I regularly make cottage pie for my family and so I bought a couple of packets of the Colman's Cottage Pie Sauce Mix to try out. I have used other Colman's mixes before and on the whole I've always been impressed by them and they add a little bit extra for really minimal effort. A packet of the Colman's Cottage Pie Sauce Mix currently costs 89p from Tesco - which I kind of feel is a little on the expensive side for a product of this type as many of the mixtures were a lot cheaper than this. I'm not sure what makes this one more expensive because it doesn't stand out as anything worthy of costing more - but there you have it. Full instructions on how to use the dried mixture come on the packet, as well as a full list of ingredients.

Using this mixture is easy. The sauce mix is dried and so it needs to be rehydrated before it can be used and so this is done by adding the mixture to cold water and then stirring it in. It then needs to be slowly warmed and then this can be added to browned mince, onions, carrots, peas and garlic. Initially it looks like there is loads of sauce and it looks quite runny, but as the sauce is left to simmer and meld, it then reduces down and becomes much thicker and richer. What is nice about this mix is that it coats all of the ingredients and binds them together nicely. I would usually simmer it together for about 20 minutes and then put it in the oven topped with mashed potato as usual.

The end result is actually really quite good. It tastes fresh and there is nothing synthetic tasting about it. It's nice and thick and has a subtle flavour of tomato and meat juices which is just really moorish. It is possible to make your own sauce like this without much effort needed, but no doubt this is easier and so why make work for yourself!

Overall, I recommend this because it's tasty and it just makes things very easy!