Nothing beats a proper Sunday roast. A plate piled high with meat, roasties, veg, and steaming hot, thick gravy is stuff of dreams. If you don’t mind all the faff of timing multiple elements cooking at once and the mountain of washing up cooking a roast yourself produces, then your next worry will probably be the cost.
We’re here to give you an idea of how much buying all the ingredients for a chicken roast will cost you at each of the major supermarkets. We’ve picked chicken for this comparison as it’s generally the cheapest protein you can buy.
Below, you’ll find our shopping list, the cost of our items, and the basket total at each supermarket. We’re hungry people. We do proper servings. You might find you get more servings than us, so your value for money may be better.
So which UK supermarket will be winner winner, chicken dinner for those of us shopping on a budget? We set out with a precautionary £20 and a goal of feeding four people, with high hopes of enough leftovers for a few work or school lunches.
Sunday roast shopping list
- Large chicken
- Bag of potatoes
- Frozen peas
- Broccoli
- Carrots
- Sage and onion stuffing mix
- Frozen yorkshire puddings
- Chicken gravy granules
If you’ve already got peas in your freezer or gravy granules in your cupboard, then don’t go out and buy more. Buying duplicates of things you already have is a waste of money – use what you already have. You don’t have to copy our chicken gravy, if you’ve got beef granules in the cupboard then use those instead. The same goes for the stuffing mix. Our shopping list is a guide only, to show you that it is possible to feed a family of four a roast on a budget.
As you go down our shopping baskets, you’ll see that some of the bags are big. We’re obviously not going to use a whole kilo of carrots for four people – what we don’t use for a roast, we can ingredient prep to use in other meals or we can incorporate into our weekly meal plan. Prepare then freeze your veg – just remember to label the bag.
Leftover carrots and potatoes? Shepherds pie or root vegetable soup, for example. A bit of everything leftover? Whack it all in a Yorkshire pudding wrap.
You’ll notice Lidl is missing from the list below: we calculated all the costs below online, and as you know, Lidl only has prices in-store.
The prices below were correct at the time of writing on the 3rd June 2025 and are for online shopping. Prices in-store may differ.
Best value roast dinner – Aldi
Extra large chicken, 2.15kg – £5.49
White potatoes, 2.5kg – £1.69
Frozen peas, 900g – £1.09
Broccoli – £0.79
Carrots, 1kg – £0.49
Sage and onion stuffing mix, 170g – £0.45
12 Yorkshire puddings – £0.99
Chicken gravy, 300g – £1.09
Total – £12.08
Coming in with the lowest basket total, Aldi takes the lead on being the cheapest supermarket to make a Sunday roast for a family of four. And you’ve even got three quid leftover to treat the family to a pudding. Profiteroles, anyone?
2nd – Tesco
Large chicken, 1.7-2.1kg – £5.75
White potatoes, 2kg – £1.35
Frozen peas, 1kg – £1.45
Broccoli – £0.82
Carrots, 1kg – £0.69
Sage and onion stuffing mix, 170g – £0.45
12 Yorkshire puddings – £1.40
Chicken gravy granules, 200g – £0.73
Total – £12.64
It’s tight margins on this list. With a shopping basket mere pence dearer than Aldi is Tesco’s roast chicken dinner. There’s only £0.54 in it – spare change that you probably have rolling round in your car door – and those extra coins put Tesco in second place for value.
3rd – Asda
Extra large chicken, 2kg – £6.48
White potatoes, 2kg – £1.35
Frozen peas, 1kg – £1.55
Broccoli – £0.79
Carrots, 1kg – £0.69
Sage and onion stuffing mix, 85g – £0.30
12 Yorkshire puddings – £1.06
Chicken gravy granules, 200g – £1.00
Total – £13.22
It’s important to note with Asda’s chicken, the price isn’t set – the extra large variation is dependent on weight, so double check the sticker on the bird itself before putting it in your basket. You’ll also see that Asda’s stuffing mix is 85g compared to the 170g boxes you’ll see in all the other lists on this roundup – if you want a bigger box that you can save and use for other meals, the price jumps up for £2.48 for a 170g Paxo box. The 85g box is Asda’s only own-brand offering.
