I am not a good cook. My standard is to buy some Traditional Prego and throw in a bunch of stuff in the hopes that it might turn out passable. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn’t, but it is not significantly worse than straight Prego. Occasionally it is just gross and I have to start over. Exactly one time, it was amazing.
Even though Prego is pretty damn bland, I have tried some other spaghetti sauces but I haven’t found anything I like better.
So, this is what I usually throw in there in varying amounts:
Salt – It probably already has a crazy amount of salt in it. Also, I salt the noodles when they boil.
Brown sugar – Prego is already a little sweet, but I want it sweeter. Sometimes I use honey as well.
Basil – Not sure it makes a difference.
Lemon juice – Just a little.
Mr. Dash – One shake.
Pepper – A tiny bit.
Medium salsa – For some kick.
Mozzarella – About a handful or two.
Garlic butter – Occasionally.
What do you put in yours to make it good and liven it up? I would like to try some other ingredients, because as it is now, my sauce is usually edible but… not by much.
I did try Rao’s. Didn’t like it. But they have a bunch of different ones that I haven’t tried. I know if I found a good one, I would switch in a second.
To make a quick and tasty tomato sauce for pasta try the following.
Buy 28oz cans of Crushed Tomatoes. Cento makes one that is only 1% of the RDA sodium. The crushed is the important part for making a good, quick sauce. The sodium seems to range from 1% to 8%.
Chop onion fairly small and brown in pot or pan.
Add some minced garlic, or if have ambition chop fine some fresh garlic.
Then add a can of Crushed Tomatoes. Rinse down remaining tomato in can with either red wine or a little water, maybe a 6th of the can worth. Add this to the sauce of course.
Season with Italian seasoning.
Stir and bring to low boil.
Lower heat and stir occasionally for 30-40 minutes.
This makes for a lower acid sauce that the jars and taste great and authentic.
Obviously add things like peppers if you like, frozen meatballs or browned chop meat. All of the prior is optional. I hate the idea of adding sugar, but that is your call, plus the browned onion adds some sweetness anyway.
Since I learned to do this, I’ve only bought jar sauce for camping trips. There are levels of “not a good cook”, as the OP said, and certainly there’s a level where you can’t chop or saute an onion; but if you can that that onion chopped and sauteed, you (and the onion) are golden. And you can make the sauce exactly as herby/garlicky/sweet/salty as you want.
I’m not much of a cook, more just a grill guy or make an omelet. Even I find making a sauce from almost scratch doable and very satisfying as it taste so much better.
@What_Exit had some great tips for making sauce from scratch. It really isn’t that difficult. Yes, always use crushed tomatoes, or whole canned San Mariano style tomatoes and crush them up yourself, never canned tomato ‘sauce’, which usually has added stuff like sugar and is puréed to the point of insipidness.
Basil you don’t think makes much of a difference? You must be using dried basil. Use fresh basil if it’s available, and add it toward the end of cooking.
Here’s a YouTube video on making restaurant-style ragu. I followed this recipe almost to the letter recently and it was amazing. I realize following the whole recipe may be a little too ambitious for the casual cook, but it’s all about adding flavors. No one step is very difficult. It can give you ideas. Even if you only followed about 30% of the steps of of this recipe, you’ll still end up with an amazing sauce.
I like a good bit of green pepper in mine. It makes it brighter and sweeter. Not authentic, but it tastes good. For quick sauce I use a dab of “Better than Bouillon” roasted garlic flavor. It lends a warm sweet base that tastes like the sauce has been simmering for hours.
For herbs I prefer basil to oregano. I don’t think they go well together, but will pick one and only use that one each time. A hint of rosemary goes well with either.
Ever since I first used Italian sausage as the meat in my meat sauce, I’ve started adding fennel seed to my recipe. I love the flavor of fennel in the tomato/meat combo.
I also add basil leaves, red chili flakes, and a glug of dry red or white wine. And I use quality canned Italian plum tomatoes, the kind without calcium chloride. American canners like to add calcium chloride because it keeps the whole tomatoes firm and photogenic, which is what I don’t want. I want the tomatoes to slump and break up into sauce.
Roast halved fresh tomatoes roma or any kind with a chopped onion/shallot and several cloves of garlic in their jackets ( you’ll squeeze out the pulp after roasting) and olive oil salt pepper maybe a whole chili pepper. Balsamic vinegar optional Roast 30 -40min. Add fresh basil leaves. Put in a pot to blenderize. Adjust seasoning add broth to thin if necessary.
Can be frozen.
I second that suggestion, though I dislike ground beef in pasta sauce. If I want to have it with meat, I’ll simmer it with good quality deli meatballs.
Rao’s is not the best pasta sauce you can buy, but the only better ones I know are local ones, made by individual delis, so not something I can usefully recommend in a thread that has readers from all over. Since I don’t always make it out to those delis, I keep a jar of Rao’s Marinara on hand. It’s probably the best of the mass-market sauces.
Thanks for the recipe! For some reason I haven’t had good success making homemade pasta sauce, but this is so simple it’s worth a try! My Italian friend and the ex-wife (not Italian, but a decent cook) both make terrific pasta sauces.
I agree. I think part of the reason many commercial sauces contain sugar is to counter the tartness of the tomato. The very best deli-made pasta sauce I know of contains no sugar, but does contain finely chopped carrots. Apparently carrots serve the same purpose of countering tartness, and producing a more mellow sauce – something I might try when making this sauce.
My additions are: salt, dried basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, olive oil, and fresh garlic.
Sometimes onion, sometimes sugar (just a pinch). Sometimes black pepper.
I’ll make these additions in varying amounts to a basic jarred sauce as well.
Last night we had pasta and I threw in some diced pickled jalapeños. Turned out pretty good! Added heat and a little bit of a briny element similar to olives or capers.
I’m sure Rao’s is great, but I am morally opposed to paying more than $5 for a jar of sauce.
I actually prefer Prego brand over Rao’s and Ragu.
I usually brown some sausage first then sauté diced sweet onion and bell pepper (and maybe some diced celery with it.) and then I dump a jar of sauce and let simmer for a few hours. Sometimes a I add a can of diced tomatoes and some minced garlic as well.
For sausage I was using sweet Italian sausage but I tried garlic & cheese sausage for the first time a few months ago and almost are exclusively using that now. (I haven’t used ground beef in a while because sausage prices have been cheaper in my area for over year.)
I use Marcella Hazan’s recipe: 1 28 oz can whole tomatoes (no salt), 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, 1 small onion peeled and halved. That’s it. Simmer on stove for 45 minutes. Discard onion. Salt to taste.
Infinitely customizable from there, but the base recipe is good enough.
