AIBU to think pasta and sauce isn't a proper meal?

[catlovingdoctor]

Everyone always goes on about how it's sooo easy and filling and nice but it has no protein; it isn't filling, it's just stodge with a bit of flavouring...I mean I'd eat it if I was hungry but AIBU to think it isn't really a proper, filling meal?

Well I wouldn't just serve sauce and pasta. Here a 'basic' tomato and pasta would be pasta arrabiata sauce ( tin tomatoes/ fresh tomatoes/ chilli/ onions/ garlic/ herbs), plus a few veg ie mushrooms and spinach, or aubergine and carrots etc depending what we have in. Cooked in same pot as I'm making sauce in. Then cheese ontop.

So that's quite a few veg, carbs, plus dairy. Ok for one meal.

If someone asked me though what was for dinner I would probably just same pasta and tomato sauce, rather than listing every possible ingredient.

I'm assuming the op means a jar of pasta sauce btw? You can make pretty decent sauces from scratch.

I don't know, who gets to define what a 'proper meal' consists of?

A proper meal is just any meal that stops you from falling down dead from hunger, surely? My SIL is Italian and when we visit them in Milan my two boys live on pasta and sauce. Sometimes it has fish, sometimes meat, sometimes nothing but veg. Nobody out there seems to suffer for it.

I meant at the same meal, Alis - like a PP said, I'm used to Italians treating a simple pasta and tomato sauce as a starter, not as a whole meal.

Well I think of course you are being unreasonable. Italians have lived on pasta for centuries. Any pasta sauce can contain meat, or fish, or just vegetables, or any combination thereof - if you choose it to. You are using an all-encompassing 'sauce' term. Sauces can contain whatever you want them to contain.

Sometimes pasta is made with egg, which contains protein

Pasta sauces (generally) contain lots of vegetables, which make them very healthy.

What is your alternative? What do you serve as a healthy, nourishing meal, OP?

"proper meal", for me= something which is appetising (I appreciate that's a matter of opinion), right number of calories, fills you up to the next meal, and reasonably healthy. I suppose it's a matter of personal preference but I personally don't get full up for very long from it.

Are you one of those people who has to have meat with every meal, op?

Ah I see what you mean now, FC.

I'd add anchovies and olives at least to the tomato sauce, which would have onions and garlic, again at least.

Define "sauce" though. My sauces are full of vegetables and herbs and taste much nicer than jars. If you're talking about some pasta from a pack and a jar of Dolmio then YANBU

But unless you are doing a particularly manual sort of job no one in this country is going to fall down dead from hunger from having a 'lightish' meal every so often.

I find people are obsessed with 'proper' meals, or my pet hate, the expression 'hot dinners' often at lunch time.

Most of us eat far, far too much (myself included) and could do with far fewer 'proper' meals IMO.

I sometimes just have a bowl of soup or a quick sandwich for my 'main' meal and feel a lot better for it.

Of course it can be a proper meal.

I usually make mine from scratch too by chucking baby plum tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers and mince together into the frying pan or wok. It comes out fine and is most certainly a good meal.

This evening I will be cooking it using veg, garlic, mascarpone and if necessary a little chicken or vegetable stock for flavouring. I might even toss in some snipped up bacon if the fancy takes me.

To clarify, I didn't mean things like spag bol- which is definitely a good, filling meal, I meant things like tomato and basil sauce

'Appetising' is hugely different from a 'healthy, balanced meal'.

I had a lovely lunch of crisps, cheese and wine - it was certainly appetising to me but no doubt not at all healthy or sensible. .

You're trying to say pasta isn't good and filling?!

I find pasta a very filling meal.

Are you a meat and 2 veg and 5kilo of taters on your plate kind of girl OP?

Damn those Italians eh? Living till they're 112, lowest cholesterol on the planet, fewer heart attacks and strokes ,MacDonalds opening and closing within months because people just don't want to use them.... just think how healthy they really could be if they ate a few KFCs every now and then huh?

"proper meal", for me= something which is appetising (I appreciate that's a matter of opinion), right number of calories, fills you up to the next meal, and reasonably healthy

OK I don't see how pasta with tomato sauce, assuming there are veg in it too, doesn't count here? Yes pasta is high carbs I guess but I can't see anything hideously wrong with it.

Oh, and like many other people I haven't eaten meat in 15 years and I'm not dead yet.

Don't get me going on meat free pasta sauces. I mean, why wouldn't those Italians want their arteries furring up with all that animal fat?

You're right OP. Pasta should be a banned substance. So unhealthy.

weirdo

I make my own pasta sauce and it has onions, mushrooms, courgettes, red peppers, orange peppers, grated carrot, garlic and whole tomatoes in it, my little girl loves it and it fills her up, it's healthy and full of veg.

Depends on the person, I think. I stay fuller longer if I eat protein-rich things like dairy, meat/fish and pulses, but I know a lot of people are perfectly fine on more carb-based foods.

I don't think pasta in veg sauce counts as a full meal in Italy, at least not traditionally. Wouldn't a classic Italian meal include pasta and then a main course of fish or meat?

Pasta and sauce has veg: cooked tomato is still a vegetable, and it might have onion, garlic, carrot and celery too. A bolognese sauce has meat, and even if it didnt, cheese is a protein food.

Of course, whether or not you need protein depends on the rest of your food that day.

I love pasta in all forms. I've been known to eat spaghetti with just butter and cheese stirred through it, so YABU, IMO.

Ah you are one of those "there must be meat" types.

OP look what you've unleashed! Everyone showing off with their "made from scratch" sauce recipes I'm more of a Seeds of Change out the jar kinda gal!