Ready salted crisps

Aldi Specially Selected Sea Salt Hand-cooked Crisps

150g, 75p, aldi.co.uk

My happy place. Satisfying crunch, the thickness is great and you get the flavour of the salt perfectly. Not too greasy and you can taste potato.
★★★★

Marks & Spencer Full On Flavour Ready Salted Crisps

150g, £2, marksandspencer.com

This is what I call old-school potato crisps, they would do me in a crisis. Nice mild flavour. It gets stuck in your teeth more than the others.
★★★

Morrisons The Best Lightly Salted Crisps

150g, £1, morrisons.com

Quite thick cut, not crisp enough. Maybe it’s the way they’ve been fried? Not the best snap and crunch, but the flavour is perfectly decent.
★★

Iceland Luxury Mediterranean Sea Salt Hand Cooked Crisps

180g, £1, iceland.co.uk

A little bit tough, actually. There’s this muddy earthy taste … I don’t know if it is the skin of the potato or the variety?
★

Houmous

Sainsbury’s Classic Houmous

230g, £1.35, sainsburys.co.uk

Even though it’s not terribly smooth, at least you can scoop it. Really high lemon content. Nice tahini. Missing a little bit of garlic and a little bit of salt, but not so bad.
★★

Sabra Classic Houmous

250g, £1.99, ocado.com

Splat! The texture is way off … soft-serve baby food. They have whipped this into oblivion. Not unpleasant in flavour, but it has a weird sweetness.

★

Lidl Meadow Fresh Classic Houmous

200g, 65p, lidl.co.uk

Really bitty unpleasant texture. There’s a smoky taste – almost like barbecue sauce? Thick, claggy, gloopy, not good.
0 stars

Iceland Houmous

200g, £1, iceland.co.uk

Sweet, sickly, terrible texture, really dense ... tastes like tuna mayo … what else do I need to say about it?
0 stars

Vegetable crisps

Asda Hand Cooked Vegetable Crisps

125g, £1.30, asda.com

That’s everything I want in a chip really. A little heavier on the seasoning but in a good way. Slightly thinner cut. God, I love veg crisps.
★★★★★

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Vegetable Crisps

100g, £1.75, sainsburys.co.uk

Very nice beetroot crisp – you can still taste the sweetness. Well fried chips, different thicknesses, everything is seasoned, not excessively greasy.
★★★★

Tyrrells Parsnip, Beetroot & Carrot Veg Crisps with Sea Salt

125g, £2.49, ocado.com

You can really taste the sweetness and nice seasoning, but slightly too thick and it holds a bit more oil.
The parsnip chip is a bit rigid.

★★★

Tesco Finest Root Vegetable Crisps Sea Salt

125g, £1.25, tesco.com

Too thick. They are folded over and fried so carelessly. You can taste salt rather than seasoning, and a lot more oil. Right at the end, there’s a greasy flavour that’s not terribly pleasant.
★

Guacamole

Holy Moly Guacamole Original

150g, £2.79, ocado.com

The colour is more genuinely avocado-y. The first one that tastes like avocado, but let’s skirt around the rogue pepper cubes. Would love a bit more salt and garlic.

★★★

Marks & Spencer Guacamole

170g, £1.90, marksandspencer.com

There’s an absence of salt – instead, they have just put loads of lime in it. Floaty bits of coriander, as well. Not my favourite.

★

Lidl Meadow Fresh Guacamole

190g, £1.19, lidl.co.uk

Texture of chocolate mousse, too whipped … like baby food. Random bits of red pepper; it’s not an ingredient on the approved guacamole list!
0 stars

Waitrose Guacamole

200g, £2.28, waitrose.com

They’ve squeezed a whole lime tree into that. Incredibly acidic, and lacks salt. It’s like a puree, not a guacamole. They’ve let down the people of Mexico massively.

0 stars

Tortilla chips

Asda Lightly Salted Tortilla Chips

180g, 85p, asda.com

The best. Nice salting, the closest to truly authentic tortillas. Not too thick. You want them to be light if you are going to eat loads and loads and loads.
★★★★

Tesco Lightly Salted Tortilla Chips

200g, 90p, tesco.com

It’s nothing exciting. Still thin enough that if I was looking for a chip to eat with loads of dips, it would be an adequate chip- dip-vehicle.
★★★

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Sea Salt & Pepper Corn Tortillas

175g, £1.50, sainsburys.co.uk

A bit meh. They have poppy seeds in them … slightly random. They are nice, there’s a very subtle salt and pepper seasoning on them.
★★★

Simply Lidl Lightly Salted Tortilla Chips

200g, 46p, lidl.co.uk

Slightly offensive. Despite having a salt flavour, they have this pasty roughness on top. Too thick. Not snap-crunch, more chewy-crunch. You have to work hard for the crunch.
0 stars

Salsa dips

Marks & Spencer Tomato Salsa

200g, £1.30, marksandspencer.com

Less sugary-sweet than the others. Nice texture and a natural-looking colour. Probably the most legit salsa of the lot.
★★★

Waitrose Vine Ripened Tomato Salsa

200g, £1.35, waitrose.com

Ketchup-y sweet … like they’ve used cherry tomatoes. Like a kid’s bolognese-type sweet. You can see some tomato seeds, there are a few chunks.

★★

Tracklements Smoked Chipotle Salsa

220g, £2.89, ocado.com

A very rich chilli-spiced salsa. Quite unpleasant at first but it grows on you, perhaps only due to morbid curiosity. Sadly, no fresh flavour. It might make a good base for a chilli con carne.
★★

Co-op Salsa Dip

200g, £1.19, food.coop.co.uk

So much raw onion, sugar and vinegar. You wouldn’t want to kiss anyone after they’d eaten that. There’s a backlash of acidity.

0 stars