Store-bought is fine

January 6, 2024 by
 |  9 Comments  |  Leave Comment

Ina Garten’s famous saying of “store-bought is fine” when offering alternatives to an ingredient she is using in a recipe has reassured many a home cook, including yours truly. Knowing that you can successfully use a shortcut ingredient if you do not have the time or ability to make something from scratch takes some of the stress out of cooking, especially when you are juggling many other tasks in your daily life.

There are some situations where I still resist substituting store-bought items but the older I get the fewer of those seem to apply. For years I resisted buying jarred pasta sauce, preferring to make my own sauce using tomato passata or canned whole tomatoes as a base. A bout with a debilitating illness and subsequent reliance on other household members to do the cooking made me relent, and even though I’m much better now, we still keep a jar or two of sauce (usually Rao’s) for those nights when cracking open the bottle is as much effort as we can muster. In truth, my hurried weeknight homemade sauce isn’t meaningfully better than Rao’s, which was on Food & Wine’s list of 15 recommended brands from a tasting that involved over 100 different sauces.

That there are over 100 brands of jarred sauce easily available is not something to take for granted, nor is the fact that a substantial number of them are really good. Having so many fine store-bought sauces readily available is a luxury that is worlds away from the handful of lackluster offerings that were the only options for years. Online shopping coupled with increased interest in cooking (spurred in part by cooking shows and social media) has fueled a renaissance of food purveyors who offer luxe versions of almost any food imaginable. Premium versions of sauces, nut butters, cake mixes, tinned fish, condiments, and much, much more are a mere click away or can be found at a local maker’s market. I feel we are living in a “store-bought is fine” golden age with this bounty of high-quality ready made foods. Do you agree?

Category: Antipasto

Post a comment

9 Comments

  • Indio32  on  January 7, 2024

    I would never tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t eat as everyone has to walk their own path. As I’ve become older I’ve found that what I eat is more important to how healthy I feel. Part of that journey led me to look at ingredient lists on the back of things you’d buy in shops/supermarkets. Was shocked to see things like a basic white loaf with 18 ingredients, “posh” sausages (I’m looking at you Waitrose!) with bamboo fibre, Chickpea & Rice Flour. Just about everything seemed to be loaded with fillers, bulking agents, preservatives not to mention sugars etc. Great for supermarket/multinationals profits. I guess it’s where my cookbook collection comes from. I don’t always enjoy or have time to cook from scratch but when I do I use that time to put a bit in the fridge or freezer.

  • LeilaD  on  January 7, 2024

    It’s the war of modern society – ideally, I want to cook everything from scratch so that I know what’s going in my body. Realistically- I have no time and I’m too tired at the end of the day. Also, there’s the expectations established by supermarket uniformity. I made some mayonnaise yesterday from scratch from a recipe I hadn’t tried yet in one of my cookbooks. It is more yellowish because of the egg yolks and nowhere near as smooth looking as “national brand x”. We have not even tasted it yet (I was going to use it for deviled eggs tonight), and my husband is already saying just from looking at it “are we sure it’s mayo” and “maybe this experiment didn’t work out and we should pitch it” because it doesn’t look like what’s on the store shelf.

    But if I didn’t bake everything from scratch every time, my baker father would get in his wheelchair and roll himself down a thousand miles of Route 36 to smack me a good one. (“Girl, what is this Betty Crocker crap?!”) [/joke]

  • KarenGlad  on  January 7, 2024

    I have to agree with Indio32 about reading ingredient lists. I’d probably use more “store bought” but developing serious food allergies to preservatives and all fish and seafood has forced me to be more mindful of what is on my plate. Thankfully the food industry is more particular and transparent about their ingredients than ever before. But, it’s still surprising to find what lurks in some foods and beverages that you’d never expect.

  • KatieK1  on  January 7, 2024

    If I buy store-bought, I generally doctor it. A frozen cube of leftover sauce from Patricia Wells’s recipe for Pollo alla Diavola does wonderful things to Trader Joe’s cream of tomato soup, for instance.

    For an easy tomato sauce, I have been making a version of the famous one from Marcella Hazan for many years: One 28 oz. can of good crushed tomatoes, 2 peeled and vertically halved onions and one stick of unsalted butter simmered together and stirred periodically for 45 minutes. It couldn’t be simpler or more delicious.

  • annmartina  on  January 8, 2024

    I needed this today. I pride myself on making from scratch, but my SIL is having surgery tomorrow, I’m bringing dinner and have a time crunch. I was just obsessing over whether I could use premade Alfredo sauce for the dish I’m making. This has helped make letting go of scratch a little easier.

  • sayeater  on  January 8, 2024

    I’m OK with the occasional store-bought ingredient (looking at you vegetable broth). I’m pretty adamant about cooking beans from scratch instead of using canned though. The Instant Pot makes this finickiness possible (a much-debated shortcut in itself). I think whatever gets you cooking in your kitchen instead of eating out is a win!

  • TeresaRenee  on  January 9, 2024

    There was a cookbook published a few years ago that explored cooking from scratch. It expanded into growing ingredients which made me realize that my home cooking wasn’t as unprocessed as I thought it was. Many of my ‘raw’ ingredients are processed: flour, milk, butter, oatmeal, vanilla extract, baking powder, chocolate chips, dried cranberries, dry pasta, tofu, etc.

    I used to buy jarred pasta sauce until my kids decided they liked the Marcella Hazan recipe better. Now I make it in large batches and freeze it for quick dinners. I did decide that I would never make fresh pasta. I’d like to see if I could do it well but it seems very time consuming when I can buy fresh or dried pasta so easily and there are so many other dishes I could make in that time…

    I’m still trying to convince myself to make broth. Time is less of a factor than freezer space for that one. And what portions to freeze… I’m probably overthinking this one.

  • Zephyrness  on  January 9, 2024

    Sayeater made me smile. I do keep a few cans of beans in the house (a leftover when my young sons would make snack of canned beans with onions and cheese). I don’t like the taste of instant pot beans. For my tastes pressure makes them mushy and I can cook fresh dried beans almost as fast as it takes to pressure cook. As you say, the instant pot is a divisive tool. Personally, I love mine, but I don’t use it to cook beans.
    I often look for pasta sauces at places like the Home Goods. Very limited ingredients and can be doctored with a bit of dried garlic or hot sauce. Given my druthers, I start from scratch, but sometimes you want it now.

  • cpauldin  on  January 19, 2024

    I think we all just need to be good to ourselves and each other. No shaming! If someone cooks/bakes with premade ingredients, sometimes or all the time- to each his own! Bon appetit! 🙂

Seen anything interesting? Let us know & we'll share it!

Categories

Archives