Maninara Mix Alternative

January 4, 2009 10:38 PM

We have marinara mix that needs to be cooked now, but we don't want pasta. Any suggestions?
posted by mattoxic to Food & Drink (19 answers total)

I'm not sure what you mean by "marinara mix", but you can freeze any tomato-based sauce indefinitely, so you could always save it for pasta later. Other suggestions:

-- use on pizza
-- use as a dip for bread or breadsticks
-- saute some onion and garlic in olive oil along with some chunks of carrots and celery, throw in the sauce and some water or stock to thin it out. Instant tomato sauce.
posted by rossination at 10:49 PM on January 4, 2009

Pizza, or some sort of paella thing.
posted by pompomtom at 11:19 PM on January 4, 2009

mix up some spicy breakfast style sausage like you would use ground beef with some veggies. I'd go with celery, carrot and onion. Then add the sauce, cook it down, and stuff it into a bell pepper. Throw it in the oven sprinkle cheese serve.

or something like that.
posted by magikker at 11:44 PM on January 4, 2009

You could always make sloppy joes, or serve it over polenta instead of pasta.
posted by cali at 11:47 PM on January 4, 2009

Stuffed peppers! (Or stuffed anything, really.)
posted by acorncup at 11:50 PM on January 4, 2009

I fail at preview.
posted by acorncup at 11:50 PM on January 4, 2009

Frittura di Calamari (with marinara as a dip). Yum yum!
posted by SamuelBowman at 1:26 AM on January 5, 2009

Parmigiana - thin chicken or eggplant, bread, pan fry, melt cheese over top, add tomato sauce over top. One pan meal!
posted by mosessis at 3:36 AM on January 5, 2009

Mozzarella sticks FTW.
posted by Brian Puccio at 4:17 AM on January 5, 2009

You can use it as a nice soup base. Sauté some onions, then add some garlic (unless there's a lot in the sauce), maybe some wine, add the sauce and some herbs/spices (pepper, maybe some coriander), maybe some lentils, then add a bunch of water and some vegetables: green beans (frozen), carrots, mushrooms, whatever you want. Noodles optional - they don't take too long to cook, so you can add them near the end.

I've heard that green beans with red sauce, as a dish by itself, is actually pretty good.
posted by amtho at 4:25 AM on January 5, 2009

On lightly pre-toasted french bread, w/mozzarella cheese, under broiler for a few minutes?
posted by A Terrible Llama at 5:33 AM on January 5, 2009

You could just eat it plain. I pretend marinara is a soup somewhat regularly, but I'm strange like that.
posted by valadil at 6:55 AM on January 5, 2009

- put it on toasted bread & call it bruschetta
- cook some mussels in it
- pour over goat cheese and bake, then serve with sliced baguette
- seconding pizza sauce
- lasagna (ok, technically that's pasta)
- make a roux, add the marinara, then add stock / broth, add seafood and you'll have a sort of gumbo (not sure if that will be good or not)
- seconding sloppy joes: mix in some ground beef (and add pasta the next day for my favorite: spaghetti sandwich)
- sautee some zucchini (or squash or eggplant or potatoes or all of the above), then add the sauce and bake with some grated parmesan
posted by charlesv at 8:52 AM on January 5, 2009

When I was on Atkins I used to mix low-ish carb Marinara with Cream Cheese and put that on some grilled chicken breasts.
posted by getawaysticks at 8:58 AM on January 5, 2009

I don't know what "marinara mix" is, but I really enjoy a good marinara sauce over course-mashed, skin on red potatoes. I imagine that you could use skinned, smooth mashed potatoes of any type, though I always use skin-on reds.

Same idea as pasta, with the starch+sauce, but the potatoes take it in a slightly different direction, I find it to be nice some times.
posted by paisley henosis at 9:48 AM on January 5, 2009

Best answer: As mattoxic lists his profile location as Australia, I'll hazard a guess that the marinara mix he's talking about is a mix of seafood (usually clam, shrimp, mussels and cuttlefish) not basic tomato pasta sauce (Nap sauce).

If it's not too late, I'd try seafood paella, seafood chowder or a good fish stock, but I have never made any of these things so don't have any specific recipes to recommend - sorry! These look okay though:

Seafood paella
Seafood chowder

Happy cooking!
posted by goo at 9:54 AM on January 5, 2009

If goo is right and it's a plethora of seafood you have, how about Cioppino? You can use most any combination of seafood...and if you don't have the shells still on them, well, fewer napkins needed, more actual eating of Cioppino going on. Either way, it's a win-win!
posted by mumstheword at 10:02 AM on January 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

And some further info for our American friends:

Marinara is a tomato sauce for pasta, pizza, or dipping which contains seafood in a tomato sauce. From the Italian 'alla marinara' or 'sailor style', marinara sauce usually includes tomatoes, onions and herbs and can include a variety of seafoods such as scallops, oysters, and anchovies.

Marinara has become a misnomer for any type of tomato sauce, which does not contain meat, particularly in the United States. In Italy, much of Europe, and many of the finer restaurants in the United States, marinara specifically indicates that the tomato sauce contains seafood. Tomato sauce without meat or seafood is referred to as "Napoletana" whereas tomato sauce with meat is referred to as "Bolognese"."
posted by goo at 10:20 AM on January 5, 2009

Marinara has become a misnomer for any type of tomato sauce, which does not contain meat, particularly in the United States. In Italy, much of Europe, and many of the finer restaurants in the United States, marinara specifically indicates that the tomato sauce contains seafood. Tomato sauce without meat or seafood is referred to as "Napoletana" whereas tomato sauce with meat is referred to as "Bolognese"."

WHAT???? But didn't you guys get lots of italian immigrants?

BTW, marinara doesn't have to contain tomatoes. White wine and/or cream.

Marinara mix will have calamari, prawns, shrimp, mussels, probably parsley and garlic too.
posted by wilful at 3:29 PM on January 5, 2009