Poll of the Day > Pasta sauce store bought or home made

(+) Yeah! (+)

Depends, sometimes I make my own and at other times I just buy it at the store but if time permits, I prefer making my own sauce and that goes for pizza as well.

I dont have time to make sauce. If I want to make pasta, I just buy sauce. Plus, they sometimes have lots of cool flavors As for pizza, Im not a fan of homemade, so I dont make it

Where's the both option? If store bought, it's Prego only which I do love. Otherwise I would choose homemade.

Home made is far better but takes too long and will be more expensive too.

store bought, I love the HUNTS Thick sauce

I'll try to make home made one day..

I loved when Knorr had a paste you just added water to, but they stopped selling that one a long time ago.

Nowadays I tend to just go for the jars that have the least excessive amounts of garlic and onion in them.

In terms of flavor or texture, I prefer homemade, but it takes so much time and more space than my kitchen can handle. Also: needing containers to store extra, and space in the freezer for at least one of them.

Anyone got an easy recipe?

Depends on how "Homemade" you go. Cooking down tomatoes? I've never done it, but should some time.

I'll use Prego occasionally.

Usually I use tomato sauce and paste and spice it myself.

JixHedgehog posted...

Anyone got an easy recipe?

Let me see if I can find the "classic" sauce recipe from my short time trying chef school...

OK, this recipe calls for pork, but I'm sure you can alternate with something else. I'm tempted to say jackfruit, but up to you to play around and find out.

1/2 oz Salt Pork
Some* Olive Oil
1 oz onion and carrot, cut small (1/4" cubes will suffice)
2 c. plum tomatoes, concasse
1 c. tomato puree
3 . . . pork ribs, cooked
Seasoning (1 bay leaf, 1-2 garlic cloves smashed, 1 sprig of thyme, 1/4 tsp dried rosemary, 1 pinch black pepper), in a sachet of cheese cloth if you have it, or you'll have to pick the leaf and rosemary out later.

Start cooking the salt pork in oil, and onions and carrots, add tomato, pork ribs, and seasoning after a wee bit. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat, cover, and allow to simmer for 60-90 minutes. Stir every 15-20 minutes. Remove the ribs and sachet/sprig and leaf. Scrape meat off the ribs to add it back to the sauce, discarding the bones.

Run sauce through a mixing mill.

Makes about a pint.

That's the "classic"/"easy" recipe. <_<

Store mostly. It's more convenient and homemade doesn't taste any different to me.

Entirely depends on the sauce. Alfredo is always home made, tomato based sauces are always rao's store bought. Others usually homemade

@Entity13
Sounds like a hearty sauce, an hour and a half isnt that bad

hypnox posted...

Entirely depends on the sauce. Alfredo is always home made, tomato based sauces are always rao's store bought. Others usually homemade

Pretty much that. I don't have 12 hours to make a proper marinara sauce. Hell, I don't have 30 minutes to make a "marinara" sauce. If I am having pasta, I want it done in 10-15 minutes.

Nichtcrawler-X posted...

I loved when Knorr had a paste you just added water to, but they stopped selling that one a long time ago.

https://www.germanshop24.com/groceries/cooking/knorr-fix/knorr-fix-for-spaghetti-bolognese/

I use the store-bought jars as a base but I always add meat, fresh veggies, and fresh seasonings to the sauce, so... both?

Metalsonic66 posted...

I use the store-bought jars as a base but I always add meat, fresh veggies, and fresh seasonings to the sauce, so... both?

When I was in late high school and early college, I would add a bit of paprika to the sauce from the store. Sometimes I'd add a touch more garlic. It made the decent brands better.

I usually do a bit of both. I start with canned sauce, but then I add stuff like diced tomatoes, onions, maybe olives, and some Parmesan cheese. Sometimes I'll add sardines, they actually go very well with pasta.

Home made has its uses, but as far as making a ragu, it's just texture. You want the San Marzano and the chunks from squishing them and you can always jist buy extra peeled in a can. The soffritto with just the can or two of peeled and hand crushed San Marzano will be just fine as any base for the ragu. Of course you add the herbs the salt ans olive oil, but I think tempering it with red wine and whole milk is what most people are missing out on. It's just too expensive and you cannot jar a pasta sauce with the wine and cream shelf stable. I think it only lasts in the fridge a week like that. Maybe a few days even.

If it's going to be the tomato gravy I prefer to cook it myself so I can tone down the acidity; I don't really like tomato sauce.

