A bland and tasteless potato salad (Asda Smart Price Potato Salad)

Member Name: pink_glitter

Product:	Asda Smart Price Potato Salad
Date:	08/05/09 (90 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Just about edible

Disadvantages: potato too hard, mayonnaise tasteless, lid of pot doesn't seal back up

I was actually looking for some sort of dip when I came across ASDA Smart Price's Potato Salad. I've been buying a lot of budget brands and find them to be hit and miss, and although this wasn't really what I had wanted, it only cost 28p a tub, and at that price I thought it would be worth a try.

The product is simply chunks of cooked potato in a mayonnaise dressing and can be found in the chiller section. It comes in a clear tub which has the very basic green smart price logo on it. The most annoying thing for me about the packaging is that it has a peel off lid. I think it would be much better if it had a plastic lid so that it could be sealed back up, although of course this may push the price up slightly. Living on my own, I'm never going to get through a 250g pot in one sitting, and although it can be put back in the fridge (as it is OK if consumed within three days of opening) I have to transfer it to a Tupperware pot as I'm not satisfied it would stay fresh if I just replaced the lid.

Anyway, enough rambling about the packaging and on to the important part - the contents! Well when I opened the salad I can't say it looked too appetising - in fact, it simply looked boring. This has small cubes of white diced potato, all of a uniform size, with a white, very thin and runny looking mayonnaise covering it. There didn't look to be a huge amount of the mayonnaise dressing, but there was enough so that all of the potato was covered.

Although the potato is cooked, I still found it to be quite hard. It's as though perhaps it has only been par-boiled. I prefer my potato to be a little softer than this, but still it was something I can live could put up with. The mayonnaise dressing was a real disappointment though. As well as mayonnaise it also contains spirit vinegar. I think that perhaps that is what I can taste, as there is a very sharp tanginess to the mayonnaise, however it is otherwise lacking in any real flavour. The overall taste is simply bland and boring, and I felt that if the mayonnaise had been creamier it would have made a huge difference.

I'm not entirely sure what you're supposed to serve this with, but I added a tablespoon full to my lunchtime salad, and also tried adding a small spoon full to a pitta bread filled with salad instead of adding a mayonnaise or dressing to it and both ways were fine.

Nutritional Information (Per Pot):

259 calories
2g protein
34g carbohydrate
12.8g fat

As I'm sure you can tell I wasn't overly impressed with this. It was OK, and I still managed to eat the majority of the pot over the course of a couple of days, however I don't think I will be buying it again. Unlike some other products I have tried in the ASDA smart price range, with this one you can really tell why it's cheap! I think it would really benefit from a softer (or just longer cooked) potato and a thicker, creamier dressing. One to avoid, I think!

Summary: not for me