The author and cook, Heather

Penne alla Vodka

It's Always Freezer Season

I am not above buying a jar of sauce for a quick pasta meal, or to make a more difficult dish (I'm looking at you, lasagna) a little quicker to put together. But if you take some time to make a big batch of this sauce, you can have homemade sauce the next time (or three) with the same amount of effort as a jar!

Since I didn't really show mixing the sauce with the pasta in this video, don't forget to thin the sauce with some pasta water; the recipe says to save about a cup. It is a pretty thick sauce to start with, and adding the starchy pasta water and cooking the pasta in the sauce is a good habit to get into anyway. It definitely helps the sauce coat the pasta!

The author says that each pint of sauce serves 2 people, when mixed with 2/3lb of pasta. We don't usually eat that much pasta in one serving, and I can often feed my family of 4 with those amounts. I also add meat in some way (meatballs or browned Italian sausage) and sometimes a salad. But I have calculated the nutrition information below, for just the sauce, based on that recommendation. Your mileage may vary.

Nutrition
Serving Size8 servings, sauce only
Calories520
Fat40g
Protein6g
Carbohydrates33g (4g fiber, 14g sugar)

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