Question about (shh) Dolmio

[whensa]

There was a thread about 'how do you make your spaghetti bolognese' aages ago which went on for pages and pages with no-one mentioning Dolmio, so I assume it's Frowned Upon by proper MNers...

(I have no qualms about using it - it's not full of junk although it could do with being a bit less sweet, I make 90% of my meals from scratch and am not that fussed about spag bog as a dish - it's pleasant but fairly mundane, the kids like it though - if I enjoyed it more I'd make more effort.)

ANYWAY, my question is, do you use the same Dolmio sauce for spag bolognese as for lasagne? I do but wondered if this was wrong - they're now essentially the same dish at ours but with bonus cheesey sauce (made from scratch - the jar ones don't taste of owt) for the lasagne.

I do add my own onions, courgette or whatever I have to up the veg content and add peas to spag bog! I love peas.

I do 🤷

If you’re adding peas anyway then it’s so easy to switch the jarred sauce for tinned tomatoes instead

Then just add a stock cube and some dried herbs and seasoning and it’s far tastier, I promise!

I make mine from scratch now, but did used to use Dolmio before I learned to cook more confidently. I always used the lasagne sauce they made, but funnily enough making it from scratch now I would just make up a regular bolognese sauce for it. I suppose there’s not wrong answer - but im pretty sure the dolmio lasagne sauce tasted different to to the bolognese one.

If you're adding stuff to the sauce anyway just use tinned tomatoes!

ah I wasn't actually sure if they did a 'lasagne' Dolmio sauce, I might actually try it! I just have a load of jars in the cupboard of the bolog one.

If you’re adding peas anyway then it’s so easy to switch the jarred sauce for tinned tomatoes instead

I have absolutely no idea why I wrote peas, I meant onions!!

I do know that peas aren’t an integral part of bolognese sauce

I use Dolmio for spag bol but just a tin of tomatoes (and onion, garlic and tomato purée) for lasagne.

I use Tesco own brand pasta sauce for Bolognese, usually the extra mushroom one. I do add various things to it- wine, herbs, bit of balsamic if it seems too sweet. Same price as chopped tomatoes and don't have to arse about with onion garlic etc etc.

I use extra veg version for lasagna too, works for me! I also make white sauce from scratch because it's v easy.

I use normal dolmio sauce for lasagne. I don’t like cooking, so by using jars like dolmio it means that I can make a sort of homemade large lasagne or bolognese with added veg. As the dolmio is high in sugar and salt I don’t add any more to the dish.

(I use uncle bens for chilli too!)

I find it too sweet so I just make lasagna with chopped tomatoes, Italian seasoning blend, frozen garlic cubes, onions, mince and mushrooms

it's weird, I don't mind chopping an onion or courgette but mincing or chopping garlic seems too faffy! I will try tinned toms instead of Dolmio though!

I just had my lasagne and it was very nicely cheesey

If you can’t be bothered with the garlic just use the frozen ready chopped or the jar of very lazy garlic or garlic purée.

I always use very lazy garlic. Life is too short for chopping garlic! 😂

I used to be a massive Dolmio snob. When the ad asked “whensa your Dolmio day?” I’d reply “whena hell freezes over” thinking I was so very superior for making my mum’s recipe from scratch.

Then one day I had only one tin of tomatoes, but I did have some red pasta sauce in the cupboard for making tomato pasta for DD who didn’t like Bolognese. I tried it and my Bolognese was so much nicer!!

Now I’m a fan. Not necessarily Dolmio brand, but ready made sauce in with the meat, onions, carrot, celery, oxo, tinned toms and herbs. I make a huge batch and keep half for lasagne to make it a quicker meal to prepare, then I just have to make the white sauce and layer it up.

I buy a tube of Gia squeezy garlic next to the tomato purée

And I made a tomato pasta dish the other day using a Dolmio style sauce mixed with a Lloyd Grossman one so it wasn’t too sweet. The kids all raved about it, saying it was so much nicer than usual!

I used to use Dolmio, but now I use tinned toms, tomato concentrate and passata. Plus all the usual veg - peppers, toms, carrot, mushroom, peppers, also an oxo cube, herbs, splash of Worcester sauce, red wine and so on.

Lloyd Grossman sweet pepper sauce is gorgeous!

A bottle of Dolmio on average costs £1.80

OP, I stopped buying that stuff years ago. Fry 2 onions and 2 garlic heads in olive oil, then add 8 tin tomatoes (420g) own label from the supermarket. Cook through for about 20 - 30 mins then let cool, blend to puree and use/ freeze. You can use this as any base to any pasta sauce and just add whatever you like.

I now just keep this as a basic sauce. Other times I have cooked up any veg that is going or red, green and orange peppers and blended them in and freeze them.

Shop bought pasta sauces taste like crap now.

I also used to use dolmiofor both but it really is packed with sugar. I use passtata instead of tinned tomatoes and then you just add what you have usually garlic paste herbs and a stock cube it takes no time.

I saw the thread title thinking it was in the Baby Names forum, I got worried!

I do a very lazy homemade sauce for both, with tinned tomatoes, onion and garlic purée instead of fresh because DH insists he doesn't like fresh I add an oxo cube for spag bol.

I use Dolmio or similar only if I'm in a massive hurry or if self catering on holiday and want to make life easy. I'd use the same jar for bolognese as for lasagne.

One thing I notice though is that I get double the number of portions out of 500g of mince if I make a bolognese from scratch because of all the extra veg I put in. You could obviously add all the extra veg to a dolmio jar but then you may as well just cook the whole thing from scratch anyway.

A bottle of Dolmio on average costs £1.80

A supermarket alternative is under a pound. If you’re buying good tomatoes like Napolina, they’re at least 50p a tin, often more if they’re not on offer, so adding richness and tomatoeyness (that’s a word!) for about 75p makes sense to me.