Price: £2.15 for a box of 6 (06/09/2024)
Plant Chef is Tesco’s own brand of 100% plant-based meals and foods. I’m not sure why they felt the need to include mince pies in the Plant Chef range seeing as the other varieties of Tesco mince pies are also suitable for vegetarians. These ones do, nevertheless, go a little bit further by declaring themselves as vegan. There is, however, a caveat to that on the rear of the packaging where it says ‘not suitable for milk and egg allergy sufferers because these allergens are present in the environment‘. Make of that what you will. Presumably they are not present in sufficient amounts to compromise a vegan regime.
These mince pies are described as ‘fruity and crumbly’ on the box and the Plant Chef range claims to offer ‘crowd pleasing classics … with big, bold flavours that pack a tasty punch’. They are much lower in saturated fat and sugar than the Tesco Finest mince pies that I previously reviewed, so they aren’t quite as bad for you, but does that come at the expense of the taste?
Cold Taste Test
The pastry is simply not as good as most other mince pies on the market. It’s soft and somewhat stodgy and is probably the main deficiency of the product. The filling is more passable, although definitely not as flavoursome as some of the competition. The consistency is a bit too smooth for my liking, without enough small chunks in the mincemeat, but at least there’s a reasonable quantity of it.
Hot Taste Test
Given the texture of the pastry, these are mince pies that would really benefit from a stint in the oven to crisp them up. Microwave heating didn’t help on that front, but it did help to bring out the flavour of the mincemeat filling somewhat, making the pies much more palatable.
Verdict
Overall I was a bit disappointed by these Plant Chef mince pies. They are bland and underwhelming in comparison to other similarly priced pies and I doubt I’ll be buying them again, especially as they are considerably more expensive that Tesco’s standard mince pie offering. Maybe they have their niche in the vegan market, but vegetarians will find plenty of superior alternatives amongst the regular supermarket brands.
Nutrition
Typical values (per 100g):
- Energy: 386 kcal
- Fat: 14.7 g
- Saturates: 4.8 g
- Carbohydrate: 58.3 g
- Of which sugars: 27.3 g
- Fibre : 2.1 g
- Protein: 4.1 g
- Salt: 0.13 g