Every time I walk down the pasta aisle at the grocery store, I am amazed at the sheer number of tomato sauces. Jar after jar of classic marinara, three-cheese blends, sauces spiked with Italian herbs, those without salt, and even ones with a splash of wine. With this kind of variety, is it even worth making our own?
Let's take a look at the most basic, no-frills tomato sauce. For the store-bought, we'll use Newman's Own Marinara Sauce. For the homemade version, I turn to an old favorite: Sara Kate's Basic Tomato Sauce. All costs were taken from Peapod Online Grocery unless otherwise noted.
• Newman's Own Mariana Sauce
• Recipe: Basic Tomato Sauce (With Optional Zing!)
• Peapod Online Grocery
COST BREAKDOWN
• Newman's Own Marinara Sauce
24-oz jar
TOTAL: $2.99
PER 4-OZ SERVING: $0.50
• Basic Tomato Sauce
Makes 2 cups (16 oz)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil: $0.44
1 medium onion: $0.79
4 garlic cloves: $0.12
1 (28-ounce) can whole or chopped tomatoes: $1.89
pinch dried red pepper flakes: $0.05
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel: $0.50
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley: $0.25
coarse salt: $0.01
freshly grated black pepper: $0.01
TOTAL: $4.06
PER 4-OZ SERVING: $1.02
Is this price difference surprising to anyone else? It was to me. I really figured they would come out to about the same price.
CONVENIENCE
This basic homemade tomato sauce takes about thirty minutes to make, including time to chop the onion and prep the rest of the ingredients. Except for perhaps the parsley, most of the ingredients for making this sauce can be purchase ahead and kept handy for whenever the mood for some pasta sauce strikes. While not as convenient as opening a jar from the cupboard, I'd say this recipe is still within the realm of "quick weeknight meals" for me.
TASTINESS AND HEALTHFULNESS
By and large, jars of commercial tomato sauce are pretty free of weird additives, fillers, and flavor enhancers. Tomatoes are always the first ingredient, as they should be. You'll get things like dehydrated onion powder and citric acid that we wouldn't use in our normal cooking, but that also don't give major cause for concern. This was a surprising but welcome discovery for me!
The one area where homemade tomato sauce really shines, however, is in the flavor department. Even when using canned tomatoes instead of garden-fresh ones, a homemade tomato sauce made with onions I sautéed myself and spices from my cupboard always tastes richer and more balanced to me than what comes from a jar. I also like the varied texture of homemade as opposed to the super-pureed, homogeneous texture of sauce from a jar.
There are lots of ways to doctor up a jar of tomato sauce to make it taste better, but I still like building it from the ground up, tasting as I go, and adjusting as needed.
MAKE OR BUY?
I admit that I came into this one thinking that homemade sauce would be the clear winner. But it's not! Once you factor in the cost, convenience, and healthfulness of the ingredients, store-bought starts to look pretty good.
My two-cents: if you have a brand of jarred tomato sauce that you really like, that seems fine to me. I never found that brand, so I've got into the habit of making it myself. And I think that's fine, too!
VERDICT: Store-bought is the unexpected winner this round
Do you make your own tomato sauce? Or do you have a favorite store-bought brand?
Related: Home Canning Project: Roasted and Canned Tomatoes
(Images: Peapod Online Grocery and Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan)
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There was a cool Ted video on WHY there are so many types of tomato sauce...I forget which one.
i REALLY like this post... but, i'd have to say that tastes trumps time and money on this one... homemade sauce is just.. so.. much.. better!! ...plus you can always make a lot and freeze so you don't have to put in "all that effort" every time you want red sauce.
I prefer homemade. However, if you do buy jarred sauce, pour the sauce in a microwave-safe bowl, cover it with a paper towel and microwave on HIGH for 10 minutes. It gets thick and jammy and amazing. Try it.
I would only buy Rao's jarred sauce because it comes pretty close to my grandmother's sauce. However, it does cost about $8-$9 a jar which is why I usually make a big batch at home and freeze it.
I home-make tomato sauce for much less than that. Grow your own herbs, make in a large batch and freeze -- and you don't deal with can waste, either. Plus, it doesn't take half an hour -- if you use the Bittman recipe, for example, you can home-make tomato sauce in the amount of time it takes to boil the water for your pasta.
Forgive me, Emma, but there is a world of difference between tomato sauce and spaghetti sauce (or pasta sauce).
