Cracked Crusts and Gravy Boats: The Great Nottingham Nut Roast League Table for Christmas 2026
Photo: sliced Christmas nut roast with gravy on a festive plate, roast vegetables and cranberry sauce, via toycra.com
Nut roast has spent decades as the punchline of the Christmas table. Too dry, too worthy, too much like a savoury loofah. But walk through Nottingham’s supermarkets this Christmas and the shelves tell a different story. There are chestnut versions, hazelnut versions, mushroom-packed versions, cranberry-studded versions and at least one that looks suspiciously like a giant stuffing ball in a foil tray.
So we did the sensible thing: bought a trolley’s worth, cooked them all to the letter, made one big jug of gravy and ate our way through the lot. This is not a scientific study. It is a nut roast audit, conducted in a Nottingham kitchen with a sharp knife, a stack of plates and a growing suspicion that gravy-holding ability is the only personality trait that really matters.
How we scored them
Each roast was judged out of 20 across four categories. Nuttiness asked whether we could actually taste nuts, rather than just breadcrumbs with a nice font. Texture covered sliceability, moisture and whether the thing held together without turning to rubble. Gravy-holding was exactly what it sounds like: does the roast welcome gravy, or does it stand there repelling it like a soggy umbrella? Value took in price per serving and whether we could find it without a tour of every retail park in Nottingham.
We cooked everything according to the packet, used the same mushroom gravy across the board, and resisted the urge to bury the lower scorers under cranberry sauce. Mostly.
The 2026 league table
| Rank | Nut roast | Where we found it | Score | The short version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | M&S Collection Chestnut & Cranberry Nut Roast | M&S, city centre and retail parks | 17/20 | Properly nutty, neat slices, very good gravy manners. |
| 2 | Waitrose & Partners Mushroom & Hazelnut Nut Roast | Waitrose, Wollaton | 16/20 | Savoury and deeply mushroomy, with a pleasing coarse crumb. |
| 3 | Aldi Specially Selected Nut Roast with Cranberry | Aldi, various Nottingham stores | 15/20 | Best value of the lot and far better than the price suggests. |
| 4 | Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Nut Roast | Sainsbury’s, city and suburbs | 14.5/20 | Reliable, tidy and nicely seasoned, if a touch polite. |
| 5 | Tesco Finest Butternut & Cashew Nut Roast | Tesco, various Nottingham stores | 13.5/20 | Sweet squash gives it charm, but the cashews go quiet. |
| 6 | Morrisons The Best Nut Roast | Morrisons, various Nottingham stores | 12.5/20 | Decent flavour, slightly crumbly slice, needs gravy quickly. |
| 7 | Lidl Deluxe Nut Roast | Lidl, various Nottingham stores | 11.5/20 | Fine in a sandwich, less fine as the centrepiece. |
| 8 | Asda Extra Special Nut Roast | Asda, various Nottingham stores | 10.5/20 | The dreaded sawdust edge. Cranberry sauce can only do so much. |
The top two are genuinely good eating, not just good-for-a-nut-roast. The M&S version has that dark, chestnutty depth you want next to roast potatoes, and it slices cleanly enough to satisfy the most anxious carver at the table. Waitrose runs it close with a looser, more savoury texture that soaks up gravy like a sponge in a good way. Aldi is the one to grab if you are feeding a crowd and still want money left for the cheese board.
At the bottom, the problem is rarely flavour. It is texture. Several roasts tasted fine on the fork but collapsed into damp crumbs on the plate. That is not a Christmas centrepiece; that is a stuffing that has lost its nerve.
The extras worth buying
A nut roast does not live by itself. The supporting cast matters. A jar of good cranberry sauce is non-negotiable, and Delilah Fine Foods in Nottingham is a reliable stop for something sharper and less sweet than the supermarket standard. A proper cob or sourdough loaf from Tough Mary’s Bakehouse gives you something to mop up the gravy, and a small tub of chestnut stuffing from a good deli counter can turn a mid-table roast into something that feels homemade.
Tins are your friend here, too. Chestnut purée can rescue a bland roast when stirred through with fried onion and thyme. A tin of green lentils adds body without turning the whole thing into a health lecture. And if you are buying gravy granules, please make them up with a splash of redcurrant jelly or a spoon of mustard. It is Christmas. Let the gravy have a personality.
A plea to Nottingham’s independent bakers
Here is the thing: Nottingham has excellent bakeries, delis and small food producers. We can buy beautiful bread, serious pastries and more brownies than any city strictly needs. So why is the supermarket nut roast still doing so much of the heavy lifting?
A local baker could make a proper one: coarse hazelnut and mushroom, chestnut and sage, maybe a walnut and cranberry version with a decent crust. Sell it in a small tin, include a little pot of gravy, and watch it vanish from the counter. The demand is clearly there. We have just spent a fortnight proving it with our own trolley.
Until then, the league table stands. Buy the top two if you can find them, keep a jug of gravy close at hand, and do not let anyone tell you the nut roast has to be the dull option. This Christmas, in Nottingham, it might just be the most argued-over thing on the table for the right reasons.
