With the cost of living crisis worsening, supermarket shoppers are looking to find the tastiest products at the cheapest price. Some essentials are pretty similar in terms of taste and quality, but others are noticeably different.
One of the UK's most popular essentials is the sausage roll. But how do sausage rolls compare at shops like M&S, ASDA and Tesco?
Our sister site the ECHO tried sausage rolls from three of the UK's most popular supermarkets. They compared luxury sausage rolls from M&S with Just Essentials sausage rolls from ASDA, along with a pack from Tesco, and were surprised by the results.
READ MORE: Tesco shopper says 'he won't go back' after going to Marks and Spencer with just £16
Here's what they found:
M&S Our Best Ever Sausage Roll
From past experience it's hard to beat M&S when it comes to 'on the go' food. They have a top tier offering of sandwiches, wraps, salads and general picky bits, and it often leaves me taking far too long contemplating what to actually buy, because it all looks and sounds so lovely.
But it's not always the cheapest, so a trip to M&S tends to be a treat for me [keeping an eye out for yellow stickers during every visit of course]. For this week's sausage roll taste test I headed to the Liverpool city centre M&S Food Hall and once again spent ages choosing which one to buy.
The M&S sausage rolls came in various flavours - pulled pork, hog roast, parmesan pork and truffle, to name just a few. Going for tradition, I settled on the Our Best Ever Sausage Roll, hoping it would live up to its name.
You get two in a pack for £4.80 and I could see through the packaging just how big they were. Each one is more than enough to have for an individual lunch, or quite a hefty snack, so if you split them across two days, or between two people, I think it's pretty good value for money.
The all-butter puff pastry was golden brown, beautifully flaky and soft and thankfully didn't crumble to pieces when I bit into it. The pastry encased an absolutely huge chunk of sausage meat that filled it out, leaving no gaps in-between.
The meat was really good quality - very savoury and salty, with no nasty gristle or fatty bits, yet still lovely and moist. It had an oniony flavour to it as well and lots of seasoning, making it taste like something you'd get from an artisan deli counter.
Sausage rolls aren't something I eat particularly often, but I was really impressed with this effort from M&S, so it's good to know where to go when I'm in the mood for one again.
Rating: 5/5
Price: £4.80 for two in a pack
Where to buy: M&S Food Halls
Tesco 6 Pack Sausage Rolls
I’m not a big fan of sausage rolls, I won’t lie. I don’t mind them but they’re just not my usual go-to when it comes to pastry snacks.
This week I tried Tesco’s own brand sausage rolls to see if they could change my mind - and I was certainly impressed. The £1.95 pack includes six rolls of seasoned pork sausage meat wrapped in puff pastry.
The sausage rolls can be eaten cold or hot so I decided to pop one in the oven for the recommended 18 minutes and it came out golden and crispy. The pastry was flaky on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside.
The meat was soft and seasoned to perfection, salty and full of flavour without any signs of the fat or gristle which usually puts me off. The sausage roll to fell apart in my mouth. and tasted just like a Greggs sausage roll - I’m definitely glad I bought the pack of six.
Rating: 5/5
Price: £1.95 for six
Where to buy: Your local Tesco
Asda Essentials 6 Pack Sausage Rolls
I've been massively impressed with the Asda Essentials range so far, so I wanted to put another favourite snack of mine to the test - sausage rolls. We always have sausage rolls in the house, usually because my boyfriend likes to have one with his lunch.
I often go for the Asda 10 Sausage Rolls which costs £2 and they usually taste pretty good. The Asda Essentials 6 pack are priced at a bargain 95p, so I was intrigued to see if these tasted better, worse, or the same.
I took a bite into the sausage roll and was very pleasantly surprised. I was worried there would be unappealing bits of gristle or fat in the sausage roll, but it was actually perfect.
The sausage roll wasn't dry at all, and had a really flavoursome sausage in the middle. The only downside for me was the aftertaste in my mouth, but that wasn't the end of the world.
In terms of pastry, it wasn't too and tasted really buttery and nice. I actually think these ones tasted and felt a lot fresher than the other Asda 10 pack I always purchase, so I'll most definitely be making the swap.
Rating: 5/5
Price: 98p for 6
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