Maybe it's a regional thing, but if I sent my husband to the store for tomato sauce, he'd come home with a half-dozen of those little 8oz cans of plain tomato sauce (puree), not a jar of Newman's Own or similar.
Make Make Make!!!!! I have been reading along with the make-or-buy series, and typically find myself on the buy side or apathetic, but this is one thing that is never as good bought as it is homemade!!!
It seriously baffles me why people buy pasta sauce. I ALWAYS have a batch of Marcella Hazan's butter and onion sauce in the fridge. I use Muir Glens, and even with the higher end tomato, it still costs less than a jar of the premade stuff.
We always, always make homemade tomato sauce and my personal thought on the homemade v. bought debate is that homemade is always better. The notion that cost and time should factor in on whether a particular food product is better than another is also puzzling. That is to say, if the end goal is to produce the best possible food product for your home, then making from scratch food will always win.
Learn to make food at home (period).
Are you reducing the homemade tomato sauce by half? I am not sure how you end up with a yield of 16 oz when starting with 28 oz can of tomatoes and a whole onion unless you reduced it by a lot. If you are not doing that, it would bring the cost per serving to about the same because you would have more servings.
We love the Marcella Hazan sauce, but the hard part is finding good canned tomatoes or passata to begin with... Our local Italian grocery makes their own pasta sauces, and they are pretty damn good, so we often use those.
I never use lemon peel in my pasta sauce (plenty acidic already, or add a splash of balsamic for a little more moody tang). Subtract that 50 cents and we are pretty much even stevens with Newmans own
Wow, I don't think I've bought a jar of tomato sauce in the last decade. It's always make in this household. But I'd be interested to hear about any brands of jarred sauce that inspire loyalty.
How is it puzzling that time or cost would come into the picture when deciding what's right for you and your family? They are factors for plenty of people. Sure, homemade tastes better, and sure, we would all love to always make the best possible food product for our homes, but I think there are some circumstances (or there's a really rough day at work) where time/cost make "good enough" an acceptable option.
I always make my own simple version out of canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, spices and a dash of wine. It is so easy and so much tastier than canned. I hate sweet sauces and I also only really shop at TJ's, so I have no desire to shop around a good store bought one (for me, buying canned tomatoes is buying store bought!)
I am also wondering how the second recipe only yields 16oz.....?
I understand things cook down, but this reduces the tomatos by almost half.
I always wondered about these stats, but in my house my tomato gravy is just: garden herbs, tomato paste thinned slightly with pasta water or wine or balsamic, and olive oil and garlic. So I still feel like mine's cheaper, plus the rich sweet taste is 100% perfect for our tastes. I just don't particularly like jarred sauce, the textures are weird and the taste isn't rich enough for me in the right areas....always smells like peppers or ketchup somehow. To each his own!
Just made "homemade" sauce the other night out of a big can of San Marzano crushed tomatoes, a smaller can of store-brand diced tomatoes, an onion, a shallot, some dried basil, salt & pepper, a teaspoon of sugar, and a little less than a pound of ground beef.
IT WAS SO GOOD! Like, shockingly good. We normally get Newman's Own organic marinara which is $2.99 a jar at my local grocery store. The san marzano crushed tomatoes alone were $2.99 and that was on sale (they're usually $3.49). But man, it was so good, they might be worth it.
I feel VERY certain the exact same topic was on here in the last month or so. I comment regularly on almost no sites, and I remember commenting on it!
I do both. I make sauce but not all the time. Mine is worlds away better, but jarred is fine for "ordinary" if it's all natural ingredients
Ehh, I'm a first generation Italian, so the idea of buying sauce was insanity to me for a while. Honestly when I've worked 9 hrs, I dont have any left in the freezer and all I want is to go home and have a cheap dinner ready in minutes, I'm gunna use bottled. It's really not the end of the world guys :)
I buy a local PA produced jarred sauce branded "DelGrosso", their tomato basil is excellent, no artificial ingredients and very little sugar. In fact the ingredients list is almost identical to my own recipe. It's usually on sale for $1.25 per jar, I couldn't even make it for that cheap.
I do make my own couple times a year, but for everyday I rely on my tried and true brand.
