Asda essentials range ...What is good?

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Thought we could share what is good and what isn't to avoid others wasting money!
So far I have tried...

Fishcakes - not great
Salted peanuts - wayyyy to salted.
crisp - quite nice
tiny potato balls - very nice
Fishfingers - edible
Garlic baguette - nice

Anything you would or wouldn't recommend?

Tried the frozen "Bean and cheese" bakes today. 4 for £1. Did them in the air fryer. Handy for DC lunch!

Good things:
Bacon
£2 steaks
Little mini roll cakes
Cookies
Yule log

Yuk:
The frozen chicken breasts - rubbery and just utterly inedible. Never again.
Battered fish - no flavour and a bit wet

Their frozen strawberry cheesecake. 68p. So there goes the flipping diet again. 😋

My kids (under 5 so not most refined of palettes) like the frozen pizza.

The frozen chicken breasts are okay.

Apples and pears have always been good.

The steak was very good, I used it for a stew

Frozen mixed veg been good for the kids

Ds likes the fairy cakes with the coloured icing - I think they were 12 for less than £1.

Just done a big shop and the vast majority was Asda essential. Basically the trolley was a sea of yellow 😂 some things we've tried before some things we haven't. Can't believe how cheap things are. For the following list below it was just over £20!

Mini ham and cheese pizza 49p
Cooking bacon 1.35
Ready grated cheese 2.40 massive bag
Fresh orange juice 69p
Frozen cheese pizza 66p
Frozen potato balls 72p
Frozen chicken nuggets 85p usually pay around£3 (same amount of chicken as branded ones)
Frozen fish fingers again same amount of fish as branded. 69p usually pay £3.
Frozen Yorkshire's 50p

Diet cola 20p

Pasta 35p
Spaghetti 23p
Chocolate spread 97p
Cookies 39p
Crisp 82p
6 pack yogurt 79p
12 pack kids yogurt 88p
Chocolate mousse 72p
Trifles 99p

Kidney beans 33p
Sweetcorn 38p

Pork mince £2.35

Plums 75p
Apples 65p
4 avocados £1.35

It's a good list but I would be interested to know what meals you are planning from that as there don't seem to be many meal ingredients?

Sorry I wasn't clear it was a top up shop to go with things we already have in.

Here are some ideas...

Pork mince and kidney beans will be turned into tacos (already have taco shells and seasonings) could also be chilli.

Spaghetti and bacon will be carbonara, already have eggs and parmesan.

Fruit, yogurts crisps and cheese are for DC lunchboxes / weekend lunches

Frozen pizza / chicken nuggets/ fish fingers/ potato balls and sweetcorn will be an easy tea one night.

Yorkshire's will either go with sausages that we already have for a deconstructed toad in the hole or will be an accomplishment to a roast.

Was going to do an online Asda shop (normally prefer tescos but there deliveries have been all over the place recently) but all the products had awful reviews makes me wonder who is actually raving about them as the online reviews tell a different story

An that makes sense @Decafflatteplease sorry for the misunderstanding!

I don’t know if they still do it ( still using up my bulk buy) but their own brand cocoa is supreme - it outranks any premium brand over ever treated myself to.

My kids can’t tell the difference between the essential range Nutella and the branded one. Same with peanut butter.
I used the lasagne sheets and garlic bread last night and had no complaint either

@SpinningFloppa I’m a bit confused by that as most things are showing up as 4 stars when I look on the app.

DH & Teens tried the cheesecake the other day and said it was quite nice, although the strawberry syrup is a little sweet. Not dinner party worthy (68p!) but would be happy to have again.
We’ve got the Yule log to try this week, the fruit ice lollies and the chocolate caramel wafers.

Probably doesn't fit very well with the cost saving meme, but I like the 21 day aged Ashfields sirloin steak (200g) from Aldi at the moment. £3.50 I believe.

I would say in the air fryer it is pretty much as good as a steak you would get eating out at a mid range eatery (£15). Probably not as quite good as you would get at Miller and Carter. But pretty decent all the same.

Digestive chocolate bars are amazing. I'm getting through a huge pack myself easy

Spaghetti
Big block of mature cheddar
Fromage frais

Rice pudding is nice if you add a tiny bit of nutmeg or cinnamon

The sausages are going down very well here. They’re a lot like chip shop sausages in terms of taste. Not herby butchery type.

soap powder at £2.30....good
fish fingers at 69p...good
vile...crisps....yuk...cardboard taste..
chap on youtube reviews all this range...bald head chef..??...a name like this...he buys 3 or 4 same items from diff shops inc the asda range....apparently the coffe is not bad but i cant drink cheap tea or coffee so wont be trying those.!..most of the range seems to get good reviews.

What we have tried that we liked..

Frozen cheese and tomato pizza
garlic bread (but we got smart price anyway before)
jam
Chunky chicken
low fat yogurts
Yorkshire puds

What we didn't like..

Sausages , tasteless, pink, flabby and flaccid

Really want to try the potato pops but never in stock

Yule log was ‘quite nice’. Teens ate it fast enough anyway.
The garlic bread has become a weekly purchase.
They decided that the potato pops tasted like potato smiles, haven’t managed to get any more though.
Not yet tried the rice pudding.

They didn’t like the smart price custard when we tried that, has anyone tried the essentials custard and can confirm it’s just the same or is it different, so worth trying?

I’m not liking the chocolate spread. I can’t really taste chocolate or hazelnuts, it’s just sugar.

Just tried the fish cakes tonight.
They were lovely cooked in air fryer

The rice pudding is ok, it’s not particularly creamy, but it’s nice on a cold day.

Tomato soup is nice and tastes like any other tomato soup

We tried the instant custard powder 19p tonight,

It was ok, it was a little powdery, but tasted nice.