Earth Grown Vegan Mozzarella Style Sticks + Cheddar Style Sticks

EDITOR’S NOTE: View our roundup post of Earth Grown products here. 

Mozzarella sticks are some of my favorite appetizers. There is nothing quite like that combination of crispy breading and gooey, stringy cheese filling. Add some marinara sauce or pizza sauce for dipping, and you have perfection.

Aldi sells cheese sticks year round, and they’re decent. Aldi’s cousin, Trader Joe’s, also sells cheese sticks that are hands-down my favorite.

Then, in January of 2021, Aldi sold vegan cheese-style sticks as a limited-time special.

Earth Grown Vegan Mozzarella Style Sticks and Earth Grown Vegan Cheddar Style Sticks cost $3.49 per 6.49-oz. package at the time of publication.

These are Aldi Finds (Special Buys), which means they are only in stores for a short time. Remember, Aldi does not offer online ordering with its specials, so once these sell out at your local store, they’re gone.

These are sold frozen, and they do not come with dipping sauce, so we used part of a jar of marinara sauce. Each bag contains eight small sticks that are gluten free and vegetarian, and they’re a product of the United Kingdom.

Their first few ingredients include water, coconut oil, rice flour, gram flour, and potato starch. Farther down in this post are photos with the full ingredients list for each variety. There are no listed common allergens for these sticks.

These come with instructions for baking in the oven and notes they should be cooked from frozen. To bake them, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove from packaging and place the sticks on a baking tray on the middle shelf in the oven. Bake for 11 minutes. Let stand for 2 minutes before serving.

I baked these as instructed when I served them initially. We had some leftovers, which I reheated later in my air fryer, and they turned out fine.

So how do they taste? The breading tastes good and is just like traditional mozzarella stick breading. The cheese-like substance inside has a soft, gooey consistency that is nothing like traditional cheese sticks, though. It’s more like cheese sauce or cheese dip, with none of that classic stringiness we associate with cheese sticks, which I would imagine would be hard to replicate. The filling in the mozzarella style sticks has a flavor and consistency similar to the mild white queso you might find atop a Mexican restaurant dish. The cheddar style sticks have a filling with a little more bite to it that does actually taste like cheddar cheese.

Overall, these are fine if you can’t eat dairy or are a committed vegan and you want a substitute for cheese sticks. My family seemed to like the mozzarella style sticks slightly better, but no one was a huge fan of either flavor and everyone admitted they prefer actual mozzarella sticks. I ended up throwing out the last couple of cheddar style sticks because no one wanted to finish them.

Keep reading for nutrition information.

Earth Grown Vegan Mozzarella Style Sticks

The nutrition label states that one stick is one serving (but who eats only one cheese stick?). One stick will net you 70 calories, 4 grams of total fat (5% DV), 3 grams of saturated fat (12% DV), 150 mg of sodium (6% DV), 8 grams of total carbohydrates (6% DV), 1 gram of total sugars, 0 grams of added sugars, and less than 1 gram of protein.

Nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)

Earth Grown Vegan Cheddar Style Sticks

The nutrition label states that one stick is one serving (but, again, who eats only one cheese stick?). One stick will net you 70 calories, 4 grams of total fat (5% DV), 2.5 grams of saturated fat (12% DV), 160 mg of sodium (7% DV), 8 grams of total carbohydrates (3% DV), 0 grams of sugars, and 1 gram of protein.

Nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)

The Verdict:

Earth Grown Vegan Mozzarella Style Sticks and Earth Grown Vegan Cheddar Style Sticks are a good option if you can’t eat dairy or are a vegan but you’re really craving cheese sticks. Just be aware that their cheese-like filling has the consistency of a sauce, so they’re noticeably different from traditional breaded cheese sticks.