So, I’m tired and hungry and I’m at da Jewels and I see they have big jars of sauce on sale (rhymes with Rewman’s Own by Raul Rewman) – how bad could it be? I bought 3.
Dear lord – 1 jar down the drain and 2 off to the food pantry.
My Grandmother is giving my sideways looks from heaven.
I can feel it.
A pox upon thee.
I keep a jar of Prego in the cupboard. It’s bad and it’s full of sugar, but it’s what I grew up eating. It’s my Chef Boyardee (which I’ve never actually had).
Shame on you.
No really, sometimes I just want convenience. My pool of diners has vastly reduced, so usually it’s me. Or me and Mr.Wrekker. I do what suits me.
Saying that, Bad is bad. Maybe it was nearing the sell by date and that’s why it was on sale. Usually name brand stuff is ok, if not great. Any generic tomato sauce, in my experience, is bad.
If there’s a Trader Joe’s near you give their sauce a try. I use their Organic Tomato Basil Marinara
and it’s quite good; also sometimes Three Cheese Pomodoro Pasta Sauce. To me it’s hundreds of times better than the usual supermarket suspects. (When the pasta sauce appears in TJ’s Fearless Flyer, it’s described as being Trader Guiseppi’s. I do enjoy the Fearless Flyer.)
Mod Hat On
Food? Cafe Society!
We have started buying jarred sauce after making it ourselves for a few decades. Children have broken us.
Huh. I actually heard those were pretty decent. The only jarred sauce I’ve liked is Rao’s, and they’re goddamned expensive.
Sure, I don’t want to be a sauce snob douchebag, but, I guess I am. I prefer a can of decent tomatoes, with some olive oil, salt, and garlic or onions to pretty much anything else.
Your grandmother is definitely turning in her grave. But you can repent by doctoring the jarred sauce up. Add some fresh spices, tomatoes, etc. May God help you to know your sins and trust in His mercy.
We buy Prego. It’s fine for a quick, no fuss pasta meal.
Recently tried the lemon & parmesan sauce for chicken. Very pleased.
My wife swears by PN sauce. (All profits to charity.)
I’ve had good experiences with all the PN products I’ve tried - except for the pasta sauce. Not a fan of that at all. Sorry you felt the same.
There’s nothing too wrong about a quality jar of sauce as long as you think of it as an ingredient rather than a final product.
Exactly. Use it as a base and doctor it up to your liking. Nothing wrong with that at all. Sometimes you just don’t feel like making a sauce from scratch.
It’s no sin to buy high-quality sauce. It’s no sin to buy low- or even bad-quality sauce either. You pay, and either you’re satisfied with the outcome or you’re not. If your grandmother had started a business putting her sauce into jars and selling it, it would have been worth trying, right?
Of course I prefer home-made. I can my own tomatos every summer. (2018=Good year).
If you are starting from raw tomatoes, it’s all gonna go south if all you can get is hot-house tomatoes. So there’s that.
Cipriani’s is locally owned (Chicago Heights) and is my sauce of choice when buying a few jars at the Jewel for home use.
Yeah, at least try to doctor up the one you already opened–if there is any left.
I mean, I admit I’ve rarely made it better, but I have bad ingredients. If you make the stuff from scratch a lot, then you probably have better ingredients than I do.
Years ago an elderly Italian grandmother came with my apartment; no she lived downstairs in the big house and was my designated house cleaner. Confided that after many years, she buys the De Cecco or Barilla pasta at the market and her famous sauce is pretty generic tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, onions, salt brand. She does add fresh chopped oregano, more garlic, and chopped green onions. The family still raves. It’s the fresh chopped spices that dress it up.
The Kirkland organic sauce is your base generic that just needs the fresh herbs. Same with the Victoria organic marinara sauce.
They are consistent in taste which helps recipes.
I really don’t think there’s any saving this. The thing is if I wasn’t raised in my straight-off-the-boat-from-Sicily grandparents house I’m sure I’d like it just fine.