Pasta sauce

Huxton said:
No but I have plenty of chopped tomatoes cans and tomato puree which are a few pence. Usually always got stock cubes, fresh and dried herbs and chilli's. Garlic powder and granules. Onions are cheap too. Most of it stores for a while too.
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But they do still cost something... and based just on a quick look at Tesco's cheapest options for a single portion of each of the above, DIY would cost about £2.40 compared to their cheapest pasta sauces (between 39p and 70p), with and the most expensive Loyd Grossman stuff at £2.80.

DIY is almost certainly better than the pre-made stuff, if you do it right... but I'm curious to know mow much you'd have to make before the cost far outmatches the majority of pre-made stuff.
 
diy £2.40 ? which supermarket do you use - remember the Tory 'how much is a pint of milk scandal'

ktc tomatoes usually 33p, carrots < 10p , celery usually keep the centres when we have used better stalks in salads < 20p , onions 20p , mixed herbs 5p , garlic 10 p electricty to cook it ??? so less than a £1, for 3 portions I'd say
if you're making bolognaise / lasagna obviously the meat is the expensive part.

edit : since brexit parmesan and decent balsamic have gone up, but sometimes add fish sauce.
 
You're doing something very wrong if it's costing anywhere near £2.40 per portion, even if you use Waitrose you're still nowhere near that.

Waitrose shop:

- Canned Tomatos x4 £1.80
- Mixed Herbs £1.90
- 1kg Carrots 65p
- Whole Celery 70p
- 1kg onions £1.05
- Garlic 90p
- Fresh Basil 75p

£7.90

Tesco Loyd Grossman Tomato & Basil 350g

£1.65

Pre made serves 2-3 so I went 2.5 servings making it 66p a serving. That Waitrose shop you're limited by the canned tomatoes but even still you're getting 10 portions (79p each) no problem and that's being very very generous.

I recently made a sauce with the above ingredients albeit with 3 cans and I could easily get 15 portions out of it, plus I'll still have everything but the canned toms leftover. All that and it's much tastier and better for you than the canned stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I lived on the pre-made stuff for years and enjoyed it but if you have the time to meal prep it's almost always more cost effective. A simple tomato sauce is also very quick and easy to prep.

edit: Heck you can chuck in Waitrose Parmesan and you're still nowhere near £2.40
 
I use Sam the cooking guys everyday tomato sauce, this can serve 3 to 4

2 tablespoons olive oil (10p)
1 medium yellow onion, diced (10p)
3 large cloves garlic, minced (20p)
2 cans whole peeled tomatoes (£1)
2 tablespoons tomato paste (20p)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (20p)
Pinch teaspoon red pepper flakes (5p)
1 tablespoon sugar (5p)
1 tablespoon dried oregano (10p)
salt and pepper to taste - and don't be shy about the salt for sure

About £2.00 for 3 to 4 servings
 
jpaul said:
diy £2.40 ? which supermarket do you use - remember the Tory 'how much is a pint of milk scandal'
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I just looked at the Tesco website and sorted everything by cheapest first.
Yes, I could break it down to cost per ingredient measure (ie 2.736p per tablespoon of sugar or whatever)... but you'd still need to buy the minimum packaged quantity (eg 500g of sugar) of everything in order to get started... which is why I was interested in how many servings you'd need to make before actual cost of purchasing all these bits drops below cost of just buying pre-made.
 
ttaskmaster said:
I just looked at the Tesco website and sorted everything by cheapest first.
Yes, I could break it down to cost per ingredient measure (ie 2.736p per tablespoon of sugar or whatever)... but you'd still need to buy the minimum packaged quantity (eg 500g of sugar) of everything in order to get started... which is why I was interested in how many servings you'd need to make before actual cost of purchasing all these bits drops below cost of just buying pre-made.
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Agree with you there tbh

Be nice to prep sauces, but tbh time+ease trump's all. You can't go in a shop and get 'two servings' of ingredients (generally) :p I guess you could freeze some sauces.
 
jpaul said:
diy £2.40 ? which supermarket do you use - remember the Tory 'how much is a pint of milk scandal'

ktc tomatoes usually 33p, carrots < 10p , celery usually keep the centres when we have used better stalks in salads < 20p , onions 20p , mixed herbs 5p , garlic 10 p electricty to cook it ??? so less than a £1, for 3 portions I'd say
if you're making bolognaise / lasagna obviously the meat is the expensive part.

edit : since brexit parmesan and decent balsamic have gone up, but sometimes add fish sauce.
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Lloyd Grossman sauces are the best Pre made by far, and they’re always on offer. Atm, Morrisons are doing 3 for £3. I’ll take a delicious pre made one for a quid over home made hassle any day of the week.
 
