Waitrose 1 Wheat and Rye Sourdough Review

Anyone who’s shopped at Waitrose recently can’t have failed to notice the big push on the new ‘Waitrose 1’ range. This is Waitrose revamping their premium range (as if Waitrose could get any more premium!) and adding a load of new luxury products to this range as well. They’re currently running 25% off all Waitrose 1 products to MyWaitrose card holders so provided me a chance to treat myself to some luxury food.

The Waitrose 1 covers all kind of things from the most decadent treats like Tanzanian Chocolate Ice Cream with blood orange and Chocolate lava cake to wood fired pizza, ready meals you could serve to guests and also premium basic staples like high quality cheeses and bread.

I love a bit of sourdough anyway – it just has so much more flavour than standard bread and I like its dense chewiness. There’s also some claims that sourdough is slightly better for you as it’s given more time to develop but it’s the delicious taste that sells it to me. There are a few sourdoughs in the Waitrose 1 range, both packaged and from the in store bakery.  I bought this wheat and rye sourdough because I also enjoy the dark flavour of rye bread.

The ingredients list is exceptionally clean for this – various flours including rye flour, water and salt and that is literally it. It’s what bread is supposed to be with no sugar, no preservatives and no weird ingredients. I think there is so much bad bread around we just get used to it but this is what real bread should be.

The slices are attractive dark colour , soft and dense with a lovely chewy crust dusted in flavour.  I love the fact that this has come from a larger bit of bread so the slices are different sizes. Some might find this a bit annoying and the larger pieces didn’t fit in my toaster but this didn’t bother me, I just kept rotating them.

I tried the bread in a number of ways – both cold and toasted. Simply cold on from the pack by itself, it’s really nice and the quality and simplicity of the ingredients shines through. A dense, chewy, nutty taste with that sour tang so characteristic of sourdough. The rye flavour also comes through strongly with a really strong punch of that dark flavour you can in Scandinavian breads.

It worked well with tuna and sweetcorn as an open sandwich but frankly this bread is so nice, it seemed a shame to spoil its flavour by smothering it in a topping. I imagine it would go lovely with cream cheese and smoked salmon or even mashed avocado.

Toasted, it’s possibly even nicer but that’s not much to call between the two. Toasted lightly enhances the tanginess and adds a nice bit of crispness and also make it slightly less dense. It’s pretty versatile bread and would also be good toasted with sweet toppings like honey.

The £1.99 price tag is more than your standard cheap supermarket bread but worth every penny. Natural, real , proper bread with bags of flavour.

Price: £1.99

Bought at: Waitrose

Nutrition per slice: 113 calories, 0.4g fat, trace sat fat, 0.5g sugars, 0.39g salt

Score: 8/10