I've been making my own all summer and I'll never go back. I use fresh tomatoes roasted with onion, garlic, basil, some olive oil and whatever else catches my fancy. I just roast everything for a couple of hours at a low temperature and then puree it. It freezes wonderfully, is basically free if you have your own tomatoes and herbs, and tastes divine.
I buy cheap but still pretty tasty plain pasta sauce and jazz it up when it supper time. Toss in some mushrooms and other veggies, add whatever herbs and spices that tickle my fancy and dinner is served. I also really like to microwave my pasta. My mom got me something called the "Fasta Pasta" and it works like a charm, add pasta, pinch of salt and some water. Nuke for 8 - 10 min depending on the pasta and your good to go. It is my staple for when I am to busy/lazy to get out my pots and pans. I like filling meals in less than 15 minutes :)
Am I the only person in the buy camp? Maybe it's because I don't have any Italian roots, but when I make pasta, it's because I need to get dinner on the table in 10-15 min. Even if I could make sauce in that time, I wouldn't have time for the other prep I wanted to do for the final dish.
I don't see much difference between buying a can of tomatoes vs. buying a jar of sauce, personally. If you're using fresh, in season tomatoes then *maybe* but that's definitely going to drive up the cost.
I hatehatehate most store tomato sauces. They're either too acidic or way too sweet, or have corn syrup in them which is an auto-no for me. Bad sauce is also my main problem with many pizzas. My husband's recipe, and his aunts, are awesome though. They have redeemed pizza for me.
I'm with the other canners though, you've got some crazy expensive canned tomatoes. We can our own from farmers-market "seconds," the ones that aren't pretty enough to sell to fussbudgets. It's about $5-$7 for enough to make 16-20 quarts. Next year we're going to make sauce from the tomatoes first and can that, in addition to the whole tomatoes I like to have.
I usually make my own and keep it in the freezer, a couple of different kinds and I'm good to go but I always have a jar in the pantry for when I've got no time and my husband has to throw dinner together or my daughter wants nothing else for lunch and I don't feel like fussing.
@Ladidi : I'm in the 'buy' camp as well, but then I am most of the time. There' s only so much i'm willing to make on my own when I can get fantastic substitute at the grocers.
I made my first tomato sauce the other day, and I couldn't believe how easy it was. Admittedly, I had a big bowl of tomatoes that were the last of summer and I had to get rid of them, so the cost to me for the tomatoes was negligible, but the complete control over the flavor is great. With the recipe I used, you basically just blend some stuff, leave it on the stove for awhile, then stick it in the freezer, so it is practically 0 effort and you can keep the stuff forever. I am extremely picky about store sauces (I was raised on Prego, which I love, but it sugary crud, and I have never had another brand that I have been able to enjoy), so for me this seems like way to have quality food with very little money or effort.
tldr: make.
I almost always have a jar of spaghetti sauce in my refrigerator for emergencies and quick fixes, but if I even just barely have the time, I will make my own sauce. It's so simple and quick, and totally worth the flavor!!
I buy because I am totally inept at making my own.
While we tend to make most of our sauces, I always have a couple of jars of Mario Batalli's marinara--great taste, no added sugar. I especially like it as pizza sauce. Once I open a jar, I divide up the remains into 8 oz containers and freeze it, so I can make a quick pizza even if I haven't planned ahead.
I mostly make my own sauce now. Beyond the taste, tomato sauce is heavy to carry home from the grocery store when you walk! Also, by making a pasta dinner a little more difficult, (or at least making it require a bit more creativity), I prevent myself from reaching for it over and over for an easy meal. Even though I usually make quick, lighter sauces, it's enough effort that it can't be a 'lazy dinner'. My waistline thanks me.
That said, I do have a special place in my heart for spaghetti topped with store bought tomato sauce with ground beef mixed in. It was one of my favorite things as a kid and it just takes me back.
I prefer to make my own from scratch, but sometimes jarred is needed in a pinch. There are a few brands that I have on hand as a base and doctor up, but even alone taste fine.
In the middle of winter, there's something comforting about a big pot of sauce simmering. But, in all honestly, there's some pretty good jarred sauce out there, and after a long day, it just makes my life easier. I'm in love with Classico's Spicy Tomato Basil right now.
A combo of store bought, but doctored up.
I'd like to know what "Industrial Strength" pasta sauce means...
I just can't come to terms with jarred sauce, just too sweet! I was brought up on homemade sauce and it's just so easy to make!