Best store-bought spaghetti sauce?

Cafe Society
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[QUOTE=Oslo Ostragoth]
You realize you have to share the recipe, right? Pretty please?
[/QUOTE]

My pleasure! It’s not actually my recipe – 'twas shared by roseyrose with us over at TWoP here. They’re my secret resource. shhh.

[QUOTE=roseyrose]
Red Sauce

Three 28 oz. cans tomatoes
One 8 oz can tomato sauce
One 6 oz. can tomato paste (optional. It depends on how thick you want the sauce)
1 cup broth/stock (optional)
1 bottle beer (optional)
Approximately ½ cup minced onion
2-5 garlic cloves, minced
At least 1 teaspoon dried thyme
At least 1 teaspoon dried oregano
A pinch of dried basil
1-2 shakes of hot pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil
1 parmesan cheese rind (when I finish a hunk of parmesan, I put the rind in the freezer)

Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven on medium low heat. Sauté the onions, herbs and salt for 2-3 three minutes. Add garlic. Sauté for another 3 minutes or so.
If using whole tomatoes, crush the tomatoes with your hands or put into a food processor. Crush or process to the desired consistency. About ten seconds in the food processor will give you nice chunky tomatoes if you start with whole. If using diced tomatoes, ten seconds in the food processor will make the tomatoes relatively smooth, with just a little chunkiness.

Add the tomatoes to the onions and garlic. Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, chicken broth and beer. Add the pepper, bay leaf and the Parmesan rind. Simmer, uncovered, on very low heat for about an hour. If you want it thicker after an hour, leave the lid off. If you don’t want it to thicken anymore, put the lid on, and cook for another hour. You can cook it longer than that, but it’s not necessary.
The amounts of herbs are estimates. If I can’t see the herbs after everything is in the pot I add more.

The beer and chicken broth are both optional in this recipe. You can make a great sauce without them. You can make a great sauce without the parmesan rind.

I usually use Yuengling Lager in the sauce, because that’s what we have in the house. You can use pretty much whatever you want, but I recommend a pilsner, lager or lighter ale.

You can also do this in the crock pot, which is what I do when I add Italian sausage. The longer the sausage cooks, the more tender it gets. I use sausage links, and cut each link into three or four pieces.
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This stuff freezes beautifully, and so good you’ll never use those nasty supermarket brands again. It’s particularly easy in the crock pot, of course.

I use 1½ lbs. of sausage (whatever Italian sausage they have, removed from its casing before cutting), but am considering increasing that to 2 lbs. next time 'round.

Also: adding sugar into red sauce will apparently cause every dead person in Sicily to roll over in his or her respective grave. So, sweeten at your peril (based on your proximity to Sicily, presumably). I used shallots last time, and they added a nice sweet note, anyway.

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I’d do red wine in place of the beer, fresh basil and more of it, and more garlic. I wouldn’t use stock, but that’s because we feed too many vegetarians to have non-vegetarian sauce around. But homemade sauce is an extemporanous event to me (as is soup). Peppers, spinach and mushrooms are good in sauce, but I don’t like to freeze sauce with the vegetables in it - they are later additions.

Another thing to do is to get very thin cut cheap steak - that stuff that’s a quarter inch thin. Throw down salt and more oregeno than you think you should on one side. Roll and tie with string. Brown in the pan, then cover in sauce and let it cook all day long.

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[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
I’d do red wine in place of the beer, fresh basil and more of it, and more garlic. I wouldn’t use stock, but that’s because we feed too many vegetarians to have non-vegetarian sauce around. But homemade sauce is an extemporanous event to me (as is soup). Peppers, spinach and mushrooms are good in sauce, but I don’t like to freeze sauce with the vegetables in it - they are later additions.
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I tried it as is but without the beer or stock, and with about a half cup of a red wine added. After an hour of cooking I decided it needed more spicing, and pretty much doubled the specified herbs, put in more pepper flakes, and added about a quarter-cup of chopped fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley. I was impressed by the original sauce’s balance of acidity - normally my husband complains about the acidity in some storebought red sauces and I have to add sugar (the ones I buy typically don’t have sweeteners), but he liked this. FWIW, I used Red Gold diced tomatoes, Muir Glen organic tomato sauce, and Hunt’s tomato paste.

