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Buy this.






Saute some garlic and onion.

Add tomato paste, water, and the spice packet.

2-4 servings for under 2 dollars total

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A Frugal Moms special?

I don't know about you lolpoors, but I finish my pasta in a fresh cheese wheel.

Just melt some butter, toss the pasta in it, then add some fresh grated parmesan cheese. The heat will melt the cheese, and you'll have a nice alfredo sauce.

Bump per the OPs request

studioone said:

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i cant stand spaghetti... so I'm trying to be open minded. Wife cooks it and the pasta is the mass produced kind sold everywhere and the sauce is prego out of a can...

its dry dry dry.. u pick up a fork full the rest of the batch comes with it...it has no flavor...

wife loves it.. i hate it.. save our marriage... lol..

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Where you live can affect how you cook pastas.

The cooking times on the packages are for reasonably close to sea level.

As your altitude increases, the temperature at which water boils drops off and it takes longer to cook.

As a very rough estimate, the boiling point of water decreases by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for every 500 feet of altitude.

You might find it much easier if you get a soft pasta from the refrigerated food section at the grocery store.

Also, the suggestion about using a big pot is right on. I use the biggest pot I have to cook enough for just myself and bring it to a very full boil. When I add the dry pasta to the pot of boiling water, I expect it to either keep boiling or to at least come back to a full boil well within a minute.

Speaking of Italian sauces, how would you make a "light marinara sauce"?

There's an Italian restaurant in Oklahoma that has a Chicken Pomodoro which is described as using a light marinara sauce.

Everywhere I look at on the Internet has lots of tomato in it and so I assume that it is quite red. The restaurant, though, has cherry tomatoes in it, but the sauce itself is clear.

The reason I ask is that I think it is the same sauce as was used in their "Chicken Ala Mama" at the Colliseum Restaurant in Clear Lake years ago which was my favorite dish there. Having limited knowledge of Italian foods, I have no idea how they made the sauce.

Here's the description from the menu at the Italian restaurant in Oklahoma for their Chicken Pomodoro:

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Chicken sauted with fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic, light marinara sauce & served over penne pasta.

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god i love this thread.

Made my sauce this week with meatballs for some family friends. Worked out really good yet again.

phideaux_2003 said:

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Made my sauce this week with meatballs for some family friends. Worked out really good yet again.

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that's unfortunate. you know all of the time you spend doctoring prego could be spent making a simple elegant sauce that destroys it.

I've done it man. I've had "home made sauces" at restaurants that are rarely if ever made right and every sauce I've ever tried to make at home that doesn't require hours and hours of cooking (as a good homemade sauce should) was terrible. They're thin with acrid undeveloped flavors. For a quick sauce that stands up pretty darn well, I'll stick with my grandmothers 45 min wonder.

This board amazes me sometimes.

Of course, I often forget that I'm just a hack and not a world renowned professional chef too. I make poor life choices and don't have time to devote to tending my victory garden where I grow every vegetable I could possible eat or the time to spend at the stove making some super awesome home made from scratch concoction that evidently only takes 10 minutes if you know what you are doing (apparently I don't) each and every night.

I get that cooking can be fun, but sometimes there isn't the time, the energy, the desire. Sometimes, taking a can of sauce or a frozen pizza and doing a little doctoring is good enough. Sometimes it's flat out better than what you can do anyway. As Cheech Martin kept telling Kevin Costner in Tin Cup - you don't always need to make an eagle. Sometimes par is good enough to win.

And I simply cannot comprehend the hate for Rotel, I love that stuff.

fta09 said:

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I don't know about you lolpoors, but I finish my pasta in a fresh cheese wheel.

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I only use fresh cheese wheels. One meal, then i throw the rest out.

The part that I don't understand (and I'm also not much of a cook) is that his recipe looks like twice as much work as any real marinara recipe and the ingredient list is suspect at best. This is coming from someone whose supper tonight consisted of summer sausage and scotch.

If you're going to "doctor up" a jar of Prego or Ragu, why not "doctor up" a can of San Marzanos and be better off? It takes a long time for the water for the pasta to boil anyway, so you may as well have your sauce going at the same time.

I enjoy cooking, and I get people who want a quick meal on a work night, but there's also forethought. That Serious Eats recipe (or any other) can make a good amount of sauce on the weekend and freeze in packages for when you need the quick fix during the work week.

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If you're going to "doctor up" a jar of Prego or Ragu, why not "doctor up" a can of San Marzanos and be better off?

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Great point. I have a slightly different version of HTown's original recipe for quick evening meals and its always been a hit. Instead of adding the basil at the end, I add it to the oil after the garlic has been in the oil. Pull the basil out before it gets burned, then toss the tomatoes in. This seems to flavor the oil well and then basil is added at the end if more flavor is needed.

Ulrich said:

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The part that I don't understand (and I'm also not much of a cook) is that his recipe looks like twice as much work as any real marinara recipe and the ingredient list is suspect at best. This is coming from someone whose supper tonight consisted of summer sausage and scotch.

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That sounds like a great meal.