Don't think I've bought a jar pasta sauce since I was a student over 15 years ago.

Garlic, pasata, onion, whatever else you want, it's so easy.

Yesterday I had some leftover pasta from a bake and literally just did it with chopped tomatoes, chilli flakes and butter. Delish.
 
Huxton said:
Liver is disgusting!!!! Same as kidney.... I find it repulsive, same as black pudding. I'm British but hate that stuff hahaha, I don't even drink tea! Anchovies are ok depending on the scenario. It's like pineapple on pizza. Shouldn't happen!
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you really need to find nice liver kidney and black pudding especially. i dodged black pudding for years but when you get real good black pudding its really nice. eat liver probably once a week.
as for spag bol i normally add extra garlic turkish peppers tasty but not too hot and cheese.
:D
 
Huxton said:
So lately I've been making my own pasta sauces, I usually just buy jars of it but it's so much better making your own!

Last one I made included: chopped tomatoes in sauce, tomato puree, garlic, sugar, olive oil, veg stock cube, black pepper, mixed herbs (basil etc) scotch bonnets then some kind of meat, sausage, pancetta. Fusilli pasta.

So much better then the store bought jars and cheaper! Do you have any recipes or extras that you like to add? Would love to hear... Addicted to pasta at the moment. I especially love spice so anything with some kick. Going to make some tonight.
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I am having a glut of lovely Costoluto Fiorentina tomatoes. The skins are so red and I don't mind the seeds. All the authentic chefs say peel the skins and deseed then simmer for about an hour. Why not just cook the tomatoes in their skins, seeds and all. Then use a hand blender after about an hour, puree and pass through a sieve ? Any observations would be welcome - Thanks
 
ttaskmaster said:
I just looked at the Tesco website and sorted everything by cheapest first.
Yes, I could break it down to cost per ingredient measure (ie 2.736p per tablespoon of sugar or whatever)... but you'd still need to buy the minimum packaged quantity (eg 500g of sugar) of everything in order to get started... which is why I was interested in how many servings you'd need to make before actual cost of purchasing all these bits drops below cost of just buying pre-made.
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Well for a start you don't need sugar in a tomato sauce. Maybe if you're short on time and can only simmer it for <20mins. You also don't need carrot, celery etc. in every tomato sauce, that'd be more for a bolognese/ragu or something imo. Not every red sauce is a 3hr jobby.

You're thinking about it backwards. If you buy a bulb of garlic, 3 onions and a 4 pack of tinned tomatoes you don't need to cook it all up in one hit. The onions and garlic will probably last two (maybe three) weeks in a cool cupboard, so you if you prefer you can cook two meals worth separately across those two weeks, or maybe three if you feel like it. It's not like you don't use garlic and onions in other recipes, they're complete kitchen essentials... there's a reason people that cook a lot always have them in. In fact I just noticed we only have a single onion left and it's making me nervous!

People need to learn to cook more from scratch then the savings are easy. For example, don't buy kale for one meal.. we might buy a big bag to go with sausage and mash, but I could list a million things to do with the leftovers... kale pesto, put it in a veg soup for lunch, sausage and kale pasta with a mustard/creme fraiche sauce is quick and easy, we do a lentil stew with fish that you could chop it into... the list goes on.
One More Solo said:
Use decent chopped tomatoes and the rest falls into place, really.
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Yes. Some Italian sauces are literally reduced tomatoes, aren't they? :confused:

Having said that you get more bang-for-your-buck with whole tinned tomatoes. The sauce/juice they're in is much nicer. Just crush them in your hand when you add them to the pan. Easy.
 
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