WHAT do you reach for to go with your bacon bap – brown sauce or ketchup?
A study found 64 per cent of us pick the former.
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It is traditionally peppery and tart, made with tomato and maybe tamarind, apple, dates and molasses.
And it need not be Daddies or HP, there are many brands, including supermarkets’ own.
Laura Stott tried some and gives marks out of five.
HP Sauce 285g, £1.80, tesco.com
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OLD favourite has the flavour and smell most of us think of when craving a dollop of the dark stuff.
Tomatoey, tangy, tart, mellow and beautifully balanced with dates for sweetness and a peppery, tamarind hit. Lovely consistency and flavour.
No complaints from me on taste, but the price for such a small bottle is eye-watering.
Rating: 3/5
Brown Sauce 450g, 95p, sainsburys.co.uk
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WELL-priced but quite oozy so do handle with care.
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Stronger vinegar smell than some others, but was very sweet and fruity. Not much tomato taste here but garlic, all-spice and cloves give depth.
Quite different to market leader HP, but if you don’t mind a bit of a change it’s not too bad.
Good with cheese as a pickle swap.
Rating: 3/5
Batts Brown Sauce 450g, 75p, Lidl in stores
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BARGAIN. But while you’ll save some cash, the taste might not set your Full English alight.
Quite runny, and I found it rather bland and quite bitter as an accompaniment to a fried egg.
The overriding flavour is one of sweetness but there’s also a strange, salty aftertaste which I didn’t much love.
Wouldn’t be my first pick.
Rating: 2/5
Bramwells Brown Sauce 455g, 75p Aldi in stores
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GOOD amount of condiment for your cash, with a slightly bigger bottle and very low price.
Taste of this extremely dark brown treat was excellent, too. Mustard and dates give it a natural instead of artificial sweetness.
Great balance of tangy, peppery and mellow when you dip.
Nice consistency, not too gloopy or thin. A triumph.
Rating: 5/5
Brown Sauce 475g, £1, M&S in stores
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VALUE cupboard staple from M&S which doesn’t cost much more than rival supermarkets and gave the most sauce for your money, with a big 475g bottle.
Good quality, as you’d expect from M&S, with a sweet, fruity flavour and a dash of soy to balance that out with tang and salt.
Rather runny but great drizzled in a sausage sarnie.
Rating: 4/5
Hubbard’s Brown Sauce 450g, 74p, Sainsburys.co.uk
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GREAT value from Sainsbury’s. It matches the discount supermarkets on price and the taste isn’t bad.
Fruity and piquant but quite runny, so easy to waste if you squeeze the bottle too hard.
Sweet compared to others, perhaps unsurprising because it contains caramel.
But does the job on taste and will keep help keep the shopping bill down.
Rating: 3/5
Daddies Brown Sauce 400g, £2, tesco.com
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A PREMIUM brand, with a higher price for a smaller bottle.
Quite runny and, although it’s full of flavour and very piquant, there’s lots of sweetness and not much fruity tang.
Whiffy aroma was overpowering, which put me off my fried egg.
I wouldn’t pay the steep price for this when there’s cheaper, more palatable own-brand buys.
Rating: 1/5
Asda Brown Sauce 460g, 90p asda.com
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MUDDY brown-looking, this contains much more tomato than other buys.
Similar to HP but I was undecided about the taste, which started off sweet and pleasant before delivering an odd, rather acrid aftertaste.
Probably closer as a match to ketchup. Interesting and zesty, but this one won’t be to everyone’s taste.
Rating: 2/5
