£50 to spend in M&S food department: any good store cupboard recommendations?

[pattihews]

I've been given a £50 M&S voucher and tomorrow I'm going past a flagship food store. My local M&S food department is small and limited so I thought I'd ask MN's advice.

I'm a good cook and rather than spend the money on ready meals that I can produce myself, I'd prefer to buy some store cupboard items that I can use when I'm short of time or to introduce new flavours and ingredients to my standard repertoire. What would you recommend?

My little local M&S doesn't have half the stuff mentioned here but yes I agree with recommend for the jams, the coffee, and the pasta sauces. I also like their own tomato soup tins, pork pies and burgers.

The curries are decent but cost the same as a take away around here.

Mmmmmm, truffle pesto...

Bed time now, early start. Thanks so much.

Their little jars of n'duja paste are great

I tried their passion star martini pack of 4 frozen sorbets and they’re absolutely gorgeous!

@DrMarciaFieldstone you had me at Cornish cruncher biscuits and black sticks blue

Their ketchup and brown sauce
sweet chilli dipping sauce
Tins of baked beans

.. anything really
all good

The antibacterial moisturising hand wash from the basics range is great and it about £1!

Beans , ketchup , tomato , chicken and mushroom soups (65p) and the cleaning products for £1 are bloody brilliant value too

I think I’d buy as many Percy pigs as I could and call it a day 😂

The tomato and mushroom soups are great value and always good to have in the cupboard.

The tunes steak in gravy and the bolognaise are great for when you need a meal in a hurry.

The ketchup, mayonnaise and salad cream are all way cheaper than Heinz and taste good.

The Neapolitan ice cream is only £2 a tub and is yummy.

The pizza deal is great value for money and can be frozen.

Their tomato pasta sauces are all great too.

*tinned not tubes!

we get a £50 M&S card every xmas along side our bonus. i stock up on meats , portion them and freeze.

Ginger marmalade is absolutely gorgeous.

Flavoured oils; garlic, basil and chilli.

Frozen; shallots, mushrooms, garlic boule.

Their Jaffa cakes are amazing, all the flavours. And the 'share' bags of things like giant buttons and peanut nibbley things.

I really like their bottles of sriracha sauce. I have a few bottles from different places, and none of them match up to the M&S version.

Their rather lovely frozen prawn gyoza-

Pouches of rice (good and cheap too)

Jars of easy garlic, pesto, anchovies,

Biscuits, black olive crackers,

Oh yes and I love the shower spray, smells lovely and much cheaper than the Method one. I forgot to mention the other biscuits (apart from the Florentines) the very chocolately ones, the pistachio ones... well I could go on

I bought tea and coffee: I have M&S Earl Grey anyway, so that will be used in the next few weeks. My usual coffee has changed and isn't the quality it used to be, so I've bought M&S Colombian to try. The range of sauces and salad dressings etc was much larger than in the my local small store, so I have a couple of curry sauces and a hollandaise and a couple of other things I can't remember at the moment. There were Williams pears, which are my favourite but difficult to find, and a couple of their salad pots — because I can't be bothered to chop up small amounts of fresh veg for myself. I also bought triple-cooked frozen chips, prawn curries, ginger marmalade and antibacterial hand wash, because we've just reached the end of our lockdown stash. Ketchup, beans, gelato, miso sauce, the fruited loaf and some posh salted butter to eat with it (fantastic). There were other things that I can't recall, including a couple of cheeses. The bill came to £70 but it was fun and I'll look forward to trying some new things in the coming week. I was surprised by how reasonably priced the basics were and wouldn't have bought them without recommendations from MNetters. The ketchup is good, isn't it? I'll never pay Heinz prices again. Thank you.

@pattihews some nice choices there- I love the ginger marmalade and their triple cooked chips (not together)! And yes a lot of the basics are really well priced for good quality. As there are only 2 of us I do nearly all my shop there !! And I spend way less than many others on here too

My DH was a diehard Heinz ketchup fan but at a £1 he gave the M&S one a try and now won’t even entertain Heinz. He also really rates their mayo and brown sauce, they are all so reasonable in comparison to other brands.

I agree with you, it had a reputation for its prices but there are actually some very reasonable good quality things there. The fruit is always amazing and no dearer than my local market but better quality

Katsu curry sauce. You need to add coconut mil and a chopped onion but it is lovely.

Yes, I've got the Katsu curry sauce!

I nip into our little M&S occasionally for Earl Grey tea (it really is good) and have picked up fruit and veg (wincing at some of the prices) which is good quality. I used to pick up the occasional ready meal, but I find a lot of their savoury stuff is over-seasoned for me and the sweet stuff is too sweet. I can usually do better at home. I never really looked much at the store cupboard groceries and assumed they'd be as expensive as the fruit and veg and ready meals. Interesting to find that there are bargains. Heinz and Hellmans can go hang.