With romance in the air and restaurants packed out this evening, you may be opting for a meal at home but don’t want to spend hours slaving away in the kitchen.

So reporter Chantal Weller put two Valentine’s Day supermarket meal deals to the test to see if it’s worth splashing the cash on the priciest, or grabbing yourself a bargain...

Marks and Spencer – £25

Arriving at my local M&S I am greeted by stacks of decadent meals wrapped in red and pink cardboard, and decorated with love hearts, which form part of the £25 Valentine’s Day meal for two.

The offer includes a starter, main, side, dessert and a drink of choice which could be a bottle of alcohol such as wine or prosecco or a non-alcoholic option.

M&S offers a choice of seven starters, eight mains, eight sides, eight puddings and 10 drinks, with options including the exotic Coquilles St Jacques (scallops in white sauce) as a starter. Because of the deal we saved £10 overall.

Mains on offer include beef wellington and mushroom stroganoff pie, but for us, there was only one option- rump steak. However, the size of our steaks were smaller than the cuts outside of the deal- but we hoped the taste would make up for it.

Once home, our starter, a breaded camembert with a berry compote, did not disappoint.

Any sort of breaded or deep-fried cheese will always take my fancy if I’m ordering a starter at a restaurant so I was excited to try this at-home option.

The cheese was perfectly melted in the centre and the breadcrumbs surrounding it had the best level of crisp.

The compote on the side was sweet and complemented the camembert perfectly.

After polishing off the cheese, it was time to cook the rump steaks which came with a peppercorn sauce. For our side, we chose triple-cooked chips.

But, when it was all on the plate it did look a little sad and I think it needed another element.

As well as the slightly sparse plate, my meal was also let down by the the peppercorn sauce, which was extremely thick and dark in colour.

It was not creamy and oddly I could taste hints of curry powder. It wasn’t awful, but I’ve definitely had better store-bought peppercorn sauces.

The rest of the dish was incredibly tasty. The chips were crispy on the outside yet still light and fluffy in the centre. The steak was also cooked to perfection by my other half and melted in the mouth.

For pudding, we settled on a tiramisu mousse cake. Since sampling the iconic Italian treat during a birthday trip to Rome last year, it’s been hard to find a store-bought version that can compare. However, M&S’s offering is an alternative to the classic, and consequently not burdened with such high hopes.

A coffee sponge cake filled with mascarpone, marsala and white chocolate mousse, the concoction rested on a wafer-thin base. It was light, fluffy and packed with all the right flavours. It went down a treat and was the perfect way to round off the meal.

Our drink of choice was of course a bottle of red to accompany the steak. Sometimes meal deal wines can be a letdown but not this one – it had depth and complemented the steak sublimely.

Asda – £12

Asda also offers a rump steak with peppercorn sauce and triple-cooked chips, and my plan was to compare the two.

Unfortunately, the store I visited had run out of steaks both times I visited- so we went for a lasagne instead.

Asda offers a choice of seven starters, 14 mains, seven sides, seven desserts and six drinks. However shoppers at Ashford’s Asda were clearly in a romantic mood, as many options were gone.

For starters we opted for a prawn and scallops gratin in a white wine and cheese sauce. I was apprehensive about how the seafood would taste, but the dish was packed with flavour.

Served inside a scallop shell, the sauce was delicious and the gratin on top was light and crispy. The starter was the perfect size, leaving me excited to try the rest of the meal deal.

M&S only gave us the choice of one side, but we could have two with Asda. Alongside a beef lasagne, we opted for our old favourite, triple-cooked chips, alongside a vegetable medley.

I have to say, the final plate looked great and crucially, full, unlike my M&S dinner.

I always like to have something healthy on my plate and the vegetables were a good mix, with savoy cabbage, spring greens, kale, tender stem broccoli and peas.

While tasty, the chips didn’t live up to the M&S offering, but for an overall price of £12, I wasn’t complaining.

Now, for the main attraction on my plate – lasagne al forno. This was divine in my opinion. The beef was rich and had great depth while the white sauce was creamy and delicious. I often find that when buying pre-made lasagne it can look sloppy when plated up, but this one had substance and held itself upright without spreading all over the rest of my plate like soup.

Satisfied and full, we had to wait for more than an hour before tucking into our desserts- Irish cream profiteroles topped with Belgian chocolate and chocolate hearts.

There was just the right amount of cream and the heart decorations were a beautiful touch. I would certainly choose this again- Valentine’s Day or no Valentine’s Day.

Alongside the meal, I opted for a brut, which inside an elegant bottle, also tasted great.

This meal certainly ticked all the right boxes as a lovely treat for Valentine’s Day and for the overall price of £12, with £11.50 worth of savings, I was delighted.

Final thoughts?

After trying both meals, although M&S had more options, for the price of £25 I didn’t get as much for my money.

Although I was able to enjoy a steak dinner with a pricey bottle of red, the peppercorn sauce and lack of a second side left me feeling underwhelmed.

But, the Asda meal was more than half the price at £12 and a lot easier to cook than the M&S option.

The flavours in both meals were good but the meal deal from Asda take first place thanks to appearance, taste and price.