This week, Value for Money compares five varieties of beef lasagne

* * * * *Excellent

* * * * Great

* * * Fine

* * Below par

* Awful

Dunnes Stores Beef Lasagne

€2.99 for 400g, €7.47 per kg

Highs:This is made in Ireland, which gives it an instant edge over most of the competition. It is also very keenly priced which made us even more well disposed to it. It has a nice mozzarella topping that crisped up well and the tomato sauce has a decent tang to it. While it is not exactly the kind of dish that we'd be racing home to eat of an evening, it is fine and it would certainly fill a gap if you were hungry.

Lows: Clearly it is beyond the makers of most pasta-based ready meals to make the core ingredient taste nice. The layers of pasta had no bite to them and little or no taste.

Verdict: Okay

Star rating: * * *

WeightWatchers Lasagne

€3.69 for 400g, €9.22 per kg

Highs: If you're following a WeightWatchers programme than this has an instant appeal – it accounts for six points and will leaving you feeling quite full.

Lows: It did not leave us feeling at all satisfied. With its greyish colour and gloopy texture it looked singularly unappetising before going into the oven although it did look marginally more appealing once cooked. It is made with very little beef – just 14 per cent and has very little flavour. And while we do not expect perfectly cooked pasta in a ready meal – we are realistic, after all – we would have preferred it to be a little less soggy. The price was also inexplicably high – not the most expensive admittedly, but for a product this ordinary, it was far too high.

Verdict: Poor

Star rating: * *

Kitchen Classics

€2.39 for 400g, €5.97 per kg

Highs: Although this is the cheapest of the products reviewed, it doesn't taste particularly cheap and actually has the highest beef content at 29 per cent.

Lows: The first few forkfuls created a good impression but the more of it we ate the less we liked it. The pasta lost all its texture after cooking and the tomato appeared to get lost in the mix. While there was not enough tomato sauce, we reckoned there was far too much bechamel sauce and the whole dish seemed to be swimming in the stuff. There is a lot of cheddar listed amongst the ingredients but we couldn't taste any of it.

Verdict: Cheap

Star rating: * * *

M&S Lasagne Al Forno

€7.49 for 730g, €10.26 per kg

Highs: This is not any old lasagne but lasagne al fornomade with "slow-braised beef and a Chianti Classico red wine ragu". We initially thought the company had lost the run of itself with its description, but it actually does do this very good lasagne justice. It is made with 28 per cent beef and 16 per cent tomato and the sauce – sorry, Chianti Classico ragu — is rich and bursting with flavour. The pasta has a decent texture and the bechamel sauce is creamy without being soupy. It is pricier than most of the competition but it is so much better than them it is a price worth paying.

Lows: Be warned – M&S does make a array of different types of lasagne and not all of them are as good as this. Hard to fault it but it might be too salty for some tastes.

Verdict: Excellent

Star rating: * * * * *

Fallon & Byrne Lasagne

€7.25 for 400g, €18.12 per kg

Highs: This is without a doubt the best lasagne reviewed. In fact it might just be the nicest ready meal we have ever tasted – although to be fair to other ready meals, this has an edge having been made in-store by the good people at Fallon & Byrne as opposed to some factory in an industrial estate near a British motorway. It is fresh and packed with decent chunks of carrot, peas and onion which lend it substance the others are lacking. The pasta is as well cooked as you could possibly expect and the tomato sauce is lovely, filled with flavour, without being sloppy and in your face.

Lows: It is hard to escape the fact that it is very expensive and may be beyond the reach of many wallets.

Verdict: Top notch, top dollar

Star rating: * * * * *