Spaghetti sauce recommendations

[Zarathustra]

Okay, I've started a thread on selling my spaghetti sauce recipe, so if the mods think this is unnecessary, I'll understand. However, that thread can be used for selling any food/recipes in general, while here I'd like to get everyone's opinions of the best sauces currently available at the grocery store. Anything from the best of the standard sauces, to the best gourmet stuff out there. I'm going to buy a bunch this weekend and have a taste test with the family, to see if my recipe really is unique enough to try selling. The thing I don't like about store brands is that they taste too sweet and artificial. Mine has a dozen or more flavors that all blend together perfectly creating something has many layers and subtlety.

I've heard good things about Classico and Barilla. What are your favorites?

[Menolly]

My own.



Seriously though, in answer to your question...

For inexpensive jar sauces, I like both brands you mention, after I severly doctor them up. I don't buy the more expensive ones often enough to have memorized the brand names. I'll write the ones I've tried and liked OK to post.

[JazFusion]

After tasting and making my mother-in-law's sauce (not spaghetti sauce, it's just sauce) I can longer eat anything out of a jar or can from the store. Sorry I couldn't be more of a help.

[Cameraman Jenn]

I too am a snob, I make some ass kickingly delicious sauce, however, Paul Newmans isn't too bad and I do like classico's olive mushroom offering.

[Zarathustra]

Well, from this small (but welcomed!) sampling of people I see that jar sauce isn't popular. That just makes me smile even broader. As I suspected, there's a gaping hole in the spaghetti sauce market.

Menolly, your recipe looks intriguing. I will have to try it. However, my recipe isn't as intensive in terms of cooking, timing, sweating onions, etc. I just throw it all into a pot and cook it. While yours may actually be better (I doubt it ), I think mine would be easier to mass produce.

I'll let you guys know how my blind taste test goes this weekend. My son hates jarred stuff, and he's only 7. I'm going to get the best sauces I can, and compare mine along with it to see if he can pick it out.

I don't know what it is about mine, but after every bowl I think,"My god that's delicious" and it's all I can do to stop myself from licking the damn bowl. It's that good! Maybe I've just put together all the tastes that taste good to me personally. I need to get some other opinions besides my friends and family. However, the combination of flavors is so perfect that it really is my best recipe (and I have a lot of fantastic original recipes I've meticulously developed).

[Cameraman Jenn]

I have witnesses about how good mine is. Damelon is one. Ask him.

[Zarathustra]

I have witnesses about how good mine is. Damelon is one. Ask him.

See, everyone has their own version that they like better than the store bought stuff. Why don't we see something similar with, say, ice cream? I don't think I could ever make something as good as Hagen Dazs coffee ice cream. So I don't even try. But every jar sauce I have tasted for as long as I can remember, I've thought, "Surely I can do better." And people do it all the time (including you). And yet, no one puts it in a jar.

I wish we could all get together and cook for each other. That would be one hell of a party, especially if I brewed up enough homebrew.

[aliantha]

Rube with uneducated palate who only ever eats jarred sauce, here....

I had always bought Classico Tomato & Basil for myself because it has no added sweeteners. There is no freakin' need for high-fructose corn syrup in spaghetti sauce! Magickmaker prefers a less chunky sauce so I get Prego Traditional for her.

Altho now that I'm trying to do the low-sodium thing, the best I can find is Hunt's Low-Sodium tomato sauce in the can, which needs *severe* doctorization and I've not quite got the proportions right yet.

Basically, Malik, if you can make your product low-sodium but still tasty, you will be my new best friend. But if you put high-fructose corn syrup in it, I will hunt you down and hurt you.

[Zarathustra]

Yeah, the sweetness thing is what I hate. The HFCS. However, I do put a little bit of sugar in my sauce to cut the acidity of the tomatoes, but certainly not enough to make it taste sweet at all. As for low sodium, sorry can't help you there. I usually make it just a tad on the salty side, so that when you add the spaghetti noodles (actually, angel hair pasta in my home) it doesn't taste "diluted" by the pasta. I really like to taste the sauce, and consider the pasta just something to hold the sauce. When I'm making a bowl, I can never resist having a spoonful all by itself. Even cold out of the fridge all by itself, it's heaven.

It's also really good in lasagna.

