Add A Packet Of This Soup For Delicious Spaghetti Sauce With Sneaky Nutrition

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Digging in the pantry past the jars of marinara you have on hand isn't a new idea — we previously discussed the fact that canned soups make delicious pasta sauces – but there might just be a staple on your shelves that will take a jarred tomato sauce for pasta and turn it into something yummier and heartier to boot. Dried vegetable soup is a perennial go-to for a comforting cuppa when you want something hot in a pinch, but these dehydrated veggies and seasoning are actually an ideal marriage for spaghetti sauce that needs extra oomph. Depending on the brand, vegetable soup mix may contain veggie power players like peas, bell peppers, carrots, and/or celery, among many others ... just in granulated, dried form. Adding some of this mixture to your jarred sauce is not only a flavor upgrade, but also a great way to sneak more veggies past the lips of picky eaters.

We ranked a number of grocery store pasta sauce brands, and it's a safe bet that the ones near the bottom of the list could use a little TLC to improve their flavor. On a busy weeknight, we get that practically nobody wants to linger over a hot stove to make a complicated meal for their family. Pasta is a great, easy-peasy dinner (especially if you boil water in a kettle to cook noodles in half the time), but it can lack character if you just dump sauce from the bottle. Vegetable soup mix might be just the ace up your sleeve to improve your meal and impress your loved ones ... while getting a little bit of extra veggie power on the plate, too.

Possibly the only downside of adding vegetable soup mix to spaghetti sauce in terms of nutrition is the fact that instant soup mix, on the whole, is high in sodium. Instead of using the whole packet automatically, consider scaling back for smaller batches. A little sleuthing on Amazon found us a low-sodium vegetable soup mix by Harmony House. The reviews are positive, and it's a big container that might lead to easier portioning. In similar recipes using a large container of soup base, three tablespoons per 24-32 ounces of sauce seemed like a good fit. Overall, a low(er)-sodium mix is going to be a best bet. Always remember to let the veggies fully rehydrate to avoid crunchy pieces. 

Many folks enjoy adding ingredients to their jarred pasta sauce, and you can build a very worthy condiment off the store-bought stuff if you have the time, patience, and resources to doctor it up. Consider vegetable soup mix the backbone of the sauce in terms of flavor: you can take things over the top with some cooked ground meat (turkey is a leaner, budget-minded option); sautéed mushrooms, onions, and peppers; or even more cooked veggies pureed into a slurry that will thicken and enhance your marinara! Feel free to tweak your recipe to balance flavor and nutrition. Spaghetti sauce is a fantastic way to get your veggies and protein in, plus it lends itself fabulously to experimenting with flavors and using up produce that you already have in the crisper. With vegetable soup mix as a basis, you'll be building better sauce with some subtle, tasty secret agent veggies in the mix.