4th – Morrisons
Extra large chicken, 2.2kg – £6.79
White potatoes, 2kg – £1.545
Frozen peas, 1kg – £1.45
Broccoli – £0.79
Carrots, 1kg – £0.69
Sage and onion stuffing mix, 170g – £0.75
12 Yorkshire puddings – £0.99
Chicken gravy 200g – £0.99
Total – £14
With only £0.61 in it, Morrisons’ roast dinner is on par with Sainsbury’s. As such, the only deciding factor would be how far each is from your front door.
5th – Waitrose
Large chicken, 1.75g – £5.50
White potatoes, 2.5kg – £1.70
Frozen peas, 725g – £1.25
Broccoli – £1.25
Carrots, 1kg – £0.70
Paxo sage and onion stuffing mix, 85g – £1.45
12 Yorkshire puddings – £1.50
Chicken gravy granules, 170g – £1.00
Total – £14.35
The Waitrose roast dinner isn’t in contention for best value, with our shopping basket costing £2.27 more than Aldi, our best value winner. Surprisingly, buying your roast dinner from Waitrose is slightly cheaper than going to Sainsbury’s.
As you can see, the whole chicken in our Waitrose basket is 300g less than the average weight of all the other chickens on this roundup. If you want a bigger chicken (2.3kg), you’ll need to add a further £1.29 to the total.
6th – Sainsbury’s
Large chicken, 2.2kg – £6.46
White potatoes, 2kg – £1.35
Frozen peas, 910g – £1.45
Broccoli – £2.19
Carrots, 1kg – £0.69
Sage & onion stuffing mix, 170g – £0.45
12 Yorkshire puddings – £1.40
Chicken gravy, 170g – £0.62
Total – £14.61
At Sainsbury’s our shopping basket came to £14.61, putting it into 6th place on our list. We were personally quite surprised that Sainsbury’s was more expensive than Waitrose, but as you can see, there’s only a handful of coins in it.
7th – Ocado
Large chicken, 1.8kg – £6.08
White potatoes, 2.5kg – £1.69
Frozen peas, 910g – £1.30
Broccoli – £0.82
Carrots, 1kg – £0.69
Paxo sage and onion stuffing mix, 85g – £1.40
12 M&S Yorkshire puddings – £2.20
M&S chicken gravy granules, 200g – £2.00
Total – £16.18
Like the Waitrose chicken above, to keep our Ocado shop on budget, you’ll need to settle for a lighter chicken. This 1.8kg bird is an average of 200g lighter than the others on this roundup, so might get smaller portions or less chicken leftover for lunch. You’ll also be getting a smaller box of stuffing, the same size as Asda’s Just Essentials stuffing above, but as Ocado’s is branded, it costs £1.10 more.
8th – Iceland
Large chicken, 1.7-2.2kg – £6.50
White potatoes, 1.6kg – £2.00
Frozen peas, 950g – £2.00
Broccoli – £1.00
Carrots, 1kg – £0.85
Paxo sage and onion stuffing mix, 170g – £2.50
12 Yorkshire puddings – £1.00
Chicken gravy granules, 300g – £1.25
Total – £17.10
At the bottom of our best value roast dinner list is Iceland. It’s a great place to shop for stocking up your freezer as their mix & match offers are great value, however doing an actual shop proves expensive. We tried our best, but we just couldn’t get our shop below £15. At £17.10, Iceland is more expensive than the traditionally expensive supermarkets, such as Waitrose and Ocado (even with putting M&S items in our basket).
Things to look out for when shopping for a roast dinner
- By shopping in-store, you might be able to find better deals on your meat. You may even come across a different protein suitable for roasting at a cheaper price than a whole chicken. Timing your shop for when the yellow stickers are out may mean you end up with a dearer cut for a proper bargain.
- The same applies to your vegetables, don’t stick to the peas, carrots, and broccoli we’ve listed above, switch it up depending on availability, current offers, and yellow sticker finds.
