A big thank you to One Treat aka Marmey for alerting me to these new Free From Iced Desserts at Sainsbury's recently! I've reviewed quite a few dairy free desserts now and am always on the lookout for more, I do much prefer dairy free stuff for its lightness in taste so I was looking forward to these!
They're part of Sainsbury's new rebranded free from range, with new packaging and healthier products. They're gluten, dairy and soya free, suitable for vegans and vegetarians... and pretty much everyone! There's three flavours of Iced Desserts, Strawbery, Chocolate & Vanilla, they didn't have the Vanilla ones when I was there so I'm just reviewing Strawberry & Chocolate for now.
The strawberry one is made with water, coconut milk, strawberries, sugar, inulin, coconut cream, dextrose and guar gum.
It had a nice, fresh and fruity flavour, but tasted more like a sorbet than an ice cream. The coconut milk gives it an odd taste that's somewhere in-between creamy and sorbet...it's not bad, in fact it's very light and refreshing, it's just not really ice cream. They haven't billed these as an ice cream alternative, so fair enough. This would go perfectly with some fresh fruit as a light dessert.
The Chocolate Iced Dessert had a similar mixture of coconut milk, water, cocoa powder, inulin etc, with the addition of xylitol as well as sugar.
I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the strawberry variety, the sorbet-like texture doesn't quite work as well with chocolate.
It's still a nice, light and refreshing dessert, with a good cocoa flavour, but again the coconut milk gives it a somewhat odd taste that doesn't quite pair up with the cocoa flavor.
Overall, I feel these new Free From desserts from Sainsburys are a mixed bag. As a creamier version of sorbet they work perfectly, the strawberry one is one I'd enjoy again with fresh fruit, but ice cream alternatives they are not.
These are a good dessert if you're dairy free or vegan, it's always nice to have more alternatives, but to be honest I'll stick to Tesco's Free From iced dessert (review due soon).
7 out of 10.