina in a paper towel to keep it from drying out. The piadina I microwaved came out overcooked, with parts of it so hard it was nearly inedible. The one I air fried came out noticeably better.
Even the piadina that didn’t come out overdone was underwhelming, in my opinion. The filling tasted okay but seemed sparse, and the experience was like eating crispy naan with a small amount of cheese and veggies stuffed inside. I haven’t tried piadinas from anywhere else, so I can’t speak to how authentic these are. These didn’t impress me, though.
The Verdict:
Specially Selected Piadina are a product of Italy and come in Caprese and Roasted Vegetable varieties. These looked promising, but we take issue with the microwave directions printed on the boxes, and these don’t have a lot of filling.
Tried the Caprese in my air fryer and it was decent, but half was plenty. For the price and convenience, I would stock up it. I avoid microwaving anything that can go in the air fryer oven, which is my fav appliance, gets used at almost every meal.
I definitely prefer the air fryer for most things, too. Don’t know what we’d do without it these days. I mostly tried heating one in the microwave for research purposes, since it is listed as one of the ways to heat these. The microwave method is inferior.
I ate 3/4 of it before I even got the goodies in it. Maybe 2 tbl worth of veggies/cheese in it, rest is just the bread. Very dissapointed.
Your experience sounds like mine!
Thank you so much for your review; you answered exactly what I wanted to know before adding this to my cart, which was whether this comes out more bread than filling. 🙂
Glad to be of help! And yeah, these are very light on the filling. Not what we were hoping for.