As the festive season approaches, the quest for the perfect Christmas cheeseboard accompaniment begins. To save you from a culinary pickle, our resident food tester has undertaken the delicious task of sampling ten popular supermarket chutneys, rating them for flavour, texture, and value.
The Verdict: A Surprising Success
Unlike many food tastings, this was a pure joy. The reviewer found that chutney, a heritage recipe largely unchanged for a century, is a product where even industrial-scale versions excel. The formula is simple: typically just fruit, sugar, and vinegar, with sugar acting as the primary preservative, making artificial additives largely unnecessary.
Almost all the products sampled scored highly, making it genuinely difficult to pick a winner. However, a significant black hole was noted regarding provenance and sustainability. Most brands provided almost zero information about ingredient origins or growing practices. A notable exception was Tracklements, which stands out with its B Corp status and clear sustainability commitments.
The Top Picks
After extensive dipping, spreading, and dolloping, two chutneys rose to the top for different reasons.
Best Overall: Tesco Finest Spiced Apple & Pear Chutney
Priced at £1.85 for 220g (84p per 100g), this offering was awarded four stars. It's an apple-forward chutney with a rich, orange-brown colour, balanced by warm spices like cinnamon and ginger. Sweetened with sultanas and treacle, it has a smooth yet rough fruit purée texture. The reviewer found it delicious with roast pork, ham, and strong cheese, declaring it well-balanced, versatile, and offering very good value.
Best Bargain: Mrs HS Balls Original Recipe Chutney
This South African chutney, made from peaches and apricots, offers excellent value at roughly half the price of most competitors. Costing £2.35 for 470g (50p per 100g), it is sweet and tangy with subtle spicing and a mild chilli kick. It's saucy with soft fruit chunks and pairs well with cold meats, cheese, or curry. A note of caution: it contains artificial colouring E150d, which the Yuka app flags as a potential concern. It received three stars.
The Honourable Mentions
The tasting panel also highlighted several other exceptional chutneys that deserve a place on your festive table.
Tracklements Apple & Cider Brandy Chutney was the only product to receive a perfect five-star rating. It smells homemade and boasts a sweet, tart, fruity flavour from Bramley apples, muscovado sugar, sultanas, and onions. It's gently spiced and has a rich, boozy depth from cider brandy. It's very thick with whole sultanas and is perfect with roast pork, ham, cheddar, or paté. It's described as simple, well-crafted, and excellent.
Morrisons The Best Beer-Braised Chutney (£1.50 for 200g) earned four stars for being sweet, rich, and very tangy. It has a distinct flavour from Black Sheep ale and is excellent with a ploughman's lunch, pork pie, or cheese.
Asda Extra Special Caramelised Onion Chutney (£2.42 for 320g) was praised for its wonderfully complex layers of flavour, lifted by white-wine and balsamic vinegars. It's extra thick and saucy, making it good with burgers, hotdogs, or baked camembert.
Other high-scoring contenders included Waitrose Rhubarb, Apple & Ginger Chutney (great with festive poultry), Co-op Irresistible Caramelised Red Onion Chutney (perfect for cheese toasties), Tiptree Hot Gooseberry Chutney (fizzes on the tongue with a spicy aftertaste), and The Bay Tree Cheeseboard Chutney (a complex, high-fruit-content option).
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Apple & Pear Chutney rounded out the list with three stars. While it was well-spiced and decent value, the reviewer felt the fruit was a bit undercooked or 'al dente', preferring a more cooked-through texture.
