Best Pistachio Cream Spreads UK - Ranked from Best to Worst

Taste Test · Pistachio Cream Spreads

Best Pistachio Cream Spreads In The UK

Pistachio has been having a moment since long before that chaotic Dubai chocolate bar came along and made the entire internet lose its mind.

When I first heard about Dubai chocolate, I did wonder whether we had collectively invented yet another ridiculous viral food trend. Then I tried the good versions and, annoyingly, I understood the hype. The filling is the thing: pistachio cream, kataifi pastry and tahini, tucked inside chocolate like a crunchy, creamy little secret.

The pistachio cream is the key. It can make or break a Dubai chocolate bar, a pancake stack, a doughnut, a dessert, or a cake. And we take pistachio very seriously around here.

Our bestselling cakes are our pistachio cakes, and they have been for years. We have been making pistachio cakes for more than a decade, so I feel highly qualified to judge the best pistachio spreads available on UK shelves. That, and the professional chef training. And the taste buds. Mainly the taste buds.

I went around the major shops and picked up their versions of pistachio creme, pistachio cream or pistachio spread, depending on how each brand chose to name it. The shops included Costco, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl.

I tasted them all and ranked them based on flavour, sweetness, texture, colour, pistachio content and how useful they would be in actual baking and cake decorating.

Best Pistachio Spreads At A Glance

With so many spreads now on the market, which one is worth going nuts for? There is nothing worse than spending a chunk of your weekly budget on a tub of pistachio cream only to feel let down by beige sugar paste pretending to be sophisticated.

So, naturally, I took one for the team and lined them all up for a full taste test. Prices and availability may change, because supermarkets like to keep us emotionally unstable, but this is how the spreads compared when I bought them.

How I Tested The Pistachio Spreads

Pistachio Cream Spreads Ranked From Best To Worst

1. Pisti Pistachio Cream

5/5 · Best Overall

At pole position is my professional and personal favourite: Pisti Pistachio Cream. Unsurprisingly, it is the one with the highest pistachio content at 45%.

It has a beautifully rich, deep green hue and a proper pistachio flavour. It is also adaptable, which matters in real bakery use. You can fill doughnuts with it, spread it over pancakes, layer it into desserts, or use it for cakes.

We buy the 600g jars from Costco, where it sells from £6.49, making it excellent value at roughly £1.08 per 100g. For flavour, colour, texture and value, Pisti leads the pistachio parade.

2. Black Milk Pistachio Spread

4/5 · Best Premium

Black Milk’s café in Manchester has a cult following, and for those of us not blessed enough to be in their vicinity, their spreads are available in Tesco supermarkets nationwide.

At £5.45 for a 230g jar, this is very much at the premium end. But it is worth it. I expected it to taste half as good as Pisti because it has half the pistachio content at 20%, but I kept going back to the spoon.

It has a beautiful green colour and a good runny texture, making it perfect for dripping and spreading. And the pistachio flavour? Somehow, it is up there with Pisti. I do not know how, but it is there.

3. Tesco Finest Pistachio Creme

4/5 · Best For Layering

Tesco Finest has delivered. It made it into my top three, which shocked me. Why? Because it beat M&S and Waitrose.

This spread contains a whopping 30% pistachio, which is high, and makes it great value at £4 for a 300g jar. The colour is a nice muted mid-green and the flavour is pleasingly pistachio-ish, if a little enhanced, likely because of added flavourings.

The texture is thick and dense, so it needs a bit more persuasion when spreading. I would not necessarily choose it for cake drips, but it would work beautifully layered in trifles, layer cakes and filled desserts.

4. Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Pistachio Creme

3/5

This was a funny one. Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s pistachio spreads are almost identical. I kid you not. Colour, texture, taste, even the jar are extremely similar.

The main difference is that Sainsbury’s version has a hint of awkward chemical aftertaste, slightly reminiscent of their monstrous pistachio tiramisu. Tesco’s version does not have that same note, possibly because it includes hazelnut flavouring.

They are very similar, but Sainsbury’s is more expensive at £4.75 for 300g, so Tesco wins this particular supermarket sibling rivalry.

5. Marks & Spencer Collection Pistachio Creme

3/5

I really wanted to love the M&S pistachio spread. But I could not.

I am not sure what is happening here, because it has the same pistachio content as Black Milk at 20%. If I closed my eyes, sure, it tasted nice enough. But I might not be able to tell it was pistachio.

Even with my eyes open, I would struggle, because it is not green in the slightest. It is beige. I know pistachios are not always bright green once ground, and I am not asking for cartoon green. I am asking for a smidgen. A whisper. A gentle pistachio wink.

At £4.75 for 220g, it sits in the premium bracket, but in that price range I would choose one of the top three.

6. Rhythm 108 Pistachio Spread

3/5 · Best Dairy-Free Option

I picked this one up from Waitrose for £6.50 for 250g. I love the packaging. It looks cool, modern and properly shelf-worthy.

Unfortunately, I did not particularly want to put the contents in my mouth. The colour was a brownish, muddy shade that did not scream appetising. The texture was okay, but flavour-wise I was not getting much.

It is fine. The best thing about it is that it is dairy free, so it is useful for those with specific dairy or milk allergies or intolerances. As a mainstream pistachio spread, though, it would not be my first choice.

7. Lidl Italiamo Pistachio Spread

2/5 · Best Budget

At 20% pistachio content, this should have been singing. Except it was not.

The texture looked as if it was splitting, which did not help the aesthetics. It had a pale pastel green colour, but the slightly splitty texture made it look less luxurious and more like it needed a quiet word with itself.

It also tasted very, very sweet. At £2.99 for 190g, it is a good budget option, but I would not eat it voluntarily unless the alternative was no pistachio spread at all, and even then I would need a minute.

8. Aldi Specially Selected Pistachio Creme

1/5

I think the biggest scandal here is that Aldi calls this Specially Selected. By whom? A committee with a grudge against pistachios?

The colour is pasty, almost pretty, but in a pale, anaemic, fake-green sort of way. The texture is like wet cement and the taste is cloyingly sweet. I could not tell what it was meant to be. It could have been Nutella. It could have been anything. Anything except pistachio.

Which is not all that surprising when you discover it contains just 10% pistachio. Even at £1.79 for 200g, I would not.

The Final Verdict

Having done these taste tests thoroughly, I feel reassured that we chose the right pistachio spread for our customers’ pistachio cakes. Pisti leads the pistachio parade.

What surprised me most was the varying pistachio percentage in each spread. There was a definite link between the best and worst products and the most and least pistachio content, but the middle of the ranking was less predictable.

Black Milk, for example, punched far above what its 20% pistachio content suggested. M&S, with the same percentage, did not. So yes, pistachio content matters, but formulation, sweetness, fat, flavouring and texture all matter too.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Have I missed one? Have I been unfair? Are you emotionally attached to the Aldi one? I need to know.

Pistachio lovin’,
Reshmi xoxo