A few months ago Tesco partnered with Wicked Kitchen to launch a range of vegan food products including pizzas, ready meals and sandwiches / wraps / salads. Obviously it was great news because being able to go into a supermarket and grab a sandwich when you’re in a rush makes life so much easier. Same goes for grabbing a quick dinner.
I have to say that I haven’t tried any of the sandwiches and wraps, nor have I tried any of the ready meals. The main reason for that being I am still a die hard fan of baguette, houmous and olives so that is always my go to when on the run at lunch and when it comes to ready meals, they just aren’t a cost effective option for us as a family of four and I generally prefer to rustle up a quick pasta meal if I’m in a rush.
I was however interested to try the pizzas because anyone who follows me on Instagram will know that I love pizza! There are two plant-based pizzas in the Wicked Health range, the Caponata and the BBQ Mushroom. I tried the Caponata a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it so yesterday I thought I would grab one of each to save cooking and to take photos of for this blog post.
So neither of these pizzas have cheese on which always makes me feel a bit disappointed, you can read more of my thoughts on cheese-less pizza in my Goodfella’s vegan pizza review. I do like to give cheese-less pizzas the benefit of the doubt first though and try them how they come. When I tried the Caponata a few weeks ago I actually thoroughly enjoyed it without the cheese. I think a big reason for that was because it comes with a sachet of salsa verde which you add after, this stops it from being too dry and makes it taste really good too.
The BBQ Mushroom doesn’t have anything to add afterwards though and as a result I did find it a bit dry. There was a cauliflower sauce on it which I loved the sound of but unfortunately it had dried in by the time it was cooked making it my less favourite of the two.
I did however loved the base, it’s a sourdough base and I thought the BBQ Mushroom one tasted a bit like naan bread which I love. I did find the flavour lacking a bit though and couldn’t really pick up the BBQ flavour.
Then the only other criticism I have it with the size, this is more of an issue for Matt. He can eat a whole one and find that he’s still hungry afterwards. At £4 they are fairly expensive but we both agreed we wouldn’t mind paying that if they were just a big bigger, more like a normal pizza size.
So the overall verdict is that we both preferred the Caponata, it’s got lots of flavour and I love the salsa verde to go on top. I don’t miss cheese with this pizza which is very unusual for me! Would I still add some cheese though? Quite possibly 😉
I feel like a lot of care has gone into choosing the ingredients and trying to make a quality product instead of just something cheap and quickly knocked together. And as a quick grab from a supermarket they are great.
I don’t think I would buy the BBQ Mushroom one again but we both loved the Caponata so will definitely buy that one again. I do read lots of people saying the opposite thing though so guess it’s worth everyone trying them both to see which they prefer! The Caponata has olives on so if you don’t like them then you might want to opt for the other! I think if the BBQ Mushroom one had lots of cheese added before cooking then it would be much better.
The Wicked Kitchen vegan pizzas are both available from Tesco, the BBQ Mushroom and the Caponata. Oh also, they are in the main ready meal aisle, not the veggie section which is where I initially looked for them.
Have you tried them? Which one do you prefer?
