Tried making my own pasta sauce from scratch for the first time last month and it was a total disaster, but then my buddy told me to just use a $1.29 can of crushed tomatoes with some garlic and dried herbs.

Honestly, my 'from scratch' sauce with fresh romas took 3 hours and tasted like sad tomato water, but the 15-minute canned version was so much richer and cheaper, so has anyone else had a fancy recipe totally fail compared to a basic one?

3 comments

3 Comments

danieltaylor1mo ago

My fancy beef stew was awful, but a cheap packet mix made the best one I've ever had.

parkerkim1mo ago

God that's always how it goes isn't it. Spend all day slow braising some expensive cut of meat and it comes out tasting like wet cardboard. Then you dump a 99 cent packet in a pot and suddenly you're the best cook on the block. The cheap stuff knows exactly what shortcuts to take. All those additives and preservatives are basically a cheat code for flavor. Maybe we should all just accept that homemade doesn't always beat the poison packet.

diana_flores251mo ago

Maybe it's just me but like @danieltaylor, I wonder if the cheap stuff is just better tested for home cooks.