I picked up a jar of Lidl Batts HOT Chilli Con Carne Sauce earlier for the slow cooker – I just put it in the cupboard to use at some point in the future when I just want to get something going in the slow cooker without any effort, time, or mess. When I get round to using it I’ll let you know!
I love to eat, I am not keen on cooking. But, we do all need to eat, so this jar was for when I wanted to make a hot meal easily. I’m one of those “Can Cook, Won’t Cook” types!
Buying jars of cooking sauces is new to me, in the past I’ve always just made my own sauces from scratch because it seemed cheaper, but with this jar at just £0.69 I was taken by a sudden “what if….” moment and grabbed it. 
My early experiences of tins/jars of cooking sauces was in the 1970s and they were truly awful, so I’ve not bothered with them since. But this is the year when I do try out modern jars of sauce to see if they’re any good.
I do like my chilli hot, so deliberately chose the hot jar.
Some people will make out you’re the Devil himself for using a jar of sauce. But they’re not comparing like for like! In my world of avoiding cooking, the choices are to buy a ready meal for one, or to eat toast. So a jar trumps both of those.
This jar of sauce will make four good chilli portions at a cost of about £0.60/portion, plus about £0.10 for the rice I put with it, making that a saving of about £0.80 over, say, just picking up a ready meal for one chilli con carne and rice at Lidl!
Viewed like this, a slow cooker really does pay for itself!
So, is the Batts Hot Chilli Con Carne Cooking Sauce at Lidl nutritionally good? I’ve absolutely no idea. I’m not a chest-beater about nutrition and that old mantra “eating healthily”, a lot of those people are just fooling themselves, as the ever-changing viewpoints printed in newspapers will let them know when they discover, shock, horror, that their “healthy” smoothies are full of sugar.
I eat what I like, when I like, made how I like. It’s food. It’s tasty. I just keep an eye on calories, mostly.
For those who are interested, here’s the data from the labels:
Batts Cooking Sauces Ingredients, Chilli con Carne:
Tomatoes 40%, Red Kidney Beans 10%, Mixed Peppers 7%, Tomato Puree 5%, Onion 5%, then a whole list of other stuff.
Now, I’m no expert, but there’s nothing particular scarey there to me. I can understand most of the ingredients!
Batts Chilli Con Carne Sauce Nutrition. The jar’s 500grams:
So, in my simple world of calories, I just see that the WHOLE jar is 284 calories. That’s just 70 calories/meal.
Very appealing 🙂