Wendyl wants to know: Meat and herb bonus in ready-to-eat gravy

Colman's Instant Beef Gravy. $4.99 for 130g.

Colman's Instant Beef Gravy. $4.99 for 130g.

This is a new product on the market which takes the instant gravy concept and puts it in a tube. Initially I thought this looked like yet another concoction of chemicals to make us think we are eating gravy, but on closer inspection it wasn't too bad.

Ingredients

• Potato starch - This will act in this concentrate as a thickener, just as cornflour or flour does in the gravy you make at home.

• Beef stock - (25%) (water, beef extract)

Nice to see some real beef in here at such a high percentage. Many beef soups or stocks in packets have very little or no real beef in them.

• Salt - This is a high salt product with 324mg of salt per 62ml serving.

• Sugar - Not too much sugar at 0.6g per serving.

• Flavourings - These will be artificial. It does say on the label "no artificial flavour enhancers" but on closer inspection of the small print this simply means that there is no MSG in this product.

• Yeast extract - This is similar to Marmite and will be in here to provide a meaty flavour.

• Vegetable oil - Not sure what oil is used in here.

• Barley malt extract - This will be in here for flavouring.

• Beef fat - (1%) (beef fat, rosemary extract)

Nice to see real beef fat in here and some natural rosemary.

• Onion juice concentrate - This will be in here for flavouring.

• Thickener (xanthan gum) - The xanthan gum is a natural product to keep the sauce thick.

• White pepper

My recommendations

It really is very easy to make your own gravy using the scrapings left over from your roast with some water or stock and flour to thicken. But I do realise that some people like to have gravy on other things like sausage and mash or noodles.

The only thing I'm not keen on is the artificial flavour but the rest is pretty good and far preferable in terms of real food to some of the instant gravy sachets which have additives like artificial colours, preservatives and MSG. My husband used a squirt of this to perk up some savoury mince and it really did the trick.

Highlights

• Contains 25% beef stock.

• No artificial colours, preservatives or MSG.

• Does contain artificial flavour.

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