Cooking with a small budget calls for big, outside the cereal box thinking. Industrial size cans of basic ingredients call to my imagination with all the wonderful meals they can become. One of my favorites, at around .37 cents a serving, is a simple pasta sauce.
My criteria for meals is pretty tough. It has to be healthy, extremely cheap, relatively quick/easy, simple to clean up after and appetizing. You can imagine recipes that fit all the above aren’t all too common but I am finding them. When I do, I share. We’re all trying to look for creative and easy ways to save. If you find an awesome recipe, please share with me!
Pasta Sauce For Pennies
Ingredients:
- Industrial size can of tomato sauce at $2.89
- 1 – 2 pounds of ground meat (I use a sausage at $5.08 for 2 lbs)
- 2 onions .41 cents
- Misc. leftovers on hand*
- Italian herbs and garlic cloves to taste
Easy Peasy Instructions:
Take out your large stock pot. Saute up the onions and garlic until soft. Add your meat right to the pot and cook that up with it, mixing the onions and garlic into it. Once that’s cooked pour in your industrial size can of tomato sauce. Toss in your misc. leftovers on hand* Add your spices such as italian herbs, basil, oregano and whatnot to taste. Heat to desired temperature. Serve over your favorite pasta and you’re done.
This is also good as a homemade pizza base, a hot dip for garlic bread and goes well with beans and rice. We get such a large amount when we make it that I store it in a 5 gallon ice cream bucket in the fridge. All week-long we have fresh, made from scratch pasta sauce.
*I add whatever leftover bits we have on hand that won’t clash. I’ve added rice, garden green peppers, leftover soybeans etc all with good results. The tomato flavor takes over and converts just about anything to blend it in.
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