These certainly aren't good Value! (Tesco Cheese & Onion Loaded Potato Skins)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Tesco Cheese & Onion Loaded Potato Skins
Date:	07/04/09 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None whatsoever!

Disadvantages: Greasy, taste vile, a lot of fat, they don't look appetising

In Tesco recently I sent my granddaughter to the chillers to pick something for us to munch on while we watched a film that night, amongst the arm full of goodies she came back with was this packet of Loaded Potato Skins from the Tesco range. At £3.29 they are possibly one of the most expensive products in the range but considering the price I paid for a similar product in the Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range at Christmas this is still very good value for money considering there are twelve skins in here and not the usual eight.

Please note, the box is incorrect above. The potato skins I bought came in the typical Tesco Value blue and white packaging which really does look awful in this instance because there is a photograph of some vile, burned looking potato skins.

I cooked them for around 25 minutes and was dismayed at the amount of fat which poured out, obviously I had been expecting some grease because of the cheese topping but what I hadn't realised was that the potato skins themselves are actually fried and the grease was coming not only from the topping but also through the actual skin. I thought this would be fine if I blotted the skins on kitchen paper after cooking so didn't worry too much about it.

The skins I thought were quite flat looking, a couple of them had burst too and those looked absolutely awful although my granddaughter made light work of munching those while I was putting the rest on a plate. I must say they don't look terribly appetising, the whole thing is very flat and the cheese has become rather tacky looking with a layer of oil on the top. I unsuccessfully tried blotting the tops with kitchen roll but soon gave up when I realised bits of paper were actually sticking to the cheese.

I ate half a skin and almost threw up, honestly. They are extremely salty and greasy which results in a stodgy and not at all enjoyable snack, the small amount of flesh left in the potato has soaked up a lot of oil and when I bit into it I could literally feel the liquid oil in my mouth. The cheese is extremely synthetic tasting and hasn't really taken on much of the flavour of either the onion or the chives, which is unbelievable really considering what strong flavours these two ingredients have. To be fair I could taste the onion but it had a sweet aftertaste which wasn't pleasant, the flavour of the onion was almost fried which I am not fond of although thinking about how much grease is in these skins I'm not surprised it has taken on a fried aroma and taste.

The skins are exceedingly chewy, the actual skin of the potato being ridiculously so. My granddaughter has an aversion to getting grease on her hands and she used a knife and fork to eat hers, in the end I needed to give her a steak knife as the blunter knife just wouldn't cut through the skin effectively. As they cool this gets worse too and the final three skins had to be thrown away as the girls' had left them to go completely cold and by then they were too hard and grizzled looking to contemplate eating.

I shall never in a million years buy these again, even if they were considerably cheaper I wouldn't put them in my trolley. I'm a fool to spend over £3 on something like this anyway as I could have made my own for a fraction of the price; they would have been healthier and tastier too!

Surprisingly each skin contains just 53 calories, although a fat content of 2.3g in such a small skin is to be expected from the huge quantities of oil that poured out of them both during cooking and afterwards.

Summary: Don't bother, either make your own or buy a better brand.