I tested supermarket Christmas cheeses – the winner was ‘loads better’ than Asda and won’t break the bank
CHEESE is almost a staple at Christmas alongside an overload of chocolate - but which supermarket offers the best one?
With everyone looking to save money this Christmas, The Sun has been working out how you can enjoy a festive feast on the cheap.
We’ve tested some of Britain’s favourite seasonal specialities to find out which supermarket own-brand goods are the best quality for the price.
For this test, we’ve looked at the Christmas cheese selections on offer in the major supermarkets.
We tried the selections available at Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.
Lidl isn’t releasing cheese selections this year and Aldi’s launch later than the others, in mid-December, so these weren’t included in our tests.
Read more on Xmas
For each cheese selection, we gave it a score out of ten for taste and a score out of ten for value, based on the price per 100g.
This score also took into account how many different types of cheese you got for your money.
Here’s how the cheeses scored out of 20 overall:
Tesco Family Cheese Selection, £4.50 for 400g (4x cheeses)
The Tesco selection included four 100g disc-shaped cheeses.
Most read in Money
It was a mixed bag in terms of quality.
On the positive side, the flavoured Double Gloucester had a very powerful, authentic onion and chive taste and a decent firm texture.
And the Wensleydale with apricots was creamy with lots of fruit.
On the negative side, the Wensleydale with cranberries had a very dry texture with overly sweet fruit and a sour aftertaste.
And the smoked cheddar had a paste-like, gluey consistency which stuck to your teeth.
This was the cheapest cheese selection we tasted, working out at £1.13 per 100g, so it wasn’t too bad for the price.
- Taste: 6/10
- Value: 7/10
- Total: 13/20
Asda Classic Cheese Board, £6.30 for 450g (5x cheeses)
The Asda cheese selection contained five festive cheeses, including a blue stilton, red Leicester, mature cheddar, Wensleydale with cranberries and a brie.
All of the cheeses in this selection were very mild and creamy – but the cheddar and brie took this too far and were pretty bland.
This would be a decent selection for a family as there was lots of choice and no strong flavours.
But at £1.40 per 100g, this was one of the more expensive selections we tried.
- Taste: 6/10
- Value: 6/10
- Total: 12/20
WINNER Morrisons Seasonal Cheese Selection Pack, £6.49 for 450g (5x cheeses)
Morrisons' festive cheese board contained five cheeses: a mature cheddar, Long Clawson blue stilton, red Leicester, Wensleydale with cranberries and a brie.
We were impressed with all of them except the cheddar, which was a bit bland and had a gluey texture.
The rest felt like high quality cheeses – and seemed much fancier than the products you’d normally expect in a selection pack.
This was the most expensive selection we tried, at £1.44 per 100g, but it was only 19p more than Asda’s selection and significantly better quality.
If your guests like cheese, it would be worth spending a few extra pennies on this one this Christmas.
- Taste: 9/10
- Value: 6/10
- Total: 15/20
Sainsbury's Festive Cheese Selection, £5 for 360g (4x cheeses)
The Sainsbury’s selection included four disc-shaped cheeses in onion, smoked cheddar, chive and cranberry flavours.
Although the cheeses looked unappealingly like plastic, they were surprisingly tasty.
The chive and onion flavours were strong and authentic, while the smoky cheddar had a sweet aftertaste.
The cranberry version was the only disappointment – it was dry and gritty in texture.
At £1.39 per 100g, this was one of the cheapest cheese selections we tried.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
- Taste: 7/10
- Value: 7/10
- Total: 14/20