Cheap Pasta Recipe: 95 Cents a Serving and Two Fixes Everyone Misses
Every cheap pasta recipe on the internet is some version of this one, and most of them get two things wrong that cost nothing to fix.
Four ingredients, fifteen minutes, 95 cents a serving. It is the dish I put on Wednesday in the weekly meal plan, and it is the one you should be able to make without looking anything up.
What it costs
| Ingredient | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Dried pasta | 1 lb | $1.20 |
| Canned whole peeled tomatoes | 28 oz | $1.80 |
| Garlic | 4 cloves | $0.20 |
| Olive oil | 3 tbsp | $0.40 |
| Salt, pepper, chili flakes, oregano | $0.20 | |
| Total | 4 servings | $3.80 |
95 cents per serving. About 5.9 cents per gram of protein.
These are my estimates. BLS tracks spaghetti but its series has gaps, and it does not track canned tomatoes at all, so unlike most articles here I have no federal number to anchor to.
In the meal plan I listed this night at $3.60. Itemizing it properly brings it to $3.80. That twenty cents is the whole argument for costing things rather than estimating them.
Buy whole peeled tomatoes, not diced
This is the first of the two things most cheap pasta recipes get wrong, and it is the more important one.
Canned diced tomatoes contain calcium chloride, a firming agent added so the cubes hold their shape in the can. It works. That is the problem. Those cubes will still be cubes after forty minutes of simmering, because they have been chemically instructed not to break down.
Whole peeled tomatoes have no firming agent. Crush them with your hand as they go into the pan and they collapse into sauce in about fifteen minutes.
Same tomato, same price, completely different result. If your homemade tomato sauce has always been watery with hard bits in it, this is why, and it was never your technique.
Ingredients
Serves 4.
- 1 lb dried pasta, any short shape or spaghetti
- 1 can (28 oz) whole peeled tomatoes
- 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- Chili flakes, to taste
- Salt and black pepper
Optional, and worth it if you have them: a knob of butter at the end, or grated hard cheese, or a handful of basil.
Method
Salt the water properly. Fill a large pot, bring it to a boil, and add enough salt that the water tastes noticeably seasoned. Most of it goes down the drain. This is the only chance the pasta itself gets to be seasoned, and unsalted pasta in a good sauce still tastes flat.
Start the sauce while the water heats. Put the oil and the sliced garlic in a cold pan, then turn the heat to medium. Starting garlic in cold oil means it perfumes the oil as it warms instead of scorching in thirty seconds. Cook until it turns pale gold and smells sweet, about three minutes. Do not let it brown; burnt garlic is bitter and there is no rescuing it.
Add the tomatoes. Crush each one in your hand over the pan, then pour in the juice. Add the oregano, chili flakes, a good pinch of salt, and pepper. Simmer 12 to 15 minutes, breaking up anything still holding together with a spoon, until it thickens and the oil separates slightly at the edges.
Cook the pasta one minute short of the package time. It is going to finish cooking in the sauce.
Reserve a cup of pasta water before draining. Write this on your hand if you have to. It is the second thing everyone gets wrong.
Finish the pasta in the pan. Drain and tip the pasta straight into the sauce with a splash of the reserved water. Turn the heat up and toss hard for a minute. The starch in that water binds the oil and the tomato into something that coats the pasta instead of sitting under it.
That last step is the difference between pasta with sauce on top and pasta with sauce on it. It takes sixty seconds and no ingredients.
Taste, add salt, serve.
Nutrition, estimated per serving
| Per serving | |
|---|---|
| Calories | 525 |
| Protein | 16 g |
| Fat | 12 g |
| Carbohydrates | 88 g |
| Fiber | 5 g |
| Sodium | depends on your salt and your tomatoes |
Estimated from USDA reference values and rounded, without cheese or butter.
Notes
Store brand pasta. Same durum wheat, usually 30 to 40 percent less. There is no meaningful quality gradient at this price point and I would not pretend otherwise.
Making it a fuller meal. A can of drained white beans stirred in at the end adds about 7 grams of protein a serving for around 65 cents. An egg cracked into the sauce and covered for three minutes does something similar for less.
If you have an onion, dice it and cook it in the oil for six minutes before the garlic. It adds depth and about 65 cents, and it makes the dish take ten minutes longer.
Leftovers. Three days, and reheat with a splash of water rather than dry in a microwave, which turns the pasta rubbery.
Why this one is worth memorizing. Nothing in it needs refrigeration except the leftovers. Pasta, a can, garlic, oil. All four sit in a cupboard indefinitely, which means this is the meal you can always make, on the night you had no plan and nothing fresh in the house.
