Dollar Tree is a fascinating store to walk through. I mean, everything is a dollar $1.25. Sure, at that price you know things aren’t going to be of the highest quality, but there’s still a part of you that goes, “wow, they really tried to make something and sell it at that cheap price!” It’s undeniably intriguing. That’s probably why Dollar Tree is such a large and successful company.
Not long ago, I was walking through the store’s food and snacks aisle when I saw a couple of containers of dip. (Oddly, I couldn’t find any nachos or tortilla chips at the store.) A part of me was skeptical — could Dollar Tree actually sell a quality nacho chip dip?
I decided to find out.
Home Style Select Nacho Cheese Dip and Home Style Select Guacamole Style Dip can both be found on the snack shelves. Home Style Select is a Dollar Tree house brand, distributed by Greenbrier International.
The nacho cheese dip is 9 ounces, or 13.8 cents an ounce, while the guacamole style dip is 8.5 ounces, or 14.7 cents an ounce. Both come in vacuum-sealed containers with pull tab lids and should be refrigerated after opening.
Home Style Select Nacho Cheese Dip
The cheese dip comes with instructions to heat up. Those instructions call for pouring all of the dip into a microwave-safe container, heating for 30 seconds, stirring, and then heating further as needed. Do not heat this in the container it comes in.
Our family found this cheese dip to be a little … off. It’s got a slightly-less-than-medium heat level, but the taste doesn’t land quite right. It’s odd. It doesn’t match up either to the jarred cheese dips we’ve had in the past or the larger cans of nacho dip we’ve sampled from places like Sam’s Club. For whatever reason, it just didn’t quite hit the mark.
Cheese Dip: nutrition information. (Click to enlarge.)
Cheese Dip: ingredients. Note that it does contain milk. (Click to enlarge.)
Home Style Select Guacamole Style Dip
Unlike the cheese dip, this dip doesn’t come with heating instructions. That’s no surprise, given that most people eat guacamole cold. Of course, the addition of the word “style” in the name wasn’t lost on me. This isn’t a guacamole dip — it’s dip that’s like guacamole.
How much like it?
The answer: not as much as we’d hoped. Like the cheese dip, it tastes not quite like it’s supposed to. My wife liked it better than the nacho cheese dip (I did not), but it’s still not great. It just doesn’t quite have the right flavor. It does have some avocado in it, but clearly not enough.
Guacamole Style Dip: nutrition. (Click to enlarge.)
Guacamole Style Dip: ingredients. It does contain milk. (Click to enlarge.)
The Verdict:
I didn’t have the grandest of expectations with either of these cans, but I have to say that I was disappointed just the same. The nacho cheese dip and the guacamole style dip both taste vaguely like they’re supposed to, but neither of them is really all that close even to budget dips you can get at other stores. For a similar per-ounce price, or maybe a little more, you can easily find superior options at your local grocery store. We wanted to like these — or at least think they were passable — but we wouldn’t be comfortable serving either of them to other people we know.
Thank you for reviewing these products. You just saved me at least $1.25! I’d thought about trying one or both.
I love this dip, prefer it to more costly ones from other stores.
I love the nacho cheese dip from DT. Goes great with their frozen pretzels. Perfect late night snack. Thanks for the tip on the guac dip tho, I will pass on that one! Thank you.
I stick to name brand products at the dollar stores. If the price is $1.25 and the price per ounce is close to what other stores charge, sometimes you get lucky and find smaller sizes that are great for one or two person households. Thanks to Dollar Store Reviewer for confirming my decision not to try the Home Style Select brand.
I use the Nacho Cheese Dip all the time for nachos and loaded fries. Super tasty and priced right. Don’t buy the name brands with the overpriced products. Way too expensive for the same or inferior taste as Home Style Select. Remember name brands charge MORE because they have to pay for all the advertisement. If the advertising industry disappeared, you would be shocked at how inexpensive goods and services would cost. The consumer PAYS dearly for ads on all products that are advertised passed on to the items or services. Viscous cycle and a big club.
I’ve no interest in trying the nacho cheese dip, but I really love the guacamole style dip. That’s an unexpected surprise, as I can be rather picky about such things – but it is an item that I’ve purchased several times, and will continue to do so.