Sometimes, this is my only option, so what to do?
I add a small amount of cream, some pan-fried mushrooms seared in a garlic butter mixture, and a pinch of whatever spices I have on hand (rosemary, oregano). We usually grill hot Italian sausage and then slice that up to mix with the sauce, and serve it over penne. Quick and easy and we love it.
Garlic, oregano, basil, pepper flake, red wine and some onions.
Add the spices you like. Keep a can of crushed tomatoes around also and mix that in for more tomato-y flavor.
Saute some bell pepper, onion and mushrooms… toss in with the warmed jar sauce, add some red wine and some grated Parmesan. Taste and add seasonings to your preference.
Adding meat is assumed.
Yes on the Italian sausage and seared or sautéed fresh mushrooms. If you start with a bland sauce in a jar, and then add hamburger as your meat, you will still have bland sauce.
Italian sausage is the key to good sauce.
For me, Prego sauce doesn’t need to be punched up. As their annoying commercial used to say, “It’s in there.”
First of all start with decent sauce.
The only 2 I found that are even edible are Trader Joe’s Tomato Basil Marinara and Muir Glen Tomato Basil.
In my opinion, if I’m going to have to doctor it, I’ll just start with plain tomato sauce (just crushed tomatoes) and go from there. It’s just as much effort.
ETA: Or here’s a solution for when I doctor up anything ready made (like curry paste and the such.) The biggest thing, for me, that is missing is freshness of flavors. So, for something like spaghetti sauce, I might get a bunch of fresh basil and add it during the last 5 minutes or less of cooking.
This is what I do for sauce in general. But I do keep a jar around for making quick meals. A bag of mussels, a jar of marinara, and in ten minutes you have a meal.
My favorite ingredients to spice up packaged stuff or reinvigorate leftovers are chili, lemon and lime. I keep a bowl of all 3 on the bench and either add zest or a squirt of fresh juice to many things. Lemon zest goes really well in tomato based sauces particularly with seafood. I would serve mussels without lemon zest in the sauce.
Also, a can of stewed tomatoes does the same thing.
Something I use for canned soup all the time is to saute some minced onion and garlic in a saucepan, then add the soup (or RawGoo) and simmer it up to serving temperature. Works wonders for soup. I dunno if anything can be done about jar sauces.
If you start with Newman’s Sockaroni sauce, you’re better off as a starting pont, but add some crushed tomatoes and sauteed mushrooms, along with oregano, fresh ground pepper, and basil and you’re there.
Adding some Italian sausage at this point just makes it better, of course.
Kroger has three store brands. A bottom tier called “Kroger Value,” a middle tier which I do not recall the name of, and an upper tier called “Private Selection.”
I am going to brace myself for scorn and embarrassment and go ahead and say it: Private Selection marinara sauce is actually pretty good.
ETA For completeness’ sake I’ll note they actually have a fourth store brand, called “Simple Truth.” It’s their organic line. No pasta sauce under that brand though.
Fresh garlic. Spices. Meat.
See, I would just do that with regular crushed tomatoes. Almost all the jarred sauces taste “off” to me in some way. Either they’re too spiced, too cooked, too sweet, or something. A little olive oil and good canned tomatoes and I already have a sauce that I personally prefer, even before I go adding garlic or onion or any herbs. (And, typically, all I add is pepper flakes and either dried oregano or fresh basil at the end.)
You know, I get some expensive sauce for this that just works right, but if it wasn’t available I’d do just what you are doing. And yes, the other sauces taste ‘off’, artificial, and in a sense stale. Even dicing and sauteing an onion won’t add more than 5 minutes to the whole process, and if you’re having pasta it can be done in the time it takes to cook that. So basically, I’m not keeping the jar because it’s important to make the meal quick, it’s because once and a while I’m just lazy.
And don’t get me wrong–I’m all for convenience foods and do the “semi-homemade” thing a good deal. It’s just that it doesn’t work for me with spaghetti sauce.
This, but I figured it wasn’t worth arguing the point yet again with a generation that thinks spaghetti sauce has to come out of a jar except maybe on Thanksgiving.