Kanpur Garden Deluxe Madras Cooking Sauce

I'm not a massive Lidl or Aldi shopper but every now and then make a little trip to them for a change and am usually pleasantly surprised by a couple of items and this madras cooking sauce from Lidl was another winner.

This was bought at an absolute steal of just 64p as part of a half price weekend offer to coincide with their Asian week but even at £1.29 it would still be a bargain for something that creates a fairly authentic curry in your own home.

I usually don't even buy curry sauces or even Indian ready meals as they're never as good as a proper takeaway. Of course, I would still choose a takeaway over this for a really great Madras but this really is very, very good and puts all other ready sauces to shame. As well as the jar of sauce, there's a pouch of dry powder for extra flavour. You cook your meat or veg in is first and then add the sauce and simmer. This packs in so much flavour and is a lot tastier, quicker and easier than trying to make an Indian from scratch.

And unusually it's got a decent bite for a little bit of lip tingling chilli heat. It's no vindaloo but it is pretty spicy (this jar has a 3 chilli rating but there's are more milder curries in the range too).

I made a simple sweet potato, cauliflower, pepper and lentil Madras and it was so simple but more importantly utterly delicious. It was nearly as good as a real takeaway but ridiculously cheap. I would 100% buy this again.

Two minor setbacks is that it's fairly high in salt and sugar (although arguably less so than a takeaway) and trying to get the snice mix out of the top is a nightmare. Lidl need to sort this out as it was ridiculous how difficult this was and I ended up having to use a chef's knife.

Bar this toil, the curry was super easy and as said will probably become a regular go too.

Score: 8.5/10