Morrisons Simmer Sauce Cheese Mix - 30g

Cheese sauce holds up a surprising amount of British cooking. It is the cauliflower cheese fought over at the roast, the macaroni cheese on a Tuesday, the top layer of a lasagne, the thing poured over broccoli to get it eaten. Supermarket sachets like this one have been doing that job in British kitchens for years.

You can make a cheese sauce from scratch, of course. But the one you remember came out of a packet, and that is the flavour you are after. Nothing else quite tastes like the side dish that sat next to the roast potatoes.

It is a 30g sachet, flat and light, so a few of them tuck into a cupboard or drawer and keep there until a roast comes along. Make it up as the packet says, then pour it over whatever needs rescuing, or bake it under the grill until the top goes golden.

People tend to pick it up with the rest of the Sunday dinner kit: gravy granules, a jar of English mustard, a packet of stuffing. Morrisons makes a whole run of own-label cupboard basics, and this is one of the quiet heroes.