Store-cupboard staples – including hot chocolate, pesto and sweet chilli sauce – ‘packed’ with hidden salt, Which? analysis reveals

Household staples like hot chocolate, sweet chilli sauce and even cottage cheese are packed with worryingly high levels of salt, an analysis has found.

The popular condiment Blue Dragon chilli sauce was found to contain more salt than two rashers of bacon in a typical serving.

Options Hot Chocolate, meanwhile, has around as much as a bag of Walkers Ready Salted crisps. 

Barilla Genovese Basil Pesto also performed badly, containing around 1.63g of salt per portion – the equivalent of three packs of Walkers crisps.

The analysts, from consumer website Which?, also found high levels of the mineral – which is known to raise blood pressure – in products marketed as ‘healthy’. 

This included protein bars sold by nutrition firm Chia Charge packed with the same salt as three handfuls of salted peanuts. 

Elsewhere, lentil chips – low-calorie snacks seen as healthier than traditional, fried potato alternatives – were found to have twice as much as most regular crisps, and about the same as a pack of bacon Frazzles.

Overall, just over half of the 47 products analysed were found to contain high levels of salt.

The popular condiment Blue Dragon chilli sauce was found to contain more salt than two rashers of bacon in a traditional serving

Under the UK’s traffic light system, under 0.3g per 100g is low, between 0.3g and 1.5g per 100g is medium, and above 1.5g per 100g is high. 

The findings come as more than a third of Britons have high blood pressure.

Also known as hypertension, high blood pressure narrows the arteries and, in many cases, can lead to heart attack and stroke – leading causes of death in Britain.

Salt is a major risk factor for the condition as it causes the body to retain water, increasing the total volume of blood and putting extra pressure on the blood vessel walls.

The recommended salt intake is 6g a day, according to the NHS, but figures show that most adults in England consume around 8.4g.

The new Which? investigation looked at eight different types of popular foods – including sweet chilli sauce, lentil crisps, protein bars, hot chocolate, houmous, cottage cheese, nut butters and pesto.

Surprisingly high salt products included Sabra Classic Houmous, which topped the houmous category at 1.3g per 100g, and the Estate Dairy Cottage Cheese, with 0.9g per 100g.

The table below details all the salty products identified by the Which? analysts across all eight categories. 

Speaking of the findings, Shefalee Loth, Which? nutritionist said: ‘Salt can be surprisingly easy to overlook, particularly in foods we might think of as being healthy, such as protein bars, lentil crisps, cottage cheese and pesto.’

She stressed that there is no reason to avoid these foods altogether, but added: ‘Checking the salt per 100g and keeping an eye on portion sizes can help you make a more informed choice.’