While January is the month for many a resolution for healthier living to start, there comes a time when you just can't be bothered to make a whole fresh meal from scratch.
Which is when calorie-controlled ready meals may seem like the perfect option.
There's a whole raft of prepared microwave meals across the nation's supermarkets aiming to give customers a treat, at a fraction of the fat and calories found in regular ready meals.
READ MORE:"I bought the same supermarket shop from a year ago - and it really shows how prices have changed"
So, to see how they all measure up, I tried out eight different supermarket versions of the nation's favourite curry - chicken tikka masala - including from Aldi, Morrisons, Tesco and M&S.
Regular versions of the creamy curry can pack anything up to 700 calories and a whopping 30g of fat in ready meals - whereas the slimmers' versions all come in around the 360 calorie mark and at less than 9g of fat.
All of the dishes I tried offered a calorie-controlled version of the treat, but did cutting back on the calories come at the expense of the taste?
I dished them all onto the same size plate so you can get an idea of how they looked once cooked.
Here's what I discovered...
Co-op
Chicken tikka masala with pilau rice - £2.80 - 350g
345 calories, 8.1g fat, 7.6g sugars, 1.20g salt
This had the longest microwave time of the chilled meals at 7 minutes, so I was a little worried that the substance would be cremated out of all existence.
I don't know if the lengthy cooking had an impact on the portion size because when I tipped it onto the plate it all looked rather meagre.
I counted just four lumps of chicken in the gloopy sauce, but they broke down nicely and were tender.
The sauce had a decent amount of spice kick, but it tasted all a bit... low calorie.
Sadly with so little meat and a small portion size, all in all I didn't feel very satisfied at the end of it.
Rating: 2/5
M&S
Count on Us chicken tikka masala - 400g - £3.50
340 calories, 6g fat, 3.6g sugars, 1.10g salt
The joint most expensive of all the ready meals, so was it also the best? Well... erm no.
The rice looked very strange indeed when it came out of the microwave - I wondered if it might have benefited from a spoon of water half-way through cooking as some of the other ready meals suggested.
Either way it seemed to crumble down to nothing on tasting, which was rather disappointing.
The sauce itself was nice and creamy and the five pieces of chicken I counted were moist with a pleasant chargrill effect, but it was overall very underwhelming given the price.
Rating: 3/5
Tesco
Healthy Living chicken tikka masala and pilau rice - £2.50 - 400g
381 calories, 5.5g fat, 6.1g sugars, 1.2g salt
A good amount of chicken ( I counted seven lumps) and they were all soft tasty breast pieces.
The sauce was a very mushroomy flavoured masala which may be an aquired taste, but there was a good amount of sauce and it tasted creamy-ish, although not enough to disguise that low-calorie sort of flavour.
Very low on the old spice front too.
Rating: 3/5
Sainsbury's
Be Good to Yourself Chicken tikka masala and pilau rice - 380g - £2.50 (currently on offer down from £3)
400 calories, 9.6g fat, 13.6g sugars, 0.9g salt
I counted six pieces of chicken and it was a really generous portion size when it was laid out on the plate.
I had high hopes for this dish having smelt the fragrant clove in the rice, and the chicken looked properly tikka with chargrill effect.
The chicken pieces were lovely and tender and all breast meat, but the sauce was just a tad watery so you could tell it was a slimming version.
But overall a very pleasant a dish with a good hit of spice, although this one was the highest in fat and calories.
Rating: 4/5
Asda
The Gym Kitchen - chicken tikka - 400g - £3.50
384 calories, 6.8g fat, 7.2g sugars, 1.2g salt
This was the only ready meal out of all those I tried that had actual visible vegetables in the mix, which immediately made me think "oo healthy". And the packaging boasted that it counts as 2 of your 5 a day.
There was a really generous amount of chicken on this one, I counted nine lumps, and it was all really tasty breast chunks.
And, rather than just a portion of pilau rice, here it was a mix of spiced brown rice and lentils, with massive lumps of cauliflower and fresh spring greens.
It tasted like I was actually feeding my body something useful rather than eating a slimmer's low-calorie meal - and it was very filling.
