Price: £1.50 for a box of 6 (23/09/2024)
These Tesco mince pies are the standard ‘common or garden’ mince pie offering from Britain’s largest supermarket chain. They are generally the cheapest mince pie variety regularly on sale in Tesco stores. In previous years, they have often been found on special offer at a reduced price of around £1.00 in the run-up to Christmas and hopefully that will be repeated in 2024. Their attractive price point has made them my go-to mince pie for economic, day-to-day, large volume consumption over the years.
These Tesco mince pies have been given the epithet ‘merry’ by the packaging design department and the strapline describes them as ‘joyous buttery pastry and rich fruity mincemeat’. Visually the pies are almost identical to their Tesco Plant Chef brethren with the same little and large five-pointed star design on top. The nutritional numbers are pretty similar too – these ones come in at just 1 kcal less (per 100g), and have less fat (but more saturates), less sugars, but more salt.
Cold Taste Test
There’s a sprinkling of white sugar granules on the top that provides a tiny bit of crunch to each bite. The pastry is reasonably crumbly and they haven’t skimped on the filling. The mincemeat tastes more or less like I expect traditional mincemeat to taste, which in my view is a strong point in their favour. There’s nothing pretentious about them. None of the experimenting with unusual flavours that can detract from some of the premium mince pies on the market. They fulfill all the criteria that one would expect from a basic, plain and simple mince pie and therein lies their beauty.
Hot Taste Test
Heating them up really brings out the rich flavours of the filling and the pastry certainly responds better to microwaving than the Plant Chef ones did. The filling is justifiably described as rich and fruity, with apple puree, apricot puree, sultanas, currants, raisins, orange and lemon peel all combining with the mixed spices to create a mouth-watering blend of flavours. Their taste is, in my view, far superior to that of the Plant Chef pies and almost on a par with the far pricier Tesco Finest Mince Pies.
Verdict
They say that good things come in small packages and that’s certainly true for these pies. Sure, they’re smaller than the premium pies and one might not be quite enough to sate your appetite, but I overcome that by eating two at a time! They are simply a good quality, good value, traditional mince pie and I’ll keep on coming back for more until the sad day in January when they disappear from the shop shelves for eight long months.
The price tag is, of course, one of their major plus points. On the downside, they do contain palm oil.
Nutrition
Typical values (per 100g):
- Energy: 385 kcal
- Fat: 13.5 g
- Saturates: 5.8 g
- Carbohydrate: 60.8 g
- Of which sugars: 25.2 g
- Fibre : 2.3 g
- Protein: 3.8 g
- Salt: 0.25 g