Six Supermarkets, One Microwave: The Blind Egg Fried Rice Taste Test Nobody Asked For (But Absolutely Needed)

Somewhere between the Tuesday night takeaway craving and the sad glance at an empty fridge, most of us have grabbed a supermarket own-brand egg fried rice. It sits in the chilled aisle looking hopeful, promising 'authentic flavour' and 'fluffy egg-fried grains' for about £2. We've all been burned before. But has anyone actually sat down and worked out which one deserves your microwave minutes?

No. Nobody had. So we did. Six packets, six supermarkets, one very full compost bin of failed hopes.

The Rules of the Sweep

Everything was cooked strictly per packet instructions — no doctoring, no sneaky extra soy, no frying it off in a pan to rescue it (tempting, and we'll come back to that). Each portion was decanted into an identical bowl, coded A to F, and tasted blind by three people of varying fried rice opinions, from 'it's just rice, calm down' to our editor, who once wrote 900 words on wok hei.

We scored each one out of ten on four criteria:

• Wok hei illusion — does it taste like anything happened over actual fire, or like rice that's merely met a warm room?
• Egg ratio — too little and it's just yellow rice; too much and it's a scramble with a rice problem.
• Sogginess — the cardinal sin. Clumped, steamed-tasting rice is where dreams go to die.
• Seasoning — salt, a whisper of white pepper, maybe a trace of sesame. Or, in several cases, none of the above.

The line-up: Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, M&S, Aldi and Waitrose, covering both chilled and frozen versions where available. Yes, we know this is not how anyone in Guangzhou eats fried rice. That is rather the point of the exercise.

The Results, Dish by Dish

The Soggy Contingent. Two entries arrived at the table already defeated — wet, clumped grains that tasted of the microwave more than anything else. One of them, from a mid-tier own-brand range, had the texture of porridge that had been shown a photo of fried rice. The egg was present but anonymous, folded in so finely it may as well have been a rumour. Both scored in the threes. We said some unkind things we won't repeat here.

The Middle of the Pack. Three rice entries were perfectly serviceable. Grains separated, egg visible in honest chunks, a faint savoury note suggesting someone, somewhere, had at least read about wok hei. The seasoning leaned heavily on salt with no real depth, and the frozen versions did marginally better than their chilled siblings — flash-freezing seems to protect the grain structure in a way the chiller cabinet does not. If you added a splash of soy and a handful of peas, nobody at a casual dinner would complain. But nobody would rave either.

The Winner. M&S took it, and not especially narrowly. The grains were distinct, the egg in generous, proper pieces rather than confetti, and there was an actual flavour — a toasted, faintly smoky edge that suggested the rice had been cooked properly before being chilled. The white pepper was detectable. Someone in that kitchen has eaten real fried rice. It scored a very respectable 7.5/10, which, in the world of microwave rice, is basically a Michelin star.

Aldi's frozen offering was the value pick of the night — costing roughly half of the M&S version, it delivered about 80% of the experience. If your bar is 'better than the takeaway's rice at a quarter of the price', it clears it comfortably.

The Home-Cooked Control

Here's the awkward part. For the final round, we cooked yesterday's rice in a £20 rice cooker, chucked it in a screaming-hot wok with two beaten eggs, a handful of frozen mixed veg, light soy and sesame oil. Total active cooking time: six minutes. Total cost: under a quid.

It wasn't close. The homemade version beat every packet by a distance — the fresh egg coating each grain, the actual blistered, smoky aroma, the peas still holding a bit of bite. Our blind panellists identified it immediately as 'the one that tastes like food'.

So the honest verdict is this: no supermarket egg fried rice beats ten minutes and a hot pan, and if you've got day-old rice and a wok, make your own. But that's not really the comparison that matters, is it? The real contest is supermarket rice versus effort. On a knackered Thursday, the choice isn't between M&S and homemade — it's between M&S and the meal deal sandwich. And on that battlefield, M&S emerges with dignity intact.

One Rescue Tip Worth Knowing

If you do buy a packet, ignore the microwave instructions and tip it into a dry, hot pan for two or three minutes instead. The extra heat drives off the packet moisture, re-toasts the grains and adds a hint of the smokiness the factory couldn't manage. It lifted even our two soggy failures from a three to a five. That's not a recommendation — that's damage limitation. But we're here to be useful.

Final scores: M&S 7.5, Aldi (frozen) 6.5, Waitrose 6, Asda 5.5, Sainsbury's 4, Tesco 3.5. Homemade: not scored, because it wouldn't have been fair. Make it yourself when you can — and when you can't, now you know exactly which packet to reach for.