While it may not have been a traditional masala style curry meal, this one got top marks from me and I would definitely want to buy this one again.
Rating: 5/5
Morrisons
WW chicken tikka masala and basmati rice - £2 (currently on offer, down from £2.75, also available at Asda priced at £2.65)
359 calories, 7.6g fat, 7.2g sugars, 1.24g salt
I couldn't find Morrisons' own brand "Counted" tikka ready meal on my visit here, but I did find the Weight Watchers - or WW as they're called nowadays - chicken tikka microwave meal that's on special offer at the supermarket this month.
This had 12 mini cubes of chicken in a thick bright orange sauce, with a wodge of fluffy basmati rice.
To me this was the closest of the creamy ready meals to nail the classic takeaway flavour - a really sweet rich gloopy masala sauce with the chicken cubes all melt-in-the-mouth meat.
There was more than enough sauce left to mop up with a naan bread if your daily calorie allowance allows.
Rating: 5/5
Iceland
Slimming World chicken tikka masala - £3.50 (frozen) - 500g (no rice)
360 calories, 8g fat, 12.5g sugars, 4g salt
Iceland is the only place you can get the official Slimming World ready meals.
Now, as SW devotees will know, it's not about calorie counting on this diet, instead there are "free" foods like meat and veg, which means you can have larger portions to fill you up.
Hence the rather vast size of this one - with an extremely generous 14 lumps of chicken.
This was extremely tasty with a REAL hit of chilli, and what it lacked for in creaminess it made up with lumps of onion and tomatoes in the sauce, which personally I rather liked.
Served with rice this felt like a really hearty and satisfying meal. But if you're not following the Slimming World plan (where plain rice is "free" food) you're back to calorie counting and then you're left adding another 200 calories and 0.7g of fat for your rice on top here.
Rating: 4/5
Aldi
SlimWell chicken tikka masala - £2.00 (frozen) - 500g (no rice)
356 calories, 7.8g fat, 12g sugars, 3.8g salt
Aldi caused a stir when they first launched their own "SlimWell" foods, their take on the Slimming World ready meals, which didn't impress the dieting giants all that much, as you might imagine.
But they've proved pretty popular with shoppers and it's not hard to see why - this chicken tikka smelled probably the nicest of the lot as I microwaved it back to life. I could see that lots of coriander was sprinkled in, giving it a pleasant speckled sheen when cooked.
There was sooo much sauce that it nearly poured off the plate though.
This one would be good if you were employing a low-calorie naan bread to mop up your curry afterwards because the sauce was really creamy and tasty.
Indeed, sauce wise, this was one of the closest to a takeaway I'd say.
What let this one down was the quality of the chicken - some of it felt a bit tough and gristly. But in terms of flavour this one was a massive belter.
Like the frozen Iceland meal (above), this one does not include rice so if you're adding that you'd need to adjust the calorie and fat count to reflect that.
Rating: 4/5
Verdict
There was a clear victor on both value and taste in the classic chicken tikka masala ready meals - and that was the WW slimming meal from Morrisons, which was also one of the lowest in calories and fat.
But I was also super-impressed with the Gym Kitchen chicken tikka from Asda. While it was the priciest at £3.50, it offered something a little different to the usual ready meal, and I really liked the extra vegetables in the mix.
If you're following a more Slimming World method of diet (where it's not so much calories that count but the ingredients in them) then both of the frozen chicken tikkas were also really excellent from Iceland and Aldi.
These both delivered more on the spice front than the cream if that is your preferred curry style, although again Aldi edged this particular battle by coming in at a bargainous £2, well under Iceland's £3.50 pricepoint.
And, if you're wondering how much weight I lost after eating eight slimming ready meals over the course of just three days? Well, I can tell you it was precisely none.
Which goes to show these sort of meals only work for weight loss as part of a proper calorie-controlled diet, or in the case of the Slimming World or Weight Watchers meals, by fully following their own weight loss rules.
Get the latest What's On news - from food and drink to music and nightlife - straight to your inbox with our daily newsletter.
