The top 30 ‘winter warmer’ recipes, including cottage pie and lasagne

Sunday roast, chilli con carne and chicken curry also top list of comfort food favourites

Cottage pie, lasagne and a Sunday roast have topped the list of favourite "winter warmer" recipes in a new poll.

The survey also found that other popular recipes over the winter period include beef stew, spaghetti bolognese and cauliflower cheese.

Six in 10 of the 2,000 respondents said comfort food is one of their favourite things about the colder months.

However, 74 per cent said they often took shortcuts when cooking to make their lives a little easier. Popular ways to speed up the cooking process included using frozen vegetables, microwaving food instead of using an oven when possible and using ready-made sauces.

“Winter calls for hearty, warming meals, particularly British classics which bring families together and make cold nights enjoyable," said a spokesperson from Primula, which carried out the poll. “The results show we all have to take shortcuts when it comes to mealtimes due to our busy modern lives, but we’re rightly reluctant to compromise on flavour.

The poll also found that one third of the survey's respondents have the least amount of time to cook over the month of December. Online shopping emerged as the most popular way to make the Christmas period easier.

Popular shortcuts for prepping and cooking Christmas dinner include using frozen Yorkshire puddings, peeling vegetables the day before and using "squeezy" cheese to make cheese sauce.

Aside from Christmas dinner, the survey's respondents said they also use various cooking shortcuts at least two days a week on average and half said they sometimes used leftovers for a meal. Over 60 per cent said they cooked bulk meals to freeze and over half pre-plan meals for the week ahead in order to save time.

One third said they saw cooking as a chore and 52 per cent said the limited amount of spare time they have restricts what they cook each day.

SWNS