Sage & Onion Stuffing Review, Kania at Lidl

I love stuffing, indeed, at home we’d often have 3-4 flavours of stuffing on the Christmas Dinner table!  In the main though I’ll typically buy cheap supermarket own brand packs of stuffing mix as they’re “good enough”.  At Christmas I seem to mull over the Christmas stuffings and end up not bothering though… I suffer from indecision until it’s too late 🙂  I’m not keen on sage and onion stuffing, to be honest, but that’s the flavour of cheap supermarket own brands, so it’s what I tend to buy in the main.  I prefer a good parsley & thyme stuffing mix – but choice comes with additional cost, so I will only buy “a special stuffing” if I feel I need a treat or can justify the extra spend.

I thought, therefore, I’d try out the own brand stuffing mix at Lidl, under the Kania brand name – not expecting it to be any different from any other supermarket stuffing mix and feeling pleased that Lidl sold this “cheap stuffing” as it’s instantly obtainable with Lidl being my closest shop.

• Weight 170 grams: This box contains 170 grams of stuffing mix – that’s double my usual packet size – and a pack costs 34p.  I made it up as usual, using boiling water and a knob of butter, then letting it stand.  I then microwaved the stuffing for 30 seconds or so just before serving to make sure it was still hot as it had been sitting around – I add the water to the stuffing mix as the first thing to do when I use it, to give it the longest time possible to soak up the water.
• Serves 12: I don’t think so!  I poured out the stuffing mix for one portion by eye – and my own personal portion weighed 32 grams.  So this 170 gram pack would make just 5 or so portions.  If this serves 12 then it means it expects you to make 12 small stuffing balls from the mix and have 1 stuffing ball each.  Nah…. that would never happen for me!  If serving this to stuffing lovers who like generous portions then I’d prefer to suggest one pack serves 4 GOOD sized portions of stuffing.

How to Cook Stuffing Mix: 

The box tells you how to “cook it properly”, but I only do my stuffing “properly” on Christmas Day as a rule 🙂  Officially, you’re supposed to:

Preheat the oven to 220C, empty the contents of the whole box into a bowl and mix with 520ml boiling water and a knob of butter.  Stir well and stand for 5 minutes. Place the mix in a greased dish and put into the oven to cook for 25-30 minutes, or roll into balls and cook on a greased baking tray for 20-25 minutes.

Ingredients: 

This stuffing mix is suitable for vegetarians and contains 74% rusk, 15% dried onion, palm oil, 1½% dried sage, 1% dried parsley, rice flour, sunflower oil, barley and malt extract powder.

I suspect the high quantity of rusk is what I wasn’t enjoying, although I’ve not checked other packets of stuffing I eat, but I will check that.

So how was it?  Well, I was quite disappointed.  This stuffing mix from Lidl is pretty tasteless.  Now – it is possible that the reason for this is that I just poured my portion from the top of the pack – I was only making up “enough for me” – and I didn’t shake the packet first.  It is possible, therefore, that all the flavour had fallen to the bottom of the pack.  I’ll report back next time I eat this as I do still have to eat the rest of this packet in 5-6 more meals.

I had planned on this being my Christmas dinner stuffing – but not now.  It’s made me ponder, again, whether I should get a special Christmas stuffing this year or not.

Overall Review: 

Tasteless and with an unexpected texture (must be that rusk!).  Beef it up with additional flavourings if you’re going to use this in its own right.  Use it as a base for your own easy nut roast, or use it to top savoury crumbles.  In itself it lacks any flavour at all.  Might as well have eaten the box.   I’ll give it a 3/10 because it wasn’t nasty and it was edible, it just wasn’t something to tell other people about!  Don’t serve this stuffing to “something special/somebody who matters”.