I usually make my own pasta sauces as, after all, they are mostly quite easy to make, providing you have the ingredients to hand. In my house we usually have spaghetti/pasta shapes bolognese (meat and meatless version) and perhaps a pasta with a tomato type sauce. However, my daughter, who has decided to stop eating meat, now tends to be eating much more pasta and she will often decide she really fancies pasta with a tomato sauce at the last minute. Also, as she is in the sixth form at school if she hasn't a lesson she will arrive home for lunch. I worry my daughter doesn't eat enough so I'm quite happy to see her consume a bowl of pasta.


She likes Dolmio and sometimes I tell her a little fib along the lines of her saying, 'Is this Dolmio?' and I respond, 'Mmm!'. I've now given her Sainsbury's Tomato & herb pasta sauce on several occasions, without any complaint. Now you don't know what fussy means unless you've come across my daughter at a meal time. She doesn't want to see any pieces of onions, or spices. If a mushroom ended up on her plate she'd scream.! Because of her pickiness I'm very pleased when I find a food which meets with her approval. (Now you may blame me for letting her be fussy but I have two sons, brought up the same but they will eat almost anything, as long as there is lots of it!)


I've tried Dolmio, Iceland's own, many other stores' own brands and Lloyd Grossman, plus others which I can't recall at the moment. Sainsbury's Tomato and Herb sauce is up there with the most favoured. Price varies as there is very often an offer on this but it is less than one pound without an offer. What my daughter likes most about this particular brand is the fact that it seems quite well blended and, in her words,'Isn't lumpy'. The pieces of tomato in the sauce are quite small and soft. The same can be said for the onion. Also, the sauce isn't too spicy but has that lovely Italian sauce flavour. You can smell the herbs on opening the jar.


It comes in a 500 gram glass jar with a screw on lid. I find this enough for two servings and sometimes I also have a bowl of pasta, or if only one serving is to be used it will keep for up to three days in a refrigerator.


It can simply be heated on the hob for about five minutes and then served with cooked pasta. My daughter likes to have this with Fusilli pasta. She likes to stir (or ask me to!) the sauce into the drained pasta and then grate cheese on the top. Garlic bread goes nicely as a side dish.


I have also used this as a base for a bolognese sauce, mixed with either mince, soya mince or Quorn mince. It makes a very tasty bolognese. There are instructions on the label for doing this is you're new to cooking this recipe.


This sauce contains tomato, onion, basil and oregano.


It is suitable for both vegetarians and vegans.


According to the information on the jar, a quarter of a jar provides:

cal- 68

fat- 1.5kg

sat fat- 0.3kg

salt- 1.13g

total- sugars- 9.0g