With the weather getting warmer you can virtually guarantee that come tea time, the smell of someone's barbecue will be drifting into your garden or back yard.
Whether it's halloumi kebabs, cheese filled burgers, or spicy chicken wings, there's no end to the products and flavours you can buy these days.
But for many people a good old sausage will suffice, especially if you're feeding children too.
READ MORE: Join the FREE Manchester Evening News WhatsApp community
That's why we decided to put supermarket sausages to the test, to see how they stack up against the competition.
We picked normal thick pork sausages from each of the stores, shopping at Asda, Aldi, Lidl, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Morrisons and M&S.
Now I'm a big sausage fan, but 56 of the blighters is a tad excessive even for me, so I had to call in some help from the rest of my sausage-loving tribe.
We had at least one bite of each in one sitting to see how they compared.
Aesthetically, it was actually the cheapest ones - from Aldi and Lidl - that looked most appealing. Perhaps because they were most evenly cooked, unlike the Morrisons ones, which still looked a little anaemic. Sack the chef.
While the latter was nice and soft, and actually the longest alongside Sainsbury's, it was also fairly bland.
Strong flavours came through from Lidl, Asda and Aldi, but Aldi's was let down by being a bit on the chewy side and Tesco's a bit on the sticky side, with nobody too keen on the flavour of that one.
While the Sainsbury's sausage earned praise for being tasty and juicy, it was the M&S one that was the most succulent of all - so juicy in fact that some of it squirted out and landed on my trousers.
It was also the most packed with flavour, perhaps because it's all squashed into a shorter and fatter shape than any of the others.
Or perhaps it's because it has the highest content of pork - 75% compared with the 72% in all the others - something it's keen to shout about on the packaging, along with it being 'British outdoor bred pork and raised to higher welfare standards'.
You pay for that luxury though, they're £2.60 a pack compared with Lidl and Aldi's £1.79, that's a big difference of 45%.
If you think of it at 43p a sausage though, it doesn't seem so bad. It depends how much you want to impress your guests. If they're anything like our Labrador Milo, they'll be happy with whatever they can get.
Prices per pack (all 454g)
- Lidl £1.79
- Aldi £1.79
- Asda £2
- Morrisons £2.25
- Sainsbury's £2.25
- Tesco £2.30
- M&S £2.60
READ NEXT:
Alton Towers' drop tower Nemesis ride reopening for May half term
I made the 68p solution declared 'the best weed killer ever' and it worked wonders
We tried the fish and chips afternoon tea at 'hidden gem' with incredible views
Things to do with the kids this May half term 2023 across Greater Manchester