If it's alfredo, I have made it myself a couple of times but I prefer the store bought for ease of use.

Homemade is better, but store bought is substantially more convenient and not that much more expensive. Frequently, I meet in the middle by adding a storebought sauce to veggies (usually onions/peppers/mushrooms) and meat that I've sauteed up to make a chunkier sauce, which stretches the jar further and is generally quite good as an easy meal.

I was an expert pasta sauce maker, that had people mention my food (specially lasagna) 20 years after eating it.

That being said, after my wife passed and it's just me, I converted to the lazy but still good method of using prego sauce as my base, then adding ground beef/sausage/bay leaves/basil/onions/a whole bell pepper etc to it.

It is WAY faster and still tastes really good (if not as good).

If you rate olive garden pasta sauce as a 6, and from scratch home made as a 10, the prego base pasta sauce is probably a 8-9....not quite as good, but damn good enough, and instead of cooking all day, your done in about 1-2 hours.

Just store-bought. Find a tasty brand or doctor it up a bit and save some time.

Doesn't matter if it is store bought or home made, put it in the Crock-Pot with any extras first thing in the morning and leave it on low all day, then what you don't use for pasta, turn into chili.

adjl posted...

Homemade is better

As long as youre good at cooking, and using good ingredients

Is this a language/cultural difference? I would never consider the meat and the veggies I add "part of the sauce".

Both. My wife and I have a garden and grow a ton of tomatoes. We are able to make our own sauce and can it. It does take a lot to do this however. We can usually get about 20 or so jars. Which is not nearly enough for even close to a year. The kids and us eat a lot of pasta.

For the rest, we use Ragu meat flavored.

Nichtcrawler-X posted...

Is this a language/cultural difference? I would never consider the meat and the veggies I add "part of the sauce".

Depends how you are using them.

If you are adding the meat and vegetables while making the sauce (I.E. Bolognese, Puttanesca, etc.) then it is "part of the sauce".

If you are covering the meat and vegetables with the sauce after it is cooked, then no.

LinkPizza posted...

As long as youre good at cooking, and using good ingredients

Well, yes. If you sabotage the homemade sauce by using crap and/or not knowing what you're doing, that's obviously going to make it worse.

Dikitain posted...

Depends how you are using them.

If you are adding the meat and vegetables while making the sauce (I.E. Bolognese, Puttanesca, etc.) then it is "part of the sauce".

If you are covering the meat and vegetables with the sauce after it is cooked, then no.

I'd also say that, as far as meat goes, it depends a bit on the size of the pieces. Ground meat is part of the sauce. A whole chicken breast that was cooked in the sauce isn't (though it's going to fall apart pretty easily). I don't know exactly where the line is, since there's a lot of grey area within that assessment, but I'd say anything smaller than bite size can pretty consistently be considered part of the sauce.

Usually store bought, occasionally altered to taste. Like adding honey, garlic, or random spices depending on the flavour and what I am using it for. Occasionally I will make a sauce out of tomato puree, but have never cooked tomatoes down into a sauce.

slacker03150 posted...

Usually store bought, occasionally altered to taste. Like adding honey, garlic, or random spices depending on the flavour and what I am using it for. Occasionally I will make a sauce out of tomato puree, but have never cooked tomatoes down into a sauce.

Honey in a pasta sauce?

Revelation34 posted...

Honey in a pasta sauce?

I occasionally use it in pizza sauce if I want a sweeter sauce.

controversial opinion:

While I love pasta sauce and it put it on everything...

....

Alfredo is trash

Usually just buy sauce then add stuff to it. Probably more expensive that way, but I like it how I like it at this point lol

Lokarin posted...

controversial opinion:

While I love pasta sauce and it put it on everything...

....

Alfredo is trash

This will sound pretentious, but have you had made from scratch alfredo sauce? It's a very different kind of thing.

Lokarin posted...

controversial opinion:

While I love pasta sauce and it put it on everything...

....

Alfredo is trash

You've only had bad Alfredo then. I use a Campbells soup "cream of" base, add quarter milk and simmer, adding additional spices or meatballs as needed. Most store bought is alright but some are rather bland. A bag of tex mex shredded cheese also helps.

Lokarin posted...

controversial opinion:

While I love pasta sauce and it put it on everything...

....

Alfredo is trash

Yeah the store bought ones all suck. You either have to make it yourself or get it from a good restaurant.