Basic Britain: Macaroni cheese

There's nothing as comforting as a cheesy pasta bake. But are readymeals as good as homemade? Laura Rowe tests the brands against the budget in the latest Basic Britain.

I’ve been known to indulge, when feeling a little worse for wear, in a can (yes, a can) of macaroni cheese. While some reach for baked beans on toast, nothing for me could beat the creamy comfort of mac n cheese. I, of course, prefer homemade – indeed, who doesn’t like pimping their pasta bake – but when it comes to a quick fix, readymeals fill the hole.

So, who does the best pre-made macaroni: budget or brands? This time I took a look at:

• Heston from Waitrose Macaroni & Cauliflower Cheese with Truffle (for one) £4.89/400g

• Charlie Bigham’s Macaroni Cheese (for two) £5.99/670g

• Cook Macaroni Cheese (for two) £4.99/760g

• ASDA Smartprice Macaroni Cheese (for one) 71p/300g

The taste test

We perhaps all look for different things when it comes to a perfect macaroni cheese recipe but I judged these meals on three key criteria – cheesiness, texture and value for money. In a blind tasting, Heston’s readymeal came out on top. Applauded by critics as being a diamond in the rough from Heston’s new range for Waitrose, we were impressed with its creamy, thick sauce with a strong cheesy flavour. (This we discover is thanks to a combination of no less than four different cheeses – extra mature Cheddar, soft cheese, mascarpone and Pecorino). The golden pasta still had good bite, jewels of still al-dente cauliflower added texture and flavour, black truffle added real depth, and the topping of a ciabatta and cheese crumb went deliciously golden and crunchy in the oven.

Next up was Cook (the yummy mummy’s stand-by cheat meals). This offering, we decided, was the closest to a traditional homemade pasta bake. The macaroni, which was curved and ridged, held the deeply cheesy and mustardy sauce beautifully. It contains vintage Cheddar cheese and a mature Cheddar cheese, which had been liberally sprinkled on top, so again went crispy in the oven. Fiona Beckett, who held her own Macaroni Cheese challenge, has an amazing recipe that includes added crispy Cheddar shards in her book Cheese Course.

Charlie Bigham’s mac n cheese had been loaded with chunks of pancetta and herbs and topped with a focaccia crumb. For us, while tasty, this wasn’t proper macaroni cheese. The sauce didn’t have the hum of fromage we craved, and with the addition of the bacon, it felt more like a creamy carbonara, and crumb had an overpowering olive oil flavour. This was surprising given the ingredient list states the inclusion of Grana Padano and a British vintage Cheddar.

ASDA Smartprice was disappointingly small in size, at only 300g per portion, and sadly rather bland, too. The cooking instructions asked for it to be cooked in the oven with the film on, so even after 25 minutes it was still sadly lacking in colour and caramelisation. There was a lot of sauce, which was bland and milky, and the pasta was slightly overcooked. I’m sure it could be rescued with a grating of extra mature Cheddar but surely even this smallest of efforts defeats the point of buying readymade. We were very impressed though, as with all of the readymeals we tested, that ASDA’s meal didn’t include any artificial additives or preservatives. 

What else do we need to know?

Why do the prices differ so vastly, you might wonder? Well, Heston, which comes out most expensive at £4.89 for one portion, couldn’t provide us with any information on why it is that price; but, given the quality of ingredients (truffle, Italian cheese, white wine, free-range egg macaroni), the advertising budget and influence of a certain Michelin-starred chef it is perhaps understandable.

Cook, which sells in single portions for £2.75, makes its meals by hand in the Cook kitchen in Sittingbourne (indeed each carton tells you who made your mac n cheese – thanks Andy Cox!). The meals are then blast frozen so taste freshly made when cooked. Charlie Bigham, which works out at £2.50 per portion, says it justifies its price point by making its dishes from fresh each day in small batches using high-quality ingredients. ASDA Smartprice sources its cheeses from a range of different places (Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand) and it has a lower cheese content (by 12%) than its ASDA Extra Special counterpart. ASDA says it is able to produce the Smartprice range for such a low price (only 71p) by the smaller pack size, a streamlined pack design and format, and lack of marketing support. It also doesn’t feature a ‘topping’ like all of the other macaroni cheeses we tested, which helps reduce costs.

The whole package

If you are watching your weight (although, if so, is mac and cheese really the best option?), and conscious of the fat content, Heston came out with the highest at 13g fat per 100g. ASDA Smartprice only had 5.7g/100g. Charlie Bigham had the biggest sodium content at 0.3g/100g and ASDA Smartprice again came out lowest at 0.15g/100g. All of the meals had recyclable and non-recyclable elements to their packaging (check the labels for details).

So, would you pay nearly a fiver for a readymeal? Or would you customise a 71p budget alternative? Let us know in the comments box below.

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