Had to choose between canned tomatoes and fresh for my pasta sauce last week

I was making a big batch of pasta sauce for the week and only had $12 left for groceries. I usually grab fresh tomatoes from the farmers market, but they were $4 a pound. Canned whole tomatoes were 88 cents a can at Aldi, so I went with those. I used two cans plus a bit of tomato paste and honestly the sauce came out richer and thicker. It simmered for 45 minutes and tasted like I spent way more. Has anyone else found a canned veggie that beats fresh for budget meals?

2 comments

2 Comments

kevin_wells461mo ago

Yeah I feel you on that one, I started doing the same thing a couple years back when I was tight on cash. I remember one time I had like ten bucks and a jar of dried basil and I just grabbed a couple of those 88 cent cans from Aldi and a little can of paste. That sauce simmered for almost an hour and it was honestly better than the fresh tomato sauce I'd made the month before that cost three times as much. @the_sean you nailed it about the jammy flavor, that's exactly what I got too, that deep richness you just don't get from fresh unless you boil them down for ages. Now I only buy fresh if I'm eating them raw in a salad or on a sandwich, but for cooking it's canned all the way. The only downside is I have to watch the salt, but that's easy enough to adjust for.

the_sean1mo ago

Oh man, canned tomatoes are a total sleeper hit for sauce. I did the exact same thing last month when I was trying to stretch my grocery budget. The fresh ones at the store were all mealy and sad looking anyway so I grabbed a couple of 88 cent cans and a tube of tomato paste. That sauce simmered for like an hour and it got this deep, jammy flavor that fresh ones never give you unless you cook them down forever. Plus no peeling or seeding, just dump and stir. It honestly made me wonder why I bother with fresh for cooking at all. The only time I grab fresh now is if I'm making a caprese salad or something where you actually taste the tomato raw. For anything that gets heated, canned is the way to go.