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I bought some Newman’s Own marinara for boyfriend’s belated birthday baked penne. Haven’t popped it open yet, but wanted to know what spices I should add if I find the sauce is a bit sweet? I don’t know anything about cooking.

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[QUOTE=Duckster]
We tried Classico from Costco. Every time I ate it, my dream sleep patterns that night were full-blown hallucinations; colors, sounds, weird story lines. The first time I thought it was caused by work stress or similar. The second time I started putting two and two together. So the third time I planned for it. Really bizarre. It’s gotta be the spices they use.
[/QUOTE]
It might be MSG. A friend once told me MSG gives him crazy dreams. In fact, if he wanted to “trip”, he’d drink a glass of water before bed with a teaspoon of MSG dissolved in it. I haven’t tried it.

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[QUOTE=myskepticsight]
I bought some Newman’s Own marinara for boyfriend’s belated birthday baked penne. Haven’t popped it open yet, but wanted to know what spices I should add if I find the sauce is a bit sweet? I don’t know anything about cooking.
[/QUOTE]

I’d be afraid that more spices might just make them overpowering too. Maybe sort of dilute it down with a good canned tomato sauce (such as Muir Glen organic mentioned by Ferret Herder); the acidity of the tomatoes should help cut the sweet. Then add back in a few fresh herbs, or some more garlic (or hot pepper flakes), to your taste.

Personally, I’m not fond of overpowering garlic, and go easy on that, but like basil and onion, so add extra. Careful if you’re using dried herbs, though – I once had to toss some sauce I’d overpowered with dried oregano (it tasted dusty).

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I’m intrigued by your recipe, Lightray. It looks great and I intend to use it, but I have a few questions.

First, beer? I’m trying to wrap my mind around the type of flavor that would add. I can see wine, and I’d probably substitute wine, but I’m really curious about the beer.

Second, the parm rind, do you remove it? Does it melt entirely? I typically use shredded parm in my sauces, and that’s very good.

Also, I think that instead of regular canned sauce I’ll use jarred spaghetti sauce i have from Trader Joe’s. Sort of defeats the purpose, maybe, but it’s what I have on hand.

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[QUOTE=Zjestika]
First, beer? I’m trying to wrap my mind around the type of flavor that would add. I can see wine, and I’d probably substitute wine, but I’m really curious about the beer.

Second, the parm rind, do you remove it? Does it melt entirely? I typically use shredded parm in my sauces, and that’s very good.
[/QUOTE]

Since I don’t drink, myself, I rarely have beer on hand. So I usually leave the beer out (and, occasionally, the chicken broth/stock; I like my sauce thick). I think the beer mellowed the tomato acidity, a bit. Maybe added some depth of flavor – one of my test subjects – er, dinner guests – thought they could taste it “kinda like in good barbecue sauce”. But that was after I’d told 'em it was in there, so me: :dubious:

Leaving the beer out, or subbing wine in would either one be fine.

The parm rind doesn’t quite disintegrate. It gets all dark and soft and mushy. I was surprised that I could taste the parmy-ness doing that the first time – I usually add parm, too, after the sauce is done, and the flavor note from the rind wasn’t quite that strong, but it was there. I just fish the rind out along with the bay leaf once done. (actually, I usually can’t find the bay leaf, and give up after fishing out the rind. I just tell people it’s like finding the baby in the King Cake)

You can toss the rind out, after, but… I have to admit, I’ve succumbed to temptation and saved it for nibbling on later, from time to time. Soft, tomatoey parmesan cheese that’s a little milder and not as salty – there’s nothing wrong with that.

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I bought a jar of Rao’s a week ago, based on the comments in this thread. I must say it was superb. But you just can’t justify the price for spaghetti sauce.