(Apologies to The Onion.)
I’ve been loyal to the same brand of jarred spaghetti sauce for so long, it predates our marriage. If it turns out that Laurie married me for bringing Bertolli (formerly Five Brothers) Marinara with Burgundy Wine into her life, it would be hard to fault her for this.
At least once a week, I cook some Italian sausage in a pan, pour in some Five Brothers (I’ll never get used to the new name, which debuted in 2002), and use it to sauce some penne rigate. It also makes great sauce for English muffin pizzas, and of course it’s the basis of Penne alla Vodka. (Actually, there’s another sauce I like even better for pizza: Hunts Traditional, in a can. Often on sale for $1.)
Now, I realize there’s nothing empirical about the greatness of Five Brothers. It just happened to fall into my mouth and my life at the right time and stay on the market despite mergers and acquisitions in the red sauce industry.
Therefore, my question to you is: what’s your sauce?
I haven’t used bottled marinara in a while, but when I do, it’s Five Brothers aka Bertolli. Great stuff. It’s possible I was eating it even before you discovered it, but possibly not. I do remember the first taste, and the wonder of discovering a pasta sauce that tasted like tomatoes, and wasn’t MMMF SWEET.
Periodically I make a fake bolognese that’s reasonably quick: ground beef, minced or grated garlic or shallot, and grated carrot (really!), olive oil, a little milk, and tomato purée; season with thyme and oregano, salt & pepper. Cooks about 45 minutes.
For pizza, I do a very very simple sauce: sauté a little garlic/shallot in a fair bit of olive oil, then add tomato purée and dried herbs and simmer 15 minutes. When J isn’t going to be eating it, I add black pepper and red pepper flakes to make it a little more arrabiata.
We just make a simple marinara with loads of garlic sautéed in olive oil, Muir Glen crushed tomatoes, basil, crushed red pepper, salt, black pepper and oregano.
Ours used to be Newman’s Own Sockarooni… Like your beloved Five Brothers, I think they changed the name to “Tomatoes, Peppers & Spices” in the last couple of years, but it still says Sockarooni on the label in smaller print.
Although, in honesty, I haven’t used a jar in ages. We make huge batches of the Mario Batali simple tomato sauce and freeze them in ziploc bags. Ditto for huge batches of Amercann-style bolognese.
I use canned spaghetti sauce a lot (and I stubbornly call sauce in a jar “canned”, because that’s what it IS) because I eat spaghetti for lunch most days of the week and couldn’t/don’t want to work from scratch that often. I haven’t liked any sauce from an aluminum can; also, with those, I have to find a container. So I use a variety of Pregos and Ragus. My favorite is Ragu Robusto Six Cheese. I used to love Chopped Tomato, Olive Oil, and Garlic, but they seem to have changed the recipe–now, instead of tasting like fresh tomato, it tastes (and feels on the tongue) like cheap olive oil.
Sigh. That was me. Life was easier before Nicole started reading Roots and Grubs.
I just cant get enough of the trader joes ‘low fat’ marinara. Mmmm. Good for pizza topping, sauce, anything.
We are conflicted in our house. I happen to like home-made sauce (because that is what I was brought up with) thus I like my sauce to have a nice tomato flavor.
My husband on the other hand, likes his sauce more on the sweeter side (because it is what he was brought up with) of the tomato spectrum, to the point where I wonder if he is eating dessert with his spaghetti.
So, I make home-made sauce (usually with Muir Glen Fire-Roasted tomatoes these days – the current favorite) and every now and then the hubby goes home to mama for what he calls ‘real’ spaghetti.
Sadly, my toddler likes “Gramma’s” spaghetti over mine. sigh
We also use Mario’s, Tyler’s and even (gasp) Big Head’s recipes for marinara and pizza sauce. I can’t remember the last time I bought a jar of sauce as I do feel I’ve encountered those sweet ones.
I often make my own (pasta and pizza sauce), but I do like TJ’s marinara sauce. And Muir Glen’s pizza sauce is excellent.
I keep a few jars of Barilla aroudn but I usually make and freeze my own sauce.
i tried to work up something funny about a big head todd & the monsters cookbook, perhaps how i enjoyed toad the wet sprocket’s sauce more, but it didn’t really go anywhere.
wait, would hootie & the blowfish be funnier?
for those with diabetics to cook for and who don’t have the time to make their own, i rely on classico – either the spicy red or the italian sausage….i spent another chunk of time checking the sugar content on the sauce selections at the grocery store just last month and classico has the lowest sugar content….
I was a staunch fan of trader joe’s vodka sauce, but after I wrote into my wedding vows, “I promise never to feed you food with onions in it” I have converted to making a very simple sauce from tinned plum tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and minced garlic poached in the sauce. Till death do us part, and apparently “till onions do us part” as well.
I grew up on english muffin pizza’s, and my mom always bought hunts in the can. always.
My family has always liked Aunt Millie’s Spaghetti Sauce (which became Pasta Sauce mysteriously in the night when I wasn’t looking). When I was living in North Carolina years ago, it wasn’t sold locally so once I smuggled a few bottles into my carry on luggage after a trip to Boston. When something started dripping on me from the overhead compartment somewhere over Baltimore, I froze with fear, thinking about all my clothing covered with tomato sauce. Fortunately, it was a perfume bottle belonging to my seatmate.
Aunt Millie’s has become very hard to find since Heinz bought the brand so I suspect it has been discontinued on the East Coast and they are putting all their energy into Classico.
I have lived in the UK for a while and have looked in vain for Five Brothers. I was surprised to read here that Bertolli took over Five Brothers as I use Bertolli sauce here and it doesn’t seem to be the same quality. Does anyone know what happened? Did Bertolli just take over the Five Brothers company or did they actually slap the Bertolli name on Five Brothers recipes – in which case, the sauces would be the same?
Sandi, here in Seattle, there was no such thing as Bertolli brand sauce (although there was Bertolli olive oil) until a few years ago, and it replaced Five Brothers without changing the recipe.
I always use TJ’s Rustico sauce. I add garlic/shallot, dash of brown sugar, grated carrot, finely chopped broccoli or bell pepper, chopped onions. Sometimes I add in a jar of TJ’s marinara sauce. I used to use newman’s Sockaronnie too. I like TJ’s because it does not have HFCS (High Fructuose Corn Syrup). I will try adding some red wine to the sauce. That sound good! I add TJ’s natural ground beef of Irsenio’s spicy Italian Sausage. I take the fat/grease out with multiple paper towels before adding in the veggies. Sometimes I use TJ’s Italian Style Meat Balls.
-Moose
Chalk up another vote for the apparently HFCS-laden (Sockarooni (wish I didn’t know that, but should have assumed!). We too are more likely to make our own these days, but among the store-boughts, I like Sockarooni better than anything else I’ve tried.
I forgot to add, earlier: a company that changes the name of its product from “Sockarooni” to “Tomatoes, peppers, and onions” (or whatever) has problems.
If I’m going for sauce from a jar, it’s Barilla, almost always the tomato basil kind. If I’m making sauce from canned tomatoes, I’m another fan of Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes.