What's For Dinner?

On a Typical Friday we have pasta with sauce, except in going to my pantry just now, because we haven’t paid attention, most all of our traditional spaghetti sauce has added oils. Issue is that I do not want to run around to multiple stores in pandemic seeking out “no oil pasta sauce” only to get there and be disappointed. How does one find out whether or not a particular sauce has added oil short of going to the store? Well I went to look up online at Consumer Reports, which was less than helpful on sorting the individual ingredients as to oil content, however this search gave me a sense of the different price points and whether or not a certain brand was discontinued.

Our best pick for the pasta sauce would be from Aldi at $2.15/jar (fortunately somewhere we have been heavily shopping for groceries since COVID struck) and the cool thing is they also have a nice large can of “crushed & diced tomatoes” (28 oz for $1.45/can) which also do not have oil. So it can easily be affordable to make your own with that any time of year and continue to eat pasta sauce without added oil.

At one of our other favorite stores for buying pasta sauces, Trader Joe’s, I have found only the “Trader Giatto’s Pizza Sauce” is without oil. Seems there may have been another oil-free option there that is either in short supply or discontinued? The Trader Giatto’s is also really affordable, costing at present $1.99/jar for 16 oz., as some “no oil brands” on a google search were $5/jar or more (beware of the ones listed as “Keto” as they seem to have the biggest $ mark-ups). Although am unsure we would use the Trader Joe’s one for pasta or noodles, as it is a “pizza” formulation so a different consistency. We also have tried some “365 Everyday Value Organic Pasta Sauce Marinara - Fat Free”, $2.99/jar, not even realizing this too is oil-free. Beware as weirdly their other “organic marinara” - NOT FAT FREE does have oil, so read the labels carefully.

The truest test of these sauces will not only be the cost, but how well our children like. One of our children suggested we just grow our own and make fresh as we do at the end of the season in the fall, but that is a long way off from February…we will just have to get back to you on how that goes, for now it is good to have choices. Bon appétit!