A Marks and Spencer (M&S) shopper was left speechless after trying a £2 budget meal from the chain that can rival ASDA's Just Essentials food and Aldi's budget offering. While ASDA Just Essentials and Aldi may seem like cheaper options, M&S has plenty of budget options available on offer if you look hard enough.
Earlier this year the Manchester Evening News compared a variety of food from M&S and Aldi. You can read the full piece here, but our reporter concluded that, while some Aldi dishes were far better value than M&S, the M&S items were generally of superior quality.
But shopping at M&S doesn't always have to be expensive. One shopper from our sister publication the Liverpool Echo discovered you can cook a fresh meal for £2 for yourself thanks to the retailer. As well as providing low cost, high quality ingredients for healthy meals, M&S is also giving shoppers recipe cards written by Michelin star chef Tom Kerridge to help ease the cooking process.
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Here's what she found:
I headed down to my local M&S to grab the ingredients for a recipe by the famous chef and was surprised when the bill totted up to just over £10. In my local store there wasn't any lettuce or long grain rice, so I swapped the rice for basmati and accepted that my salad wouldn't have lettuce in.
I also decided to switch coriander (which tastes like soap to me) for parsley - otherwise it was exactly as the recipe suggested. As I got started I was amazed by how easy the entire thing was, I mixed the chicken with lime zest, chipotle paste and olive oil and the smell was amazing.
From there it was a simple sear before popping it into the oven with chopped peppers, while the recipe suggests you only need 25 minutes in the oven this will vary based on your specific oven. It took about an hour in mine to cook. While you're cooking your chicken you chop up your celery and avocado for a salad. If you have it this is also where the lettuce comes in handy.
I think if you're going to do the salad it's important to buy the avocados in advance, as part of the Remarksable Value range you can grab six for just £2 but they take a while to ripen and they were still quite hard and difficult to work with when I made this dish. The rice couldn't be easier though, using microwavable rice you follow the instructions and heat it while chopping up some herbs, coriander is suggested but parsley works just as well, and getting your zested lime ready to be juiced.
Then it's just a simple squeeze of lime and toss the rice with the herbs once it's out of the microwave. It's such a simple way to really elevate the side.
When it was time to dish up my meal I was impressed by how delicious the chicken smelled, my kitchen and dining room were instantly filled with the smell of well seasoned roasted chicken and peppers. That said, the flavour wasn't particularly strong. I think you'd benefit from marinating the chicken for longer, perhaps even starting it off the day before, to make the most of it.
The lime zest went well with the chipotle paste, my only complaint is that it wasn't a stronger flavour. The chicken pair perfectly with the rice and I think the juices left in the chicken dish would compliment any vegetables or salad on the side. I was really impressed by the dish overall and was surprised you could get so much food for that price point at M&S.
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