I tried supermarkets’ own-brand steak pies – the winner fed the whole family for £3

CAN you enjoy a good quality family meal for just a couple of pounds?

We decided to test all the top supermarkets’ own-brand steak pies to find out which offer the best quality and most generous servings for the lowest price.

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For the test, we compared own-brand family packs of frozen mince pies from Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Lidl.

We gave each product a score out of ten for taste and a score out of ten for value, based on the price you pay per 100g and the meat content – so, brands which skimped got a lower score.

Here’s how the steak pies scored out of 20…

Aldi Crestwood Family Steak Pie, £2.49 for 700g 

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This pie looked promising as it contained large chunks of meat, but the meat pieces were gristly, fatty and chewy.

The gravy sauce was also strangely sweet and the pastry was quite stodgy.

This pie also had the highest saturated fat content (7.2 per cent) of all the ones we tasted.

It was also the only one to use meat from outside the EU.

This was the cheapest pie, costing just 38p per 100g – but you’d be better off spending a few more pennies on something else. 

• Taste: 3/10
• Value: 7/10
• Total: 10/20

Morrisons 4 Steak Pies, £2.70 for 600g 

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These Morrisons individual steak pies included a decent amount of meat, which was tender to eat.

But the meat and gravy were bland and tasteless – and the pastry was too stodgy and thick. At 45p per 100g, they were the second most-expensive we tested and not worth the money.

• Taste: 3/10
• Value: 6/10
• Total: 9/20

Asda Family Steak & Gravy Pie, £3.35 for 700g

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This was the best-looking pie, with crispy brown pastry with seasoning on top, but it didn’t live up to expectations.

There was lots of decent onion-flavoured gravy – but the bits of meat were very small.

As it was very sloppy, the pastry was soggy and the pie fell apart when trying to cut it and serve up slices.

At 48p per 100g, this was the most expensive pie we tested and it wasn’t worth the extra cost. 

• Taste: 5/10
• Value: 5/10
• Total: 10/20

Sainsbury’s Family Steak Pie, £3 for 700g

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The Sainsbury’s steak pie had a very flaky, crisp pastry top and some big chunks of meat in a tasty gravy.

It was also among the lowest in salt and unhealthy saturated fat.

It wasn’t perfect as it didn’t look great, the bottom went soggy and the meat wasn’t very evenly spread through the pie. But this was by far the tastiest pie we tried – and at 43p per 100g it was definitely worth the money.

• Taste: 8/10
• Value: 7/10
• Total: 15/20

Tesco 4 Steak Pies, £2.13 for 568g 

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These Tesco pies were really disappointing, with a thick, stodgy pasty and a gloopy gravy which had a synthetic onion taste.

The meat inside was fine but there wasn’t much of it. In fact, these pies contained just 23 per cent beef – the least of all the pies we tested. They also had one of the highest salt contents.

And, annoyingly, the pastry of the pies stuck to inside of the cardboard box so we had to scrape off bits of card before cooking.

• Taste: 4/10
• Value: 6/10
• Total: 10/20

Lidl What’s Cooking? 4 Steak & Gravy Pies, £2.25 for 600g 

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The Lidl pies had a strong meaty smell and flavour, like a proper old-fashioned meat pie.

The pastry was nicely crumbly on top and it was not too stodgy on the bottom either.

There was a decent amount of meat, although some of it was fatty and chewy.

At just 38p per 100g, these were one of the cheapest pies – a decent meal for the price.

• Taste: 7/10
• Value: 7/10
• Total: 14/20