Turkey, port sauce and lots of crumbly stuffing* *
No, not Christmas dinner... it’s the best festive sarnie!
TRYING to recreate the perfect Christmas dinner in a sandwich usually means the turkey and trimmings are accompanied by a load of calories, fat and salt.
However, a test by experts at Which? suggests the relatively healthy options can actually be among the tastiest.
The consumer group’s team of 36 tasters tried nine sandwiches from the major supermarkets, coffee shops and Greggs.
A spokesman said: ‘In recent years, there’s been a proliferation of festivethemed sandwich varieties.
‘But for the purposes of our tasting, the Which? panel stuck to the standard festive Christmas lunch-style turkey sandwich.’
Each was scored out of ten on appearance, aroma and flavour.
Pret a Manger came out on top with its Christmas Lunch sandwich at £3.75 with a score of 8.5.
It offers British free-range turkey breast on granary bread with port and orange cranberry sauce, crumbly pork stuffing, topped with crispy onions and fresh baby spinach.
Which? said it was ‘nicely moist’ and had both a great balance of flavour with a generous filling. The calorie count was the third lowest of those tested at 482. However, the salt level of 2.3g was more than a third of the daily maximum recommended for an adult. The Pret Foundation Trust to help the homeless gets 50p from the sale of each Christmas sandwich.
Second place went to the Marks & Spencer Help Shelter Turkey feast sandwich. It has a slightly higher calorie count at 502 but is similar in terms of fat and salt.
It was the most expensive sandwich, at £4.25 from a Simply Food outlet in central London. Five per cent of the price is given to homelessness charity Shelter.
Turkey, a stuffing made of pork, sage and onion, cranberry chutney, smoked British bacon, mayonnaise and fried onions, is served on malted brown bread. Testers said it was a good ‘meaty’ sandwich that ‘tastes of Christmas’.
The offering with the highest calorie, fat and salt rating was the Tesco Turkey & Trimmings sandwich. This came in joint fourth place, and contains 589 calories. The fat content is 26.2g and there is 2.5g of salt. Some tasters thought the bread a little moist and it did not look great, but they concluded it ‘tastes pretty darn good’.
There was not a huge difference in the scores. Three sandwiches were joint bottom with a score of seven, compared to 8.5 for the best.
Nikki Stopford of Which? said: ‘ Christmas sandwiches have become an important part of the build-up to the festive season, so it was time to add them to our festive tasting calendar.’