Pastry Maths 2026: Twelve UK Sausage Rolls Blind-Ranked, Then Reheated

Sausage rolls are a pastry-to-filling argument you can eat. In November 2026 we bought twelve from UK supermarket chillers, freezer aisles and bakery counters, stripped the packaging, coded them and tasted blind. Then we reheated the best ones two ways: air fryer and microwave. The results were not close.

How we scored

Each roll was judged on pastry flake (20), filling seasoning (20), greasiness (15), value (15) and pastry-to-filling ratio (30). For ratio we weighed each roll, then cut it in half and compared the cross-section: pastry weight versus filling weight. We wanted enough pastry to shatter, but not so much that you're eating a dry bread cave. The sweet spot sat around 55:45 to 60:40.

The ranking table

Rank	Roll	Where from	Price	Pastry-to-filling ratio	Score /100
1	Specially Selected Pork Sausage Roll	Aldi chiller	£1.49	58:42	88
2	Sausage Roll	Greggs bakery	£1.45	52:48	86
3	Deluxe Pork & Herb Sausage Roll	Lidl chiller	£1.59	60:40	85
4	Foodhall Sausage Roll	M&S	£2.00	55:45	84
5	Finest All-Butter Sausage Roll	Tesco	£1.75	54:46	82
6	Taste the Difference Sausage Roll	Sainsbury's	£1.80	53:47	80
7	Irresistible Sausage Roll	Co-op	£1.70	51:49	78
8	The Best Sausage Roll	Morrisons	£1.65	50:50	77
9	All-Butter Sausage Roll	Waitrose	£2.10	57:43	76
10	Extra Special Sausage Roll	Asda	£1.50	49:51	74
11	Frozen Sausage Roll	Iceland	£0.75	62:38	70
12	Sausage Roll	Pound Bakery	£1.00	45:55	66

Prices are what we paid in November 2026 and will vary. The scoring is ours, not a scientific instrument. But the ranking held up across two tasting rounds.

The winner: Aldi's chiller roll is the own-brand upset

The Aldi Specially Selected roll did the thing a great sausage roll should do: it shattered, it seasoned, it didn't leave a grease slick on the paper. The filling was coarse enough to taste like sausage, not paste. At 58:42 it sits at the pastry-heavy end, but the pastry is worth it. It beat Greggs on flake and on value. That's the headline: the best roll in this test came from a supermarket chiller, not a high-street bakery.

Greggs is still the high-street benchmark

Second place is not a defeat. Greggs does what it does with ruthless consistency: a soft, peppery filling, a ratio close to 50:50 and a price that undercuts most of the chiller aisle. It's the roll you buy when you're hungry now, not when you're doing pastry maths in a supermarket car park. But blind, it lost on pastry flake and greasiness. The Aldi roll felt fresher.

Lidl and M&S round out the podium

Lidl's Deluxe roll has the highest ratio of the top three at 60:40, which makes it a pastry lover's roll. It's flaky and generous, though the seasoning is a touch shy. M&S is the poshest of the bunch, with a buttery pastry and a well-seasoned filling. It's very good, but at £2 it's not the value pick. If you're buying for a crowd, Aldi and Lidl do the job for less.

The bottom of the pack

Iceland's frozen roll is cheap and cheerful, but 62:38 is too much pastry and the filling tastes thin. Pound Bakery's roll had the lowest pastry-to-filling ratio at 45:55, which sounds generous until you realise the filling is soft and the pastry gets lost. Asda's Extra Special is fine, but it's not special enough to beat the cheaper Aldi roll. The lesson: price and packaging are not reliable guides.

Air fryer vs microwave

We reheated the top four rolls from chilled at 170C in an air fryer for 6-8 minutes. From frozen, give them 12-15 minutes. The air fryer brought back the flake and crisped the base. It's not the same as fresh, but it's close.

The microwave is faster and sadder. A 50-second blast makes the pastry leathery and the filling molten. If you only have a microwave, use 20-second bursts and don't wrap it in kitchen roll, which steams the pastry into a damp duvet. The microwave is fine for a rushed freezer roll, but it will not rescue a good one. The air fryer is the reheat king.

Pastry-to-filling ratio: the sweet spot

The rolls that scored best sat between 55:45 and 60:40. Below 50:50, the filling can make the pastry soggy from the inside. Above 60:40, you're eating a pastry shell with a sausage guest star. The ratio isn't everything — seasoning and flake matter — but it's the quickest way to spot a roll that has been built with care rather than cost.

The verdict

Aldi's Specially Selected Pork Sausage Roll is the 2026 champion. It's the own-brand roll that genuinely beats the high-street bakery, and it costs less than most of the competition. Greggs remains the reliable high-street pick, Lidl is the pastry-lover's choice, and M&S is the treat. Buy two Aldi rolls, freeze one, and reheat it in the air fryer. That's the BiteIt way.