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Tesco Free From Pasta Carbonara

By 11:28 , ,

Yesterday was another ready meal day.  I promise I do cook! I will be introducing more recipes to my blog soon, but when I see a new ready meal I like to try them to see what they are like, as they are easily accessible to everyone.


I spotted this on Tesco online but I'm sure you'll be able to find this quite easily in store too. When opening the box I found that the pasta and sauce are in separate containers, I'm not too sure why that was, but it did allow you to choose how much sauce you wanted. I added it all to review the dish as a whole. But I would say there was more than enough sauce to feed two people, which I could do, but for today I added some salad to my plate to eat with the extra.

The retail price is £2.50 which is one of the most inexpensive ready meals I have seen in the free from range,  if you were to share the sauce this would make a cheap dinner for two! Tesco have always seemed to impress me with their free from range and the price they offer these products for.

This dish is a total of 707 calories and 30g of fat. But if you look at the ingredients of this or any other carbonara, this is to be expected as it is mainly cheese, milk and cream! 



I found that the pancetta was lovely smoky flavour but compared to the amount of sauce it wasn't very prominent without eating a piece individually.  The sauce was thick and creamy. I really enjoy a lot of pepper in my carbonara and once I added some it gave it a fantastic lift from what was a slightly bland dish. However I can see why Tesco have done this, as it opens this dish to a wider audience. I am sure many children who are gluten intolerant would not enjoy a peppery taste, and I can always add it!

I found that this dish microwaved very well, the sauce didn't separate and the pasta didn't go rubbery, although like all ready meals gluten free or not, the pasta was a little stuck together, but this doesn't bother me as I think this is to be expected when reheating. I was a little apprehensive when I read you could only microwave this meal but it turned out to work well.

Overall I really enjoyed this dish, although there was too much sauce for my liking and was slightly bland without seasoning. It's safe to say I will buy it again as it has given me some great recipe ideas using the sauce as a base as it has a perfect creaminess. Maybe adding more pepper, some smokey bacon and possibly even some chicken or other ingredients such as veg, which will make a fast dinner or even two by using the pasta in the box and some extra for a second meal, which can either be saved for the next day or shared.

Hannah x

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