Tesco Free From Lasagne sheets

I may not be able to go to a restaurant and order a lasagne any more, but it's just given me an excuse to improve my culinary skills! And for the first time earlier this year I attempted making my very own using Tesco's lasagne sheets.

I got a recipe from a student cookbook, and it was a very basic recipe, making a simple cheese sauce and a bolognese with mince. The instructions on the packet said to blanch the sheets first in some boiling water for a few minutes, and then I layered them with the sauce, mince and cheese... and voilà! I put it in the oven and after an hour it came out like this (sorry you can't see the inside, it fell apart when I dished it up!)...

It tasted really good. I was so pleased with the results, and happy that it was so easy to make. But enough about my cooking ability, what about the lasagne sheets? As I've never made a lasagne from scratch myself, I'll be honest and confess that I don't really know if cooking with them is the same as cooking with regular sheets. I had to break them up to fit into the dish I used, but that was easy enough after the blanching.

I am also happy to report that after cooking it tasted the same as a regular lasagne!


Taste: Really good pasta sheets. Thickness, texture, and they were really soft and tasty in the lasagne. The second time I cooked the sheets they needed a little less time in the oven, so they didn't go too crispy round the edges.

Price: £1.50 for a packet of about 12 sheets. (I used about 4 sheets for a 2-person lasagne).

Availability: From Tesco.

Clearly labelled gluten-free? Labels on the front of the packaging, "Wheat free" "Gluten free" and "Milk free"

Nutritional value: As nutritional as you'd expect from pasta! Not as many calories as I'd expect from pasta sheets.

Comparison to the real thing: If I blind-tasted these I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference! Nice and easy to cook with, and I really enjoyed them with the recipe I used.

Overall rating: 8/10
So similar to regular lasagne sheets in terms of taste and texture, and would go well with any lasagne recipe. The sheets are a little small but really easy to cook with, and I've been using them fairly frequently ever since I tried them... so there's a little seal of approval right there!

Asda Free From Spaghetti

Today is Asda's own brand Free From Spaghetti pasta.

Pasta is my favourite food.  I would ALWAYS have it when I was a teenager and lived at home (around 4 or 5 times a week!).  I now realise that, due to my wheat intolerancy, it was doing a lot more harm than good!

I eat a lot of spaghetti bolognese (or, at least, my own version of it) because of all the vegetables I can hide in it (I'm not a massive veggie fan).  I usually eat it with pasta shapes because of the mess I create when I eat it with actual spaghetti, but I decided to go for a change recently.


Here is the pasta after cooking for 15-20 minutes...

I ate it with my bolognese-mince-vegetables hybrid and parmesan cheese.

Taste: Very nice!  I like my pasta a little overdone, but it kept its texture and didn't fall apart or go soggy when I ate it.

Price: £1.30 for a 500g packet.  Very reasonable for gluten-free pasta.

Availability: Asda "Free From" brand.  Tesco and Sainsbury's also do their own versions for the same price.

Clearly labelled gluten-free?: Yes.  Part of the Asda "Free From" range.  "Gluten free" and "Wheat free" on the label, with the Coeliac UK Crossed-Grain logo.

Nutritional value:  As with most carbohydrates, good in moderation!

Comparison to the regular version:  Taste and texture-wise, pretty much the same.  When I looked at Asda's own version of regular spaghetti it was 75p for the same amount.

Overall rating: 7/10

It's nothing special, but it tastes just like normal spaghetti, and was very good quality and easy to cook. Definitely recommended if you want something simple.