Salca sun dried tomato pesto

[AngelaAndrews]

Teenage DS uses a small jar (190g) each day on the wholewheat pasta he takes to work.

Costs £2.20 (very occasionally reduced in our local Tesco). Anyone know of a cheaper alternative that I can fob him off with?

A whole jar is a lot , couldn't he use half and make it last two days? My dd loves the green one but only uses a tablespoon or so a time so it lasts ages.

Wow that's loads !

If he adds some butter and oil to the pasta first it will make the jar go two or 3 goes.

Also tesco discount brand green pesto is very good... 98p I think. Not sun dried tomato but really nice!

You're meant to use a tablespoon for a serving for one.

Costco do a 3 pack of 250g jars, not sure of the price though

A whole jar - I hope he pays for it as he is out working.

The Tesco one is good, also the Lidl version.

He takes a massive box of wholewheat (cold) pasta yak to work, so a whole jar (which isn't that big, actually) isn't as extravagant as it may sound.

I use half a jar of pesto between the three of us. That is a huge amount.

aldi do a 'red pesto' which our dc's absolutely love.

We use about a third to half a jar on 400g of pasta so I would agree that he's using a lot. However, that's not very helpful and doesn't answer your question. I presume he has this because it's very quick. It's also not very healthy.

Could he boil a couple of eggs while the pasta cooks? Chopped up with cherry tomatoes and couple of chunks of cucumber or celery?

Have you experimented with homemade sauce? Chop an onion and fry in a drop of oil, add 2 tins tomatoes, garlic and herbs. Leave on very low for an hour. Puree if you wish and then portion up for the week.

Bread rolls with a little butter, some babybel type cheese, tomatoes and an apple.

Cook peas and sweetcorn in with pasta. Drain, add cheese, tuna, chicken.

There's lots of options that need very little effort, are cheaper and definitely healthier. If he's not happy then bill him £11 a week, he'll soon come round!

Agree with Paleodad - the Aldi one is ace!

I could use a whole jar easily for myself of the organic green salca (the normal green one isn't veggie), I don't like less than two thirds of the jar really!

Can you get him to start paying for it? He may be more inclined to find other methods of saucing his pasta after that!

It might not be 'extravagant' but it's really bad for him. One 'tiny' jar is almost 6g of salt a day and almost 60g of fat (8g saturated). It's really not good for him to eat that daily. It's his entire recommended daily intake of salt and fat in one sauce.

I'd say he could use passata (44p for 500g), a shake of dried herbs (95p for jar), and frozen veg (£1 for 1kg) and bulk-cook a pasta sauce that can be frozen in portions and would make a few lunches. Simple and very, very cheap in comparison to the pesto. Mainly though, far better for his health.

You could perhaps "dilute" the jars a little? Save some empties, decant some and maybe add something extra to bulk it up a little, like defrosted frozen spinach?

Amazon have your Sacla jar on subscribe & save at £11.40 for 6 jars (so down to £1.90 each). They also have the Sacla fiery chilli one at £8.55 for 6 (£1.42 each) and he may prefer to use less of that one if it really is spicy which could reduce the daily cost. We like the fresh Waitrose one, but only when reduced to 10p - freezes well if you are able to swoop in at the right time. I've heard good things about the Sainsburys basics one too. Or it's not a difficult thing to make, especially if you have a food processor: HFW/River Cottage had a recipe which used breadcrumbs instead of pine nuts which went down well here.

Lidl do a 99p version.

b&m do lovely flavoured pestos for 69p!

Sacla pesto currently on special offer in Waitrose bought some myself after thinking about this thread.