[Menolly]

Yeah, the sweetness thing is what I hate. The HFCS. However, I do put a little bit of sugar in my sauce to cut the acidity of the tomatoes, but certainly not enough to make it taste sweet at all. As for low sodium, sorry can't help you there. I usually make it just a tad on the salty side, so that when you add the spaghetti noodles (actually, angel hair pasta in my home) it doesn't taste "diluted" by the pasta. I really like to taste the sauce, and consider the pasta just something to hold the sauce. When I'm making a bowl, I can never resist having a spoonful all by itself. Even cold out of the fridge all by itself, it's heaven.

It's also really good in lasagna.

Ditto everything you said, Malik.
Except we like thin spaghetti vs. cappelini. We prefer just a litte more tootheness (?) to the pasta, but less than spaghetti itself.

btw...here's Jenn's Sauce. Yumm...

[Zarathustra]

Jenn's sounds fantastic, too. Both of you seem to make some really unique, special sauces. Mine is more "generic." I do use about a dozen ingredients, but they're all pretty standard stuff that goes into a basic sauce. And that's another reason why I think it's marketable: mass appeal. Not everyone likes black olives and mushrooms (myself included).

[Menolly]

Jenn's sounds fantastic, too. Both of you seem to make some really unique, special sauces. Mine is more "generic." I do use about a dozen ingredients, but they're all pretty standard stuff that goes into a basic sauce. And that's another reason why I think it's marketable: mass appeal. Not everyone likes black olives and mushrooms (myself included).

True 'nuff.
But both sauces are adaptable. You can add or subtract various ingedients to your taste.

[Cameraman Jenn]

When we finally meet we are gonna have to have a sauce off competition, Malik.

[Menolly]

Can I be a judge?
We can do it at the camping trip!!!

[DukkhaWaynhim]

Has a date been selected yet for this trip?

dw

[Menolly]

Dunno.

Back on topic...

I just made lunch of penne with Bertolli "Vodka" sauce. I had bought it a couple of weeks ago to try, and figured now was as good a time as any.

No vodka taste that I can discern. But it is a really nice blush sauce, especially for premade. And no corn syrup.

Ingredients:
tomato puree (water, tomato paste)
diced tomatoes
cream
vodka
onions
parmesan and romano cheeses (good cheese flavor) (part-skim milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes)
sugar
olive oil
salt
xanthan gum
garlic
basil
spice
parsley

sodium is a bit high, ali. A serving is considered 1/2 cup, and that has 730 mg sodium.

However, I see no HFCS, or corn syrup of any type listed. And it's pretty good, for jarred sauce.

[aliantha]

Ingredients:
tomato puree (water, tomato paste)
diced tomatoes
cream
vodka
onions
parmesan and romano cheeses (good cheese flavor) (part-skim milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes)
sugar
olive oil
salt
xanthan gum
garlic
basil
spice
parsley

One of my favorite food additives! (I think it's a thickener, but I could be wrong.)

sodium is a bit high, ali. A serving is considered 1/2 cup, and that has 730 mg sodium.

Yeah, that's quite a bit. I buy whole Kashi meals with less sodium. It really is amazing to read labels for sodium. Almost every processed food has a ridiculous amount.

[Damelon]

I have witnesses about how good mine is. Damelon is one. Ask him.

Yes, Jenn's sauce is excellent!

[stonemaybe]

Malik:

I usually make it just a tad on the salty side

NO-O-O-O-O! Leave out the f-ing salt! That's 9 tenths of the world's population not gonna buy your sauce (you are planning marketing worldwide, yes??????)

[Zarathustra]

Malik:

I usually make it just a tad on the salty side

NO-O-O-O-O! Leave out the f-ing salt! That's 9 tenths of the world's population not gonna buy your sauce (you are planning marketing worldwide, yes??????)

LOL, well if I am lucky enough to expand beyond the U.S., I can always make a low sodium version. But Americans like salty food. I like salty food. Heck, I put salt on grapefruit and granny smith apples. (You'd be surprised how salt interacts with sour to moderate it better than, say, sugar.) I'm not saying that it hits you in the face with saltiness. I'm just saying that I put in just a tiny bit more than the "perfect" amount when tasted alone (without pasta), so that when I add the pasta it doesn't taste bland.