Swaledale Online Butchers Review

We all should know that we should be making informed choices when choosing and buying our foods and some of the main factors we should be taking into account when buying meat is where that meat is sourced and how the animal is cared for during its lifetime.  There is no doubt that buying food locally and from your own country is one of the best ways to ensure this, the UK meat industry has some of the highest standards of hygiene and welfare in the world.

When it comes to buying meat personally, I tend to vary between supermarket and my local butcher depending on what it is I am after.  Swaledale Online Butchers is another way you can buy meat, and you’ll likely find that the selection of meat is far greater than of your local butcher, each has its place though, so do continue to support local!

Swaledale Online Butchers recently got in touch for me to try out some of their meat, this is what I chose:

• T-Bone Steak 800g – £33.60
• Mutton Chops 4 x 120g (x2 packs) – @24.00
• Tuscan-style Pork, Fennel & Red Wine Sausagemeat 500g – £4.65
• Minced Lamb 500g – £7.25
• Minced Beef 540g – £7.05
• Beef Bones x2 – £6.00

*Prices correct as of September 2022.

The ordering process was very simple, choosing a delivery date that suits (either Tuesday or Saturday).  The meat was packaged well and in recyclable and eco-friendly packaging with ice packs to ensure the meat remains at a cool temperature.

Our planned meals vary from typical family style mid-week meals to date night suppers.

T-Bone Steak

Steak is one of our go to date night suppers and luckily my partner is a dab hand at cooking one!  He’s a big fan of experimenting with different accompaniments to pair with steak and so following watching a instagram video from one of his favourite Masterchef contestants (Aaron Middleton) he decided to pair the T-Bone Steak with triple cooked chips and a Béarnaise sauce.

The T-Bone Steak was big enough to easily feed 2 adults

Tuscan-style Pork, Fennel & Red Wine Sausagemeat

Using some kind of mince is a staple mid-week supper for us, there’s so many different dishes you can create and they’re generally very quick and easy.  Using the fact this sausagemeat was already flavoured I decided to do a pasta dish, adding a few more ingredients.

x1 onion, x2 garlic cloves, 1 sprig fresh rosemary, 1/2 tsp crushed chillies, 2 tsp fennel seeds, 400g chopped tomatoes, 2  tbsp double cream, pasta.

• Finely chop onion and gently fry for 6-7 minutes until soft and brown.
• Cook pasta according to instructions
• Add garlic, rosemary, crushed chillies and fennel seeds (lightly crushed) to the onion, frying for.1 minute.  Add the sausagement, breaking into small pieces cooking till starting to brown.
• Add tomatoes, cooking for further 2-3 minutes, stir in cream and season to taste.
• Drain pasta and add to the ragu, stir to combine.
• Serve with grated parmesan and garlic bread.

The above will serve 4 adults.

Mutton Chops

It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten mutton and so I wanted to keep things simple and serve the chops cooked in a frying pan and served with creamy dauphinoise potatoes and vegetables with some mint sauce of course.

The chops were quite small so allowing for 2 chops per person is what I would recommend.  The chops came in packs of 4 and so we ordered two of these.

Minced Lamb

Using minced lamb, we had to go down the Shepherd’s Pie route.  Again a nice easy mid-week supper, it doesn’t have to take too long and is a good way of using up vegetables that are coming to the end of their best.

I always find 500g of mince goes alot further than you think and so normally can get 5-6 portions of Shepherd’s Pie out of one batch.

Minced Beef

Another family favourite is beef mince chilli con carne.  The majority of us aren’t big heat fans so I’ve always used a recipe I found on Netmums and then have a bottle of chilli sauce on the table to add more heat should anyone choose.  Chilli is always best served with rice and tortilla chips in my opinion!  Again I tend to get 5-6 portions of chilli out of 500g worth of mince.

Beef Bones

Finally we ordered x2 packets of beef bones.  My partner really enjoys making his own stocks and sauces.  He often makes a big batch and then we will freeze in portions.  As much as I do also use a stock cube, having your stock to hand is so much better, more flavourful and of course healthier.

All in all, I thought that Swaledale Online Butchers offered so much variety of meats and the quality was as good as your local butcher.  Value for money was about on par to the local butcher too.  For the choice alone I will almost definitely be using them again.