Coles Finest beef bourguignon

This is the first time I’ve seen a product in the Coles Finest range that is gluten free by ingredient, their beef bourguignon. Convenience is the biggest casualty of going gluten free, so I’ll always be cheering when more options arrive that make our lives a little bit easier.

Historically Coles has not had many gluten free options in the fridge section when it comes to ready meals. So when this new option came out I actually ended up buying it that same week.

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Okay, I also bought it because it was marked down – can’t go wrong with a yellow sticker discount. 😁

The meal is on the higher end of supermarket ready meals, June 2025 it is currently $11 and I’ve seen it on special a few times for $9. Compared to the cheaper ready meals this does have a lot of protein, there’s 42g for the serve which is quite high.

I don’t really look at other nutrition stats for my own food – though I prefer products with less salt. You can see the full nutrition info on the Coles website listing – Coles Finest beef bourguignon.

Preparing Coles Finest Beef Bourguignon

All you need to do for this meal is microwave it for three and a half minutes! It’s quite nice to have a fridge ready meal option rather than a freezer. I find frozen ready meals are much more susceptible to uneven heating, requiring additional stirring and time in the microwave. Which is frustrating when you’re starving.

There’s two things I do when I have a ready meal. I always plate up my meal on a real plate or bowl, it makes it easier to eat and actually the food looks a lot bigger out of it’s container.

The other thing I do is add some extra vegetables, usually whatever I’ve got handy in the fridge. Sometimes it’s just a handful of baby spinach, other times I’ll chop up and steam some broccoli.

The taste

The mashed potatoes taste really luxurious thanks to the added cream and salted butter. I shared some with my husband he said “You know I love buttery mash!”

The texture of the mash is really thick and kind of… stretchy? Looking at the ingredients I’d say it’s the added corn starch. My guess is that it helps to prevent water separating from the potato while it’s in the packaging. 

I know it sounds a bit weird after that description but the mash is genuinely good.

The meat is tender and comes apart easily, not as much as a homemade stew would but pretty close. The sauce over it is thick (corn starch) and beautifully rich (veal glacé, Australian shiraz). 

It seems really authentic too as there are pieces of pancetta in the recipe as well. The mushrooms, sadly there were only two, were really lovely whole mini mushrooms. Oh and onions. So. Many. Onions.

Both onions and mushrooms are listed as 3.5% on the ingredients. I got two mushrooms, I think there seven, maybe eight mini onions.

As we had a few other things for lunch I shared half of this ready meal with my husband, here’s his review.

“Too many onions but I guess you gave me all of them,” and, “a little salty.”

I would agree it is a little bit on the salty side. Having said that, we don’t use a lot of salt at home so I do find I am more sensitive to it.

The verdict

Overall this ready meal is delicious! I don’t buy ready meals often these days because my husband and I both work from home and our daughter is with us for most meals – so it’s easier (and cheaper) to make food for all of us.

However, I’d happily shout myself one of these on the rare occasion that we’ve got separate plans. I’d just have to pick out all the mini onions. 😂

Where to buy Coles Finest beef bourguignon

You’ll find this ready meal in the fridge at Coles. In my local stores it’s been on the top shelf of displays. There’s a lot of other Coles Finest products that are in predominantly black packaging so look out for those to locate it.

PRODUCT DETAILS

Gluten free: Gluten free by ingredient.
Vegetarian / vegan: No, contains beef.
Allergens: Milk. May contain: Nil.
Serving size: One.

Want to see more ready meal content? Check out everything tagged under ready meal on my website.

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