The Wrap Sheet: Testing Britain's Vegan Pigs in Blankets Before the Big Day

Every December, a small tragedy plays out on British roasting trays. Someone tips out a bag of vegan pigs in blankets, full of hope, and twenty minutes later the blanket has the texture of a damp flannel and the sausage inside is doing its own quiet thing. The whole point of the format is contrast — salty, snappy, rendered — and too many products arrive at the table as one uniform beige shrug.

So we bought eleven. Supermarket own-label, chilled and frozen, a specialist mail-order job, a couple of the mushroom-based ones, and a budget bag that cost less than a coffee. Then we cooked them identically and argued about them for an afternoon.

How the test worked

Everything went into the same fan oven at 200°C, on the same style of tray, following each pack's own instructions to the letter on the first pass. We then did a second pass at a higher heat to see which ones could take a bit of extra colour without turning to charcoal.

Each product was scored on four things:

• Blanket crispness — does it shatter slightly at the edge, or bend?
• Ratio — the ideal is roughly 60:40 sausage to blanket, and plenty get it wrong in both directions.
• Seasoning — sage, black pepper, a hint of sweetness. Not just salt with ambitions.
• Structural integrity — the moment of truth. Does the blanket slide off when you pick it up, or stay put?

We also ate a plate of them at room temperature, because that is the honest test. Christmas dinner is chaos; yours will sit for ten minutes while someone finds the cranberry sauce.

The two ways these things fail

Almost every disappointment came down to one of two faults.

The slide. The blanket is wrapped too loosely, so it shrinks away from the sausage during cooking and forms a separate entity. You end up eating a small sausage and then, separately, a rasher.

The soggy underside. Usually caused by overcrowding a tray or cooking from chilled in a cool oven. The fat renders, the blanket steams in it, and the bottom third never recovers. No amount of grill finish fixes a properly wet bottom.

Everything that scored well had solved both problems before it left the factory.

The ones worth clearing freezer space for

The best in the test was a chilled own-label version with a maple-ish glaze. The blanket was thin enough to crisp properly, the sausage had actual texture rather than a uniform spring, and the seasoning leaned savoury with just enough sweetness at the edge. It also held together when lifted, which sounds like a low bar until you've watched eight others fail it.

Close behind was a mail-order set that arrived frozen in a box that cost more than the sausages. Annoying, but the payoff was real: coarse-ground texture, proper sage and pepper, and a blanket that rendered beautifully. It needed a good five minutes longer than the pack suggested, mind. Worth knowing.

The reliable midweekers

A handful sat comfortably in the middle — nothing to write home about, nothing to complain about. The big frozen-aisle stalwart, the slightly posher supermarket version, and one budget bag that surprised us. They crisp up fine if you give them space and a hot start. None of them will win a blind tasting, but on a Tuesday in January with mash and gravy, nobody's asking questions.

If you're buying for a mixed table and you don't want to spend specialist money, this is the tier to shop in.

The ones that need rescuing

Two products fell apart the moment they hit the tray. Both were mushroom-based, and both tasted genuinely nice — deeply savoury, well seasoned — but the blanket simply would not crisp and the whole assembly slumped. One taster described it as "a very good thing that isn't this thing". Fair.

Another, a budget frozen option we had high hopes for, came out with a thick, pasty coat that tasted of the freezer. Its one redeeming feature: it survived being cooked twice, so it's fine for a slow-cooker or a bake where texture isn't the point.

Kitchen notes for a crispier blanket

A few things we learned that apply to almost every product on the shelf:

1. Go hotter than the pack says. 200°C is a suggestion; 210°C with a preheated tray is closer to the truth. Watch them, don't wander off.
2. Preheat the tray. Cold metal means a slow start and a steamed blanket.
3. Space them out. A crowded tray is a sauna. Two trays beats one piled-up one.
4. Pat them dry if they've come out of a chilled pack with any moisture on the surface.
5. Hold the glaze. If you're adding maple or honey-style syrup, do it in the last five minutes. Sugar plus twenty minutes equals carbon.
6. A wire rack is your friend if you want even colour underneath — the hot air gets everywhere the tray can't reach.
7. Air fryer users: go a little lower and shorter. They colour fast and the blanket can dry out before the middle is hot.

Beyond the December table

Here's the thing — these aren't really Christmas food, they're just food we've agreed to only eat in December. A bag in the freezer earns its keep in a toad-in-the-hole in February, tucked into a Yorkshire pudding wrap with onion gravy, or stirred through a pasta bake for a Monday night that needs a bit of morale.

They're also excellent cold. Next-day, straight from the fridge, with a spoon of chutney and a bit of cheese — that's a better sandwich than most things sold as sandwiches. Take a bag to a picnic in July and watch how quickly they go.

The verdict

Buy one bag you trust for the day itself, and one cheap bag for the week after. Cook them hotter than you think, give them room, and don't glaze until the end. That's the whole secret. The blanket should crackle a little when you bite it — if it doesn't, the oven wasn't hot enough and the tray was too full.

And if your table is mixed this year, don't treat these as a substitute for anything. Plate them up in the same dish, next to the same roasties, and let them stand on their own. The good ones do.