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In early November, I bought two food-service sized cans of marinara sauce for $1.99 apiece at the Grocery Outlet store. With 24 servings each, the cans would easily provide us with 6-7 meals at $.08 per person. What a score!
While we could easily have the sauce plain with pasta, I wanted to bulk it up a bit and build up the flavor. What I ended up with is a flavor-packed sauce that is the frugal base of at least 9 meals.
Here’s the cost breakdown:
1 lb. hot Italian sausage $2.99
1 lb. mild Italian sausage $2.99
½ lb. pepperoni, diced $1.50
4 medium onions, diced $1.33
6 zucchini, shredded $2.00
A handful of fresh basil from the garden $.00
6 lb. 11 oz. can of marinara sauce $1.99
Total cost $12.80
$12.80/9 meals = $1.42 per meals
$1.42 per meal/5 servings = $.28 per serving.
This is the sauce that does not end. It just goes on and on my friend...
Pasta
We’ve used this sauce on pasta, naturally, for a dinner ready in under 15 minutes. (I've added a label for meals ready in under 15 minutes, so as I add to this blog you can look up quick, cheap dinners.) I added another shredded zucchini, trying to use up the ones given to us by a neighbor whose garden overproduced. Our neighbor's zucchini came after I made the sauce, so I bought the ones in the sauce. With a serving of pasta costing us about $.20, that was an easy and filling $.48 dinner. We have two family members who are gluten free, and I buy gluten-free pasta for them. I cook it in the boiling water first, pull their pasta out, then cook ours, so there is no cross-contamination in the water. Their pasta costs a bit more, ours a bit less, so the $.20 is an average for the meal. It would be cheaper using all wheat spaghetti.
Soup
I made a big batch of pizza soup with white beans using my favorite beans with sausage and greens method. About a pound of cannellini beans ($.82) were cooked in the Instant Pot/pressure cooker along with a diced onion ($.25), celery ($.10), and carrot ($.06). Once cooked through, I added the pasta sauce ($1.42), an extra can of diced tomatoes ($.50), a package of frozen spinach ($.99) and a cup or two of water to get the consistency I wanted. I simmered everything together for about 20 minutes so the flavors could meld. The huge pot of soup cost $3.64 for at least 15 servings at about $.24 each. We had it for dinner served with cooked pasta, for lunch the next day, and it was in the fridge to take a bowl when someone was feeling a bit hungry between meals.
Pizza
On a night that the kids were at their dad’s, we made a pizza with homemade dough. Homemade dough comes in at $.35 per pizza. About 2 oz. shredded mozzarella is about $.38. Meaty sauce is $.54 for two servings. The $1.27 pizza served 2 of us at $.64 each.
Shakshouka
With another portion of that batch, I made shakshouka, poaching eggs ($.20) on top of the sauce, bubbling in a pan over low heat on the stovetop, and and serving with toast made with homemade bread ($.12) A hearty splash of hot sauce gave it a nice kick for about $.01, and we were up to $.60 for a filling breakfast. If you've never had eggs poached in tomato sauce, I highly recommend it as a simple method with big flavor!
*****
We still have a few batches in the freezer for more pizza-flavored meals. I read a suggestion of adding hard cooked eggs to spaghetti with marinara and, being a fan of hard cooked eggs, that is next on my to-try list!
Another unopened can of marinara sits in the pantry, ready for another round. How should I doctor up the next can of sauce?
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