Monday's Money Saving Recipe - Pasta with Homemade Sauce

This recipe comes from Sara at Budget Savvy Diva!

Pasta with a Homemade Tomato Sauce ( Green Beans and Broccoli ) with Grilled Chicken Breast – and Homemade Garlic Bread.

Here is me with the pasta – costing 1.50 for the pound. I love getting pasta with the ridges really helps soak up all the yummy sauce.

So the rest for the pasta sauce:

My secret to an inexpensive tomato sauce is using inexpensive canned tomatoes – also there really is no difference between the store brand and the known brand such as Hunts – I use two cans plus a clove of fresh garlic and ( not in the picture) one whole onion.

Also another quick trick is try and use some inexpensive veggies in your sauce – I found a bag 1/3 full of greens beans and broccoli

When I am making a sauce from scratch like this – I try and think what vitamins and protein do I want in it – then I look at my fridge or canned goods to fulfill the requirements that I want.

Using a bit of butter – no I did not use the whole box – I use only about tablespoon or two – really helps make the sauce yummy. Plus a little cheese as well helps.

I also got a deal on Tyson grilled chicken – 3.99 for the bag so I ended up using half – :)

Here is how the sauce looks cooked.

First it is important to heat up about a tablespoon of Olive Oil – then add the cut up onion and garlic – I really brown them – takes out the harsh taste – which my husband HATES.

Then I add the tomato then the chicken – I wanted the chicken to heat up in the tomato sauce so it could soak up all the flavor – totally worked! Then I add the veggies at the last 5 minutes – worst thing to have is mushy veggie – icky.

I decided to take some clearance bread we hand on hand – and melted 3 tablespoon of butter and added one clove of minced garlic with cheese and drizzled it on three slices of bread and put it in the oven for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Here is the outcome

I decided the cut the bread into three pieces for each piece of bread – so it would be bite-size perfect to soak up sauce.

After the pasta was cooked I rinsed the pasta added a little olive oil – so the pasta would not stick together then … I added the sauce and pasta together and added the bread on top – here is the final product.