Any crackers with it?

fta09 said:

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If you're going to "doctor up" a jar of Prego or Ragu, why not "doctor up" a can of San Marzanos and be better off? It takes a long time for the water for the pasta to boil anyway, so you may as well have your sauce going at the same time.

I enjoy cooking, and I get people who want a quick meal on a work night, but there's also forethought. That Serious Eats recipe (or any other) can make a good amount of sauce on the weekend and freeze in packages for when you need the quick fix during the work week.

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You may well be. I've never done this, so I honestly don't know. I'm not a huge italian kitchen cook type of guy for the most part. But the bolded part is really subjective.

I know this comes as a shock to the Iron Chefs on the board - but some folks actually like what is already produced, and some folks (like my wife) couldnt' doctor up anything and improve upon it. I know it's just not good to some if it's not hand picked and hand this and fresh that...but in the end, it's just spaghetti sauce, and for a quick weekday meal or for a non-discerning palate that doesn't know if the garlic used was fresh pressed and sauteed in Greek or Califorinia or Texas EVOO - does it really make that big of a difference?

My big issue with canned tomato sauce is the sugar content. I would rather start with San Marzanos and add sugar if I think it needs it.

fta09 said:

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If you're going to "doctor up" a jar of Prego or Ragu, why not "doctor up" a can of San Marzanos and be better off?

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For that matter, you could literally heat a can of crushed San Marzanos, toss it with pasta, then sprinkle with salt and a drizzle of olive oil and be better off than doctored up Prego/Ragu

Opening a can of San Marzanos tomatoes makes someone an "Iron Chef"

I won't speak for others, but I am definitely not claiming to be an iron chef. But since you asked:

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mario-batali/basic-tomato-sauce-recipe12-1913832

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alexandra-guarnaschelli/my-mothers-marinara-sauce-recipe2-1919614

They both use 2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes, presumably San Marzanos. They both add carrots which will give you a little bit of sugar. Alex goes on to add 4 cups of water and 2 tsp of sugar.

A standard jar of Prego (24 oz) has 80 g of sugar, or 20 tsp. A standard jar of Ragu (23 oz) has 60 g of sugar, or 15 tsp. There's only about 1 tsp of sugar content in a 28 oz can of tomatoes. Considerable difference.

Again, I enjoy cooking and making a good sauce makes the house smell great and tastes great. Understandable if you don't want to do that after working a full day. So make it on Sunday, eat what you want, freeze the rest.

I'll also add that I won't criticize anyone who uses canned pasta sauce, everyone has their own prerogatives; however, that doesn't mean it deserves to be on a best pasta sauce ever thread or should be referred to as the best way to go because someone who's Italian does it.

htxag09 said:

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or should be referred to as the best way to go because someone who's Italian does it.

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Did someone say that?

fta09 said:

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My big issue with canned tomato sauce is the sugar content. I would rather start with San Marzanos and add sugar if I think it needs it.

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I can get on board with that mentality.

I'm decidedly not against what you and others are saying - only that the idea of using canned sauce on occasion is not some awful criminal offense, and even those that enjoy cooking at times just want to toss something on the stove and have it done in 5 minutes because the thought of putting much effort into cooking isn't always a great one.

I think that the second best spaghetti sauce I ever made involved browning some meat, pouring on some Classico Tomato & Basil sauce, and adding a little extra spices.

The best I ever made was with meat, tomato sauce, and a packaged spice mixture. The kitchen in the house I was living in at the time (Robert Keen's Front Porch House) was not very level. I wasn't in any hurry and so I browned some hamburger meat on a rather low setting -- it took about 45 minutes to an hour to brown. Because of the floor, the top of the stove wasn't level and so the grease from the meat all collected on one side leaving the meat to brown without stewing in its own grease.

Use the recipe from The Godfather. Clemenza' recipe. No kidding. You do it, not the wife.

Tee said:

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Use the recipe from The Godfather. Clemenza' recipe. No kidding. You do it, not the wife.

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Never tried it, but it made me think of this video. I've mentioned him in another thread on this board but he deserves another plug.

I thought about that scene from the movie too (Goodfellas). Razor cut garlic!

10 minute sauce.

Take 2-3 cloves of garlic. Dice, then sautee in about 1/4 cup of olive oil on a skillet. Use regular olive oil, not evoo.

Once garlic has started to cook a little and releases its aroma, toss in 10.5 ounces of cherry tomatoes or a bag of mini-San Marzano tomatoes (you can find both at Walmart). The tomatoes will start to cook in the olive oil. As the tomatoes cook over the next 5-6 minutes, use the end of the spoon to crush them and let them release their juices. (If you don't want to crush them, simply dice them and add in to the pot) Stir to mix with the garlic.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Add in some shredded basil.

Toss in pasta or meatballs, and serve.

Makes a nice light tomato sauce.

You can spend ten minutes making this, put in in the fridge, and serve it the next day. Giving the garlic and spices time to blend really makes it special.

That's it, though. Not a Sunday sauce that takes all day, just a 10 minute sauce so you can have it ready and dinner on the table quickly.

simple video gif