You’re joking right? If I’m going to be buying jarred spaghetti sauce I’m not going to touch either Prego or Ragu.
I grew up with Prego and Ragu in the sense that if I watched tv, I’d seen commercials for them sometimes but my parents never bought them. They stuck with the can of Hunt’s spaghetti sauce and then built up from there once it was in the pot.
I don’t buy jarred sauce myself very often because I don’t really care much for pasta.
I don’t believe I’ve ever had either one. Growing up, jarred tomato sauce was one of those weird things that other people had. Like the kids who had Twinkies everyday in their lunch. My mom made the best tomato sauce either from canned or her own fresh tomatoes (depending on the season). The small handful of times I have purchased jarred sauce as an adult, it has been Newman’s Own, I think. I’m not really sure because it just is so rare.
Being the child of immigrant Jews, homemade sauce wasn’t in my mom’s recipe repitoire ( but the other stuff she could make, yum!).
I’m not sure if Prego was even on the market. We bought Ragu.
I never even heard of spaghetti sauce coming in jars when I was growing up.
Given the choice of the two, I’ll take the too-sweet Prego over the vaguely nasty-tasting Ragu any day. In real life, I go for Paul Newman’s or Trader Joe’s.
You stole my post.
We buy Ragu and add hamburger to it. In the southwest, that’s as close to Italian as we’re likely to get.
Same answer here, except I’m usually too lazy to “doctor the hell out of it”, and settle for just adding some garlic and oregano.
I always thought Ragu was the sweeter of the two, but honestly I haven’t tasted it in a few years. I just remember my wife made spaghetti with Ragu once instead of Prego and I could taste something was “off” from normal.
I grew up with home made sauce and it was wonderful. At some point in my teen years my Mom announced she found something “just as good and a fraction of the work.” It was Ragu (I don’t think Prego existed yet) and it was not anywhere close to as good. When I got old enough to cook on my own I got her recipe and life was good again. Then, I had three kids and a very busy life so our current go to is a jar of Prego in the pantry. If I have time I’ll doctor it up, and about once or twice I take the time and make it from scratch. When I do I’m in heaven, but my kids complain that they prefer Prego.
I don’t know what to say… they like their meat well done also.
If it comes to jarred sauce, I like Classico.
Me too and really it takes next to no effort to throw together sauce from canned tomatos that’s much better than anything in a jar.
I agree that homemade sauce is superior, but really? You never heard of such a thing as jars of spaghetti sauce? Were you shocked to discover homogenized milk in cartons too, and chickens that didn’t require plucking? I’m in my 40s and I’m pretty sure jarred/canned spaghetti sauce was on grocery store shelves long before I was born.
Per Wiki… Ragu since 1937, Prego since 1981.
My mother didn’t bring it home, and it wasn’t being advertised on TV in the '60s as far as I can recall. Why would I even know it existed? It’s not like I was doing the shopping myself. I think I first heard of Ragu around 1970; Prego a few years later.
And yes, milk in those days came in glass bottles, and was delivered to our door. Cardboard cartons were only for the half-pints I got at school.
Wait…per Spud, Prego didn’t exist until 1981? Strange, I was sure I’d had it in the '70s.
So Prego wasn’t even a choice growing up.
If you’ve time to ‘doctor’ a jarred sauce, you’ve time to make a plain red sauce from canned tomatoes. That all day sauce you hear about is usually a braise (meat sauce).
On the rare occasions that I’ve used jarred sauce, I’ve doctored it so heavily that I can’t respond to the poll, except to say that I don’t know as I’ve ever bought either of those brands.
In the hierarchy:
Prego=Heinz
Ragu=Hunt’s
I like Prego’s sweetness and can eat it raw, Ragu is just a bit too watery.
My favorite jar sauce was Ragu Old World Style Margarita sauce but I never see it anymore so I just make my own. It’s so easy even I have no problem with it and I practically cook everything out of jars and cans. Of course I used canned crushed tomatoes anyway so it doesn’t change much. Still, the flavor is better and I don’t get the tomatoes with added salt so it’s fresher and sweeter tasting, just the way I like it.
I don’t even think we grew up on canned. The only time we ever ate spaghetti it came from the Chef Boyardee complete meal with the box of pasta, the can of sauce and the can of powdered Parmesan. I don’t even know if they make it anymore, but every weekend that’s what we had at my grandma’s for probably 23 years. Here’s a commercial for it: Chef Boyardee Spaghetti Dinner 1953 - YouTube
For fairness… the Wiki cite says it went “international” in 1981. It well could have been local/regional or even national before that. I remember the advertising blitz being when I was on my own (graduated HS in '79) and I thought it was a “premium” sauce (may have been at the time). Wiki doesn’t give any other date, nor does anything I can find on the Campbell’s or Prego site.
Growing up it was Prego, but now I only buy Newman’s own (acceptable plain, but I almost always add meat, onion, and mushrooms at the minimum) because of their charitable donations.
Maybe my Mom’s was different even though she used cans…
For me, doctored means fry some burger meat, chop and saute some garlic, onion, mushrooms, and green pepper then pour in the jar of Prego and add some red pepper flakes. Heat to a boil turn down and serve (actually, I heat the Prego at the same time as the others then add to the boiling sauce to make it go faster).
Home made means everything in the doctored, plus opening (IIRC) 4 different cans of tomato products, opening a bottle of wine, finding and adding 3 or so different spices, and simmering for at least an hour so the flavors blend properly.
I’ll admit it has been awhile since I’ve made it and don’t have the recipe handy, but I associate home made with a 1.5-2 hour process, and jarred with about 20-30 minutes. Could also be that if I’m making home made I’ll make fresh garlic bread… if jarred, a frozen